Judging from the loafer, whoever the villagers were staring at was male. Panic seeped back in when I scanned the crowd.

I was searching for a distinctly tall young man. One with straight brows and a crooked tilt to his mouth. Thomas was nowhere to be found. He was always where trouble lurked. Something cold and heavy pooled in my core.

“No.”

I lunged forward as if I were nothing more than a marionette on a string. If anything happened to Thomas… I couldn’t finish the thought. Fear thrummed in my cells.

Using my smaller stature, I shoved my way through the young men, terror allotting me strength and a steely reserve as I wove my way through their limbs. I pushed one of them when he didn’t move, and he stumbled into someone else. They began yelling in Romanian, and from what I interpreted, they weren’t exchanging pleasantries. I knew I was being unforgivably rude, but if Thomas had been hurt, I would have plowed through the entire country if I had to, leaving bones and ash in my wake.

When the body finally came into view, I clamped my teeth together, biting down on shock. Lying in a motionless sprawl was Wilhelm. I closed my eyes, relieved it wasn’t Thomas, and felt horrid for it. I was despicable, and it wasn’t even the first time I’d experienced relief at someone else’s expense.

Once that monstrous feeling passed, I turned my full attention to the boy. There was no discernible injury that I could see from where I stood. Judging from the absolute stillness, I knew Wilhelm was not breathing; no clouds of breath puffed into the frigid air. There did appear to be some slight discoloration and foaming around his mouth, though.

Aside from him lying in a heap, there was no disturbance in the snow around him. No one had attempted to revive or even touch him. Not that I imagined they would. Unless there was a physician close by, no one would be trained. If anything, the villagers might be too afraid to get close. Muscles in my abdomen twisted. He was so young. I should have trusted my instincts earlier when he was so clearly in distress.

I shifted closer, noticing a set of footprints a few feet away leading down the alley. I narrowed my eyes, wondering if it was the path a murderer had taken. Perhaps Wilhelm had died of natural causes, though young men didn’t usually keel over while walking through villages. Sure, his skin had had a reddish tinge, but I did not think he’d been sickly enough for sudden death.

I flipped through pages of medical theories and prognoses in my mind. An aneurysm wasn’t entirely out of the question, I supposed; that might explain the lack of outward injury and slight foam at the mouth. But it did not answer the mystery of his discoloration.

Someone would need to send for the headmaster. One of his students was dead. And there was no better place for forensic examination than our nearby academy. At least that was a positive glimmer amidst this horror.

I bent down, doing my best to not touch Wilhelm and risk contaminating the scene. Uncle’s lessons barged into my brain. If there were foul intentions involved, our murderer was likely present, watching. I scanned the crowd, but not one person stood out.

Men and women, all ages and sizes, stared. They whispered accusations in a foreign tongue, but I could read the distrust on their features. The way their eyes narrowed, the many times they crossed themselves or absently touched holy articles on their person, as if reassuring themselves of God’s presence here.

Leaving the Lord out of the equation, I tried recalling any other sudden disease that might have taken my classmate. I doubted a myocardial infarction had killed him.

Unless he’d had a poor heart from childhood. As strong a possibility as any. My mother had suffered from such a condition; we were lucky she hadn’t been torn from us sooner. Nathaniel had said it was her iron will that had kept her alive for so long.

I stared at the footprints again, stomach sinking. They were probably unrelated and Wilhelm had succumbed to whatever he’d been suffering from. The earlier murder that had occurred in this village was blatant—a man had been staked through the heart, not killed in some unidentifiable manner that resembled natural causes.

“Are you hard of hearing, Miss Wadsworth?”

At the sound of Moldoveanu’s deep voice, I jerked away from the corpse and stood. My cheeks burned when I realized he must have been addressing me for some time for him to inject that extra venom into his tone. The headmaster had certainly arrived on the scene quickly. His whole being was imposing, looming over both me and the body at my feet. Some innate mechanism urged me to step back. I glanced around, searching for Thomas. “No, Headmaster. I was thinking.”

“Clearly that isn’t your strong suit, Miss Wadsworth.” Headmaster Moldoveanu’s gaze sliced me in half. “Move along and let me do the real work.”

Never in all my life had I had such a vicious urge to verbally attack someone before. He didn’t even have to say what he was blatantly insinuating: that men could handle it better.

A woman near the body wiped tears from her child’s face, screeching about something that set the crowd into another rush of arguing. Moldoveanu barked out orders in Romanian for everyone to stand back, forestalling the crowd from further agitation.

