I descend the stairs at a dead run. I don’t give a thought to the commotion I make as I reach the bottom, but it must be considerable because Luisa and Sonia emerge in a fright from the dining room.

Sonia holds a napkin in her hand, looking at me with surprise. “Lia! Whatever is the—”

“Aunt Virginia?” My voice is a bellow through the house, desperation seeping deeper and deeper into my bones.

Luisa and Sonia stare with wide-eyed shock at my behavior.

The click of shoes on marble makes me turn. Relief fills my body and then leaves just as quickly when I see that it is not my aunt but Margaret, looking at me as if I have gone around the bend, yelling through the house like a child.

“Why ever are you shouting, Miss Milthorpe?”

“I’m… I’m sorry, Margaret. I must speak to my aunt at once. Have you seen her?” My shaking voice betrays my fear.

She smiles. “Why, of course, dear. She’s upstairs. In bed.”

“In bed?” Margaret might as well say Aunt Virginia is grooming the horses for all the likelihood that she would be in bed during the day.

“Yes. In bed. She’s not feeling herself. She has been unusually tired of late, and I have sent her to bed for added rest. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Just a little under the weather.” She smiles, as if this alone can quell the turmoil racing through my veins. “Check on her later, dear. After she has had some time to sleep. I’m quite sure she’ll be fit as a fiddle.”

I nod, remembering Aunt Virginia’s weariness after intervening on my behalf in the Otherworlds. Tipping my head into the parlor, I see that it is empty and turn back to Margaret.

“Margaret?”

“Yes, Miss?”

“Where are Henry and Alice?”

Uncertainty crosses her normally unflappable features. “Well, that is a matter I wanted to discuss with Miss Spencer….”

I raise my eyebrows. “Well, perhaps you should discuss it with me.”

She shifts nervously from foot to foot, and I think that this may be the first time I have felt myself mistress of my own home. “Well, Miss… Alice took Henry to the river.”

My mouth drops as I look beyond the window to the steely sky. “To the river? Now? Why, it looks as if it will pour at any moment, Margaret!”

She has the grace to look sheepish. “I wanted to tell Miss Spencer, but she was unwell, so…” Her voice trails off, and she looks away.

“But how could you let her? How could you let Alice take Henry? He is only a child!” There is no hiding the accusation, though I know it is unfair. Alice is, after all, Henry’s sister. Why should she not take him out for some fresh air, even on a forbidding day such as this, if that is what he desires? Why should Margaret have reason to doubt that it is only sisterly love and duty that would cause her to do so?

Her face hardens. “Well, if you must know, it was Alice who insisted she wanted time alone with Master Henry. And she made no secret about the fact that it is she who is Mistress of Birchwood, not Miss Virginia. And that I have no business questioning her activities. That’s exactly what she said, Miss: ‘You have no business questioning my activities, Margaret.’ I am sorry, but there was no stopping her.”

I turn to Sonia and Luisa. “Remain here. Whatever happens, do not leave this house.” I grab my cloak and open the door, and then I am out into the biting cold.

I make my way around the house and see them standing by the river’s edge as the first drops begin to fall. Pausing, I tip my head upward as a cold drop falls onto my cheek.

And then I run.

My skirts swing heavily around my ankles as I race down the stone path. In the distance, Alice stands just a few feet from Henry. Nothing seems amiss, and for a moment I think perhaps I am mistaken. They seem to be doing nothing more ominous than conversing.

But then the sky opens with a thunderous crack, and the rain begins to fall in earnest. In moments my hair is plastered to my head, my soaked skirts heavier and harder to manage. And yet Henry and Alice remain on the riverbank as if they are standing in bright sunlight, unmoving and seemingly unaware of the torrent that surely soaks them as well. Now I know that I am not mistaken, and I will my legs to move faster.

They are off the stone terrace entirely, on the dirt near the bank. Too near the bank, I think. Neither turns when I reach them, though they must notice me, panting and trying to catch my breath not five feet from them both.

“What are you doing?” I shout it over the furious roar of the rain, though I believe I know quite well why Alice has brought Henry here.

For a moment, neither answers. They simply stare at each other as if only they two exist.

It is Alice who finally speaks. “Go away, Lia. There is still time for you to stand aside. Let me speak to Henry alone. I will settle this thing here and now.”

I look at Henry—really look—and am livid with rage. He sits in his chair appearing smaller than ever, as if the rain has somehow made him shrink to look like the barn cat we once tried to bathe in a tub behind the stables. His teeth chatter with cold. He is not wearing so much as a coat.

