Chapter 56
Week 18, Instructor Calendar, June 1896
We fail?
But screw your courage to the sticking place
And we’ll not fail.
I.vii
Lucia Bellini shaded her eyes and swung her own lamp in Concordia’s direction. She was wearing a dark dress, bare of ornamentation. Her olive complexion was sallow in the lamplight, and her black hair was pulled back tightly at the nape of her neck. Concordia was surprised to see that her right hand was clumsily bandaged. Miss Bellini’s lantern quavered, throwing bobbing shadows about the room.
“Concordia?” she answered tentatively. “It is you?” Her other hand curled around the slip of paper that Concordia had sent earlier.
The words on the paper, so carefully composed, were etched in Concordia’s mind: I know you were responsible. Come to the be
