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I closed my fingers back around her. She was still warm—a stark contrast to Félix himself, whose skin was ice.

“It’s all right, Doctor.” I tucked the little poppet into my pocket before von Keller spotted it. The vein in his temple pulsed with each step he drew nearer to us. He grabbed ahold of Félix, fussing over him in German. He spoke quickly. I could only pick up a few words.

Fool.

Make yourself ill.

He’d been so calm and collected in his office, but he’d now let that mask slip. Which was the true Dr. von Keller? His attention snapped to the orderly. “Narcisse, what were you thinking letting him out of the isolation ward?”

Narcisse, the orderly, held up his hands in denial. “It wasn’t me. I was the one who found it empty and sent the nurse to find you.”

The orderly sent the nurse. Not Father Étienne. I filed that thought away for future inspection.

Dr. von Keller grunted again, muttering to himself as he caught Félix by the arm, pulling him away. Félix did not resist. His hands fell limply to his side as the doctor led him to the hospital. He’d done what he meant to do, and I’d be damned if I knew what any of it meant.

I stared after the two men, long after they disappeared back into the hospital. Narcisse, the orderly, remained behind. He took a step toward me. “Are you all right, Miss—” His words fell away as he looked up at me. “My God. You look exactly like her … no wonder Félix is in such a state. He must have seen you from the window when you arrived at the priory and it set off his fit…”

The high windows of the hospital were little more than darkened slits in the stone. Was that the isolation room he’d escaped from?

Narcisse wet his lips anxiously, looking down toward my pocket where my fingers remained wrapped around the little poppet. “He must like you. Félix makes those dolls for the children here. Says it keeps them safe.”

Safe. But safe from what?

“Poor fellow hasn’t been right since the night Eva died—” he paused, correcting himself. “Well … he’s not been right since the war—but it’s been especially hard on him since he pulled Eva from the lake.”

I let out a startled sound, turning to look at the curious orderly. His thinning hair was slicked over his brow. He had kind eyes. “I was told Father Étienne found her in the lake.”

“Yes well…” Narcisse shifted, casting a furtive glance to the hospital before wiping his dry hands on his trousers. “I should not have said anything about it … I need to get back to my work. It’s growing late and Dr. von Keller will likely need help settling Félix for the afternoon.”

My mind flickered back to the distraught look upon Félix’s face when he saw me. “Will he be all right?”

Narcisse’s expression softened. “Oh, he always is. Félix is harmless enough and von Keller worries particularly for him. Though occasionally he does frighten Sister Marie-Thérèse when he has an episode. Your mother and Félix … they were close. He seemed to understand her in a way no one else could. She never spoke while she was here, but Félix … he heard her all the same. Sister Marie-Thérèse thinks him a witch though. Says the dolls are pagan nonsense. She won’t allow them in the home if she can help it.”

“Sister Marie-Thérèse?” My ears perked at the mention of the nun. It also certainly explained the reaction she had to the poppet. I suspect the children had to hide them from her.

Narcisse folded his arms across the chest of his work jacket. “She reminds me of the old nuns from when I was a boy. Keeps a firm hand with the children, but they love her. She doesn’t much like Félix spending time around them … says he’s a danger to their souls. Then there’s all his talk of angels and devils.”

“What sort of talk?” Ruan asked, startling me. I’d nearly forgotten he was here at all—he’d been so silent, a steady shadow at my side.

Narcisse must have forgotten he was there as well, as he took Ruan’s measure, looking him up and down. “You were in the war too, weren’t you?”

Ruan made a low sound in his chest.

“You have the same look in your eye some of the lads here have. The same one Félix does. The look of a fellow who saw too much.”

Ruan let out another grunt, glancing away. “What sort of talk?” His voice carried the familiar timbre indicating Narcisse struck a little too close to home with his observation. A gray and black hooded crow fluttered to the ground nearby—pecking at some scraps that must have been dropped by the children.

“I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Everyone around here knows … It isn’t as if it’s a secret.” But once again, Narcisse looked over his shoulder, back up to that solitary slit of a window on the upper corner of the hospital. “Félix sees angels. At least he thinks he does. He’d been an artist before the war came. Some of his portraits hang in the grandest buildings in Europe. There’s even one of the Blessed Virgin he’s recently completed for the priory church. I could show you sometime. It’s stored in the sacristy for now. Would make the saints weep to look upon it.”

I was quite sure the painting was lovely—but I wasn’t interested in the man’s artistic endeavors, I wanted to know what happened to Anna Marchand and her daughter, to my mother and that third patient no one would speak of.

“Félix was found in no-man’s-land in the early days of the war, laying in a shell crater with a dozen dead men. When they pulled him out, he could speak of nothing but angels. The doctors at the field hospital didn’t know what to do with him so they sent him here. Father Étienne was unhappy with how he has been treated—said he wasn’t shell shocked at all—simply that he’d been too close to the other side and returned to us having been kissed by God.”

I perked up at the mention of the young priest. “Are Father Étienne and Félix close?”

Narcisse wiped the sweat from his wrinkled brow. “They were transferred here about the same time. We had thought, once the young father began to recover that Félix would as well, but Félix only grew worse. His visions … they…”

The wind picked up, whipping my coat around me.