Dora stayed with Elias for a while longer, sitting in companionable silence while he continued to consider his options. The hour grew quite late, in fact, before she blinked and found herself slumped over in bed, with her cheek upon the mirror and her thoughts in disarray.
When Dora roused herself, she was pleased to find that she had a rare breakfast alone with Vanessa, since she had waited for the latter half of it. Unfortunately, Vanessa had heard of Dora’s brush with the Lord Sorcier the day before, and she was most eager for news on his progress. When Dora told Vanessa that the Lord Sorcier had no intention of pursuing her cure for the meantime, her cousin was aghast.
“But he must!” Vanessa cried, and Dora had to shush her before she drew the wrong sort of attention. Vanessa lowered her tone reluctantly, but her expression was distressed. “If he will not cure you, then I cannot think who will, Dora. And what shall we do when the London Season is over, and you must go back to Lockheed?”
Dora shook her head at her cousin. “You misunderstand, Vanessa,” she said. “I will not be pursuing my cure for the meantime either. There are more important matters afoot, and I cannot in good conscience look away from them.”
Dora tried to relate the horrible things she had seen in the workhouse, and her concern for Jane, who even now weakened by the hour. But to Dora’s surprise, Vanessa did not seem to be listening to her as closely as she might have expected. Instead, her fair cousin’s face grew distant and worried, and Dora suspected that Vanessa was even now attempting to concoct some new plan to salvage her soul.
“Vanessa!” Dora said finally. “Are you not listening? There are people suffering much greater awfulness than me.”
“Oh, Dora!” Vanessa replied, with tears in her eyes. “There have always been people suffering more greatly than you, I am sure. But you are my cousin, and I love you best. Is it so wrong of me to put you first, after all the years you’ve borne this hardship?”
Dora blinked at her. It was exactly the sort of heartfelt speech she might have expected of Vanessa. But for once, the subject gave her uncomfortable pause.
“Vanessa,” she said. “I have always held your sweetness and generosity in the highest of esteem. I am beyond surprised—nay, disappointed—to hear you suggest that I should leave a little girl to die, in favour of my own needs.”
Vanessa faltered at this. Dora saw the struggle on her cousin’s face, as she attempted to reconcile her impulses. Vanessa pressed a hand to her mouth, and briefly ceased to speak.
For the first time, Dora saw her cousin in a different light. Her love and generosity were still profound, of course—but these feelings of hers were also quite simple and childish, in a way. Vanessa loved fiercely, and protectively, and she always did prefer to champion those she thought abandoned. But never, Dora realised, had her cousin ever exhibited love or even pity for anyone that she had not seen with her very own eyes.
The discovery of this lacking in her cousin made Dora terribly uneasy. For so many years, she had considered Vanessa to be the perfect model of a lady—the epitome of everything to which Dora ought to aspire herself, once she regained her full faculties. But now, for all that Vanessa was quite lovely in so many respects, Dora had found an unpleasant quality in her that dashed that perfect image from her mind.
“This is what you want then, Dora?” Vanessa asked softly.
Dora frowned at her. “It is what you ought to want as well,” she said, though some part of her knew that she was being churlish in her insistence.
Vanessa looked down. “I would like to change my nature,” she said quietly. “If only because I hate so much to disappoint you, Dora. But I cannot truthfully pretend to prefer this course of action, except on your behalf. I will support it, if only because I have rarely seen you even this much upset.”
Dora pressed her lips together. There was a terrible, disconnected feeling in her that she could not remember ever feeling before. Until now, she had always been of a mind with Vanessa on all the things she thought most important. To lose that feeling was almost as terrible a grief as if she’d lost Vanessa herself.
“Come with me,” Dora said to her cousin.
Vanessa blinked uncertainly at this. “Come with you?” she asked. “What... to the workhouses, Dora? But I am not as stalwart as you are—they would surely give me vapours! And besides which, Auntie Frances and the countess would never allow it.”
Dora narrowed her eyes at her cousin. “Nevertheless,” she said. “We have always been honest with one another, Vanessa. And much as I love you, I cannot help but think that it will always disappoint me to think on this conversation of ours, unless you later come with me to see the workhouses with your own two eyes.” She paused, and added: “If you can engineer your way to London in order to find the Lord Sorcier, my dear cousin, I believe that you can find your way now to a workhouse with me.”
Vanessa hesitated again on this. Dora could see her cousin’s mind turning with anguish upon the idea.
Dora stood from the breakfast table and inclined her head. “I have been as truthful as I might,” she said. “If you care for what little remains of my heart, I believe that you will find your way clear to my request.”
As Dora made her way back out into the hallway, she heard a knock at the front door, not very distant from her. The butler murmured to someone, and the door closed again.
“What is this?” Auntie Frances exclaimed loudly. “What new devilry is upon us now?”
Dora altered her path towards the
