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Althea Hartley didn’t need a miracle. Only the desperate needed a miracle. And she wasn’t desperate