“This is every bit as much my business as yours, Alice. Have you no shame, bringing Henry out into the rain?” I move toward him, meaning to return him to the warmth and safety of the house. Everything else will be addressed later.

But Alice steps between Henry and me. “Henry will not be going anywhere, Lia. Not yet. Not until he gives me the list.”

I want him to deny it. I want him to protest, to say anything that might save himself the torment of standing between Alice and me with the one thing we both want more than any other. But that is not what he says.

“She was going to take it, Lia. I saw her looking. It is my place to protect you. Father said so.”

“Father… is… dead, Henry!” Alice shouts it into the wind, raising her arms to her sides. “There is no one left to whom you must answer. No one but me and Lia. And you can free her, Henry. You can free her forever by giving me the list.” Her voice is full of new power, and it rises even over the river’s swift rush and the pounding of the rain.

“Henry! Look at me, Henry!” I want him to see that I am not afraid, and I try to hold his eyes through the will of my thoughts alone. “I’m not afraid, Henry. There is no need for you to protect me, all right?”

His lips have turned a morbid shade of blue, purple around the edges. He can hardly speak, can hardly get the words out for the cold. “Father told me to keep it safe. F-f-for you, Lia.”

And then I see what I most fear. Henry’s fist, closed tightly around something limp and white. I curse myself inwardly. Demanding the list from Alice only proved to her that I did not have it. It only gave her cause to look elsewhere.

“Put it in your pocket, Henry. Put it away until we are back inside.” I step toward him with every ounce of authority I can muster. I will take him in. Let Alice try to stop me.

Except that she does not. She does not, in fact, come anywhere near me. Instead she steps toward Henry, grabbing hold of the handles on his chair as she turns sideways, turning her face to look at me.

“Don’t come one step closer, Lia. I told you to step aside.” And then to Henry. “Give me the list, Henry. If you want to protect Lia as you say, as Father wanted you to, you will give me the list. If you don’t, Lia will never be free of the burden that is hers.” She needn’t threaten me with words, for her hands on Henry’s chair so near the river are threat enough.

Henry shakes his head stubbornly. “No. I’m only doing as Father asked.” His lip quivers, belying the fear and cold that he tries to hide behind his steadfast refusal.

I have had enough. I step toward Henry, trying to affect a confidence I do not feel. “This is ridiculous, Alice. Let go of Henry at once. I’m taking him inside.”

I have just reached her shoulder when Alice spins, faster than I think possible in such rain, so that she and Henry are facing the river as she looks at me half over her shoulder.

“Don’t come any closer, Lia. Don’t.”

I stop, holding very still. Thinking. Thinking as fast as my mind will carry the thoughts forward. The look on her face is indecipherable—a mixture of anger and fear and sadness so intermingled it is difficult to determine where one ends and the others begin. She looks half-mad, her eyes wild. I do not trust her with our brother. It is wisest to get Henry away from her grasp as quickly as possible. I take one step toward her, feigning a confidence in her rationality that I don’t really feel.

“Don’t.” Her eyes are pleading, begging me for something I don’t understand and cannot grant. “Please, Lia.”

It is this final plea that makes me feel safe stepping forward once again, that makes me believe Alice does not want to hurt Henry.

But I am wrong, so very wrong, for I have only taken one step when she gives a small shake of her head, heaving Henry and his chair forward toward the river as simply as if he is a stone.

It seems strange that I should hear the sickening creak of Henry’s chair over the downpour, but I do, and the wheels inch forward across the rocky riverbank, not very quickly at first but picking up speed as it hits the incline.

In what seems the oddest thing of all, everything happens slowly. Somewhere within the logic of my mind I know things are pressing ahead much too fast, much too dangerously, but in this moment it seems that everything has slowed down, the time passing in a strangely twisted version of itself.

I lunge across the wet earth, flailing desperately for his leg, the spoke of his chair, anything at all, as Henry rolls closer and closer to the river. Sprawling across the mud, my fingers catch on the spoke of one wheel, and a spark of pain runs up my wrist as the backward movement of the chair is stopped with my fingers.

Henry is painfully silent, clinging to the arms of his chair with all the strength his small body can muster. I try. I try to hold the chair, but it is so very heavy, my fingers are not nearly strong enough to stop the force of so much steel. It pulls loose from my hand in a last, excruciating tug.

And then Henry is falling, falling, down the bank of the river. Amazingly, he stays in the chair until it hits a rock near the bottom, tipping and spilling him out of it.

Straight into the rushing water.