Page 26 of The Devil in Oxford

Perhaps not, but the sooner we left here the better.

I gathered up a packet of letters bound with red string from the farthest corner of the drawer, along with a tattered journal. Pocketing both, I grabbed the little milpreve, without the remotest flicker of conscience. I’d already taken the ledger. I could simply review them at my leisure, and replace them all—milpreve included—once my task here was done.

I had the blessing of Mr. Mueller to find the true killer. It wasn’t stealing. Not really. Simply borrowing.

CHAPTERELEVENA Different Sort of Terror

HEwas gone.

It was the only thought. Only thing in my mind.

Smoke filled my lungs.

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t scream.

My senses distorted. Ear aching, the sounds around me whining like an engine as my eyes watered.

Body thick with sweat.

Darkness.

Something wet and hot dripped down the side of my face as I struggled against my unresponsive limbs.

I had to find him. Had to get to him.

And yet I could not quite recall who.

Or why.

Only the fervid need tofindgrowing within me. The need to possess…

Unseen hands wrapped tighter around my aching wrists, pulling me backward and shoving me deeper into the dark.

I’d been caught.

I struggled against my captor, opening my mouth to scream, as something sharp pierced my side.

“Ruby…” A familiar voice reached through my dreams.

I couldn’t go to it. Not yet. Not until I’d found him.

“Ruby…”

My captor let go.

And like a crack of thunder, the dream was gone. The scent of a summer storm rushed through me, pushing away the terror that had taken hold. A coldness raced through my body, easing the weight in my chest as my breath came at long last.

The sturdy round weight of my cat was nestled at the crook of my knee, and oneveryparticular man sat at my side staring at me as if he could not fathom what he’d just found.

A dream.

It had only been a dream.

But good God, my nightmares never boded well, and they’d been growing increasingly worse and more prescient since I first met Ruan along that Cornish beach months before.

A fact I did not want to think much on at present.