“Get on with moving out of my way before I freeze to death.” He gritted his teeth and spoke English slowly, as if I were a complete dullard. “This isn’t some excursion to the seamstress, though perhaps that’s where you truly belong.”

Heat flared across my cheeks once more. I took a small step to the side but refused to move to the outer ring of the crowd. I didn’t care if he expelled me from the course for my insubordination. I would not be treated as if my mind were inferior because I’d been blessed with the ability to bear children. I mentally screamed at myself to let it pass, but I couldn’t obey the simple command, consequences be damned.

I drew myself up. “I belong with a scalpel in my hands, sir. You’ve no right to—”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn the victim’s finger twitched. My blood froze along with the harsh words I’d meant to say to the headmaster. Thoughts of deadly electrical machines, steam-powered hearts, and stolen organs flashed across my mind. Everything around me stilled into deafening silence—the tenor of murmured voices, Moldoveanu’s taunt, sniffles and whispered prayers, the sound of sleet pelting against stones, all replaced by a vast nothing—while my memory tortured me with images of my mother’s lifeless body struggling to come back from death.

I could still see her arms and torso lurching from that table. Still smell the acrid scent of burnt flesh and hair wafting throughout the laboratory. Sweet and revolting. That horrid, sinking feeling of both dread and hope as I groped for a pulse that had long since stopped.

A shutter came loose in a gust of wind, banging itself against the wall near a darkened window that faced the alleyway. Curtains fluttered inward, and I was almost certain I saw a cloaked figure vanish within their shadowy folds. I staggered back, ignoring the snide whispers from villagers that pierced my crumbling emotional wall, and ran.

It had been the same nearly each time I examined a corpse. I needed to breathe. I needed to lay these images to rest or else I’d truly become the failure Headmaster Moldoveanu thought me to be. I raced around the corner and stopped, panting as I stared at a brick wall. I wasn’t religious, but I prayed I wouldn’t be sick. Not here, possibly in front of the awful headmaster.

A tear squeezed its way out from under my eyelid. If I couldn’t find a way to banish my hauntings, I’d never make it through this course and gain admittance to the academy.

Shadows thick as tar cut across my vision, and I knew who was there before he spoke. I held a hand up, stalling him. “If you say one thing about what happened back there, I will never speak to you again, Cresswell. Don’t push me.”

“Knowing I’m not the only gentleman you say such endearing things to is comforting, Domnişoară Wadsworth. Though not entirely shocking.”

I swung around, surprised to find myself facing Prince Nicolae. A muscle twitched in his jaw as if he were chomping down on saying something ruder. His expression was a finely sharpened dagger, cutting every section of my face it landed on.

“I’ve heard rumors about your involvement with the Ripper murders. While I’ve yet to be impressed, I’m going to be watching you.” He slowly circled me. “I saw you following my cousin; you cannot deny it. Then peering over his body as if it were a delicacy to be savored. Perhaps you slipped him something fatal. He told me you were on the train, traveling to Bucharest with him. An opportunity, yes?”

I blinked. Surely he didn’t believe I would abandon the study of death to create it. “I—”

“You’re blestemat,” he all but snarled. “Cursed.” A sob interrupted my thoughts as the prince angrily swiped at his eyes and turned away.

I shut my mouth. Whatever he was saying right now, the wrath and accusations—it was grief speaking. Lashing out. Searching for some sense amidst a part of life we had no control over. I knew that feeling all too well. I made to reach for him, then dropped my gloved hand. This was a pain I didn’t wish to share with anyone. Not even a perceived enemy.

“I—I’m sorry for your loss. I know words are hollow, but I am truly sorry.”

Prince Nicolae lifted his eyes to mine and clenched his fists. “Not as sorry as you will be.”

He backed down the alley and left me shivering on my own. If I wasn’t cursed before, it certainly felt as if he’d set some darkness loose on me with that proclamation. Snow and ice began falling a bit more heavily, like the world was now mourning my eventual loss.

Thomas skidded around the corner the same moment the prince exited the alleyway, smashing his shoulder into my friend. Ignoring the slight, Thomas strode toward me, the corners of his mouth turned down at whatever he saw in my expression.

“Are you all right, Wadsworth? I was in a rather interesting argument with the… baker and came as fast as I could manage.”

My breath fogged before me. I did not wish to know why he was fighting with a baker. Or if it was even true based on his slight hesitation. Though it was hard to retain any uneasy feelings with that ridiculous image barging into my mind. “Prince Nicolae believes I’m responsible for Wilhelm’s death. Apparently he saw us following him, and I didn’t appear appalled enough by the sight of his cousin’s corpse.”