pushed him so far his power flared.
She shouldn’t have mocked him. She hadn’t meant to, though she wasn’t quite certain what it was she
Looking back at the weeks she’d spent with her new friends, there had been several shameful times when she had acted alone. She had snuck off to visit Jack Dandy—which led to a strange, flirtatious friendship. One night, she disappeared and had no recollection of where she had been. Lord Felix, the son of her former employer, died that night. Even she couldn’t say with certainty that she hadn’t killed him. Fortunately, her name had been cleared. Later, she chased after Sam without alerting anyone else, and the two of them had ended up in a battle with an automaton, which could have killed them both.
Worse, she had contrived to join last night’s fights to spite Griffin. To prove to him she could do it. And why? Just because he made her angry and happy and nervous, all at the same time. Never mind that her plan had worked, she should have shared it with the entire group, instead of just Emily. She had put the other girl at risk. She had put them both at risk.
Before, she could have blamed this sort of behavior on her darker half, but that was no longer the case. Griffin had helped her begin to unite her two sides, and now she was no longer one or the other, but both. Now it was up to her to decide what sort of person she wanted to be.
She didn’t want to go back to being alone, especially now that she had found friends. Real friends. Family. Especially Griffin. He had done so much for her, and she’d repaid him by being snide and mocking.
But she hadn’t wanted him to see that he was the one thing that frightened her. When she’d first met Griffin, he had told her that he would give her his trust, and in return, he would settle for nothing less than hers. She had been treated poorly by fellows of his station before, and part of her mind couldn’t let go of that wariness; it was the only protection her heart had.
Because if there was one person in all the world capable of breaking her heart, it was Griffin. Perhaps that was why she ran to Jack whenever she felt cagey. Jack didn’t have expectations. Jack would eventually let her down, while she’d be the one to do that to Griffin—if she hadn’t already.
This was ridiculous. She threw back the covers and slipped out of her incredibly comfortable bed. She could laze about all day wondering and thinking, but thinking always seemed to get her into trouble. Although, not thinking got her into trouble, too.
Who was she trying to kid? Trouble seemed to find her, no matter what. If trouble was going to come calling, she might as well be clean.
She bathed and dressed in pale pink knee-length trousers with a frill at the bottom, white shirt and her pink- and-blackstriped corset. She laced heavy black boots up to the hem of her trousers and wrapped the ends of the laces around each boot once before tying them. Then she brushed her hair and twisted it up onto the back of her head, securing it with two chopsticks.
The bruises on her face had faded to almost nothing overnight. Her ribs were stiff, but she could draw a deep breath without them hurting. A normal girl would be so stiff and sore, she would barely be able to move about. Then again, if she was a “normal” girl, she wouldn’t have been in the ring in the first place. This was one of those times that being a freak came in handy.
Her stomach fluttered as she left her room. Odd how she felt so anxious going to meet her friends, when Dalton hadn’t inspired half so much fuss. Last night, she’d felt triumphant, but now she felt a little ... silly and self- conscious.
She stopped to knock at Emily’s door. No answer. They must have gone downstairs already. Finley said hello to the boy operating the lift and spent the rest of the trip wondering if the little box could move any slower. Seriously, she could have jumped over the railing in the stairwell and been there by now.
They were all gathered around the dining room table and looked up at her entrance when she walked in. Sam only glanced at her for a split second before turning his attention back to the mountain of food piled on his plate. Surely eating that many scrambled eggs couldn’t be healthy for a body.
“Morning, Finley,” he mumbled.
“Good morning, everyone,” she replied and winced at the cheer in her voice. Emily smiled at her from her seat beside Sam, but Finley didn’t miss the glance her friend shot in Griffin’s direction.
Slowly—determinedly—Finley made herself look at him. He sat at his customary spot at the head of the table, but his breakfast was nothing more than coffee and toast. He looked tired and drawn, with dark circles under his storm-blue eyes.
Was she the cause of those dark smudges? The thought added more guilt to her already heavy shoulders. She tried to smile and found her lips incapable of the movement. “Griffin,” she whispered.
“Finley,” he echoed with the ghost of a grin. Did he mean to tease or to mock her? “I hope you slept well.”
“Tolerably,” she replied, sitting down at the place set for her at his right. “You?”
“Once I got there, you could say I slept like the dead.” He chuckled drily.
Emily looked at him again, and this time Finley saw concern in the other girl’s eyes. What did she know that Finley did not? Had Griffin told her of their conversation?
“Says here there was a ‘flash of light, like lightning,’ from the Statue of Liberty last night,” Sam announced as he perused the front page of the morning
Griffin seemed to find this hilarious and began to laugh in that way Finley often did when she hadn’t enough sleep.
“Actually ... ” Emily began, glancing at Griffin as though he’d gone mad.
“It was probably something faulty with the lantern mechanism in the torch,” Griffin interrupted, suddenly serious. “I’m surprised it’s never happened before.”
Sam shrugged. “I suppose so. Call me paranoid, but every time something strange happens now, I expect to find some kind of villain at work.”
“You’re paranoid,” Griffin replied with a grin. “I wager the torch will be lit again tonight, and no one will give it another thought.”
Except for her, Finley thought as she took two pieces of toast from the warming plate in front of her. Whoever invented heated dishes should be knighted. Did they knight people in America? Probably not.
She hadn’t missed the startled look Emily shot Griffin when he interrupted her, which meant that both she and Griffin knew what had happened out on that island last night. Why the secrecy?
Then it hit her. It had been Griffin. He’d been on the verge of losing control of his abilities last night—because of her. Somehow he’d gotten out to the statue or had done something that had made that flash.
She stared at him. “I owe you all an apology,” she blurted.
Three pairs of eyes turned toward her. Heat seeped into her cheeks, like tea in hot water. “I shouldn’t have taken Emily to Five Points to dig up information on Dalton. And I should have told Sam and Griffin about the fights. I’m sorry.”
Sam helped himself to more sausage. “I’m the last person who would give you bother about that.” It was no secret that he had once taken off on his own a lot, but that seemed to have changed since the fight with The Machinist.
“I had fun,” Emily added, a tad defiantly.
“Yeah, about that,” Sam began, gesturing at her with his knife. “You need to be careful. This isn’t London. Those gangs are dangerous.” The fact that he hadn’t attempted to lock Emily in her room to keep her safe also showed how different he was. Finley knew it must be hard for him to give up some of his protectiveness.
Emily shot him a glance out of the corner of her eye. “I’m Irish, Sam Morgan. Most of those ‘gangs’ are my people.”
“But the rest aren’t,” Griffin interjected, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. “And to some of them, the only good Irish is dead Irish, and they
The three of them nodded. Finley knew the remark was mostly directed at her, but she wasn’t about to get her knickers in a twist over it. He was right. They weren’t in London, and there was danger in this city for all of them.
“Good.” He leaned back in his chair and reached for his cup of coffee. “Finley, you have an engagement with Dalton tonight, correct?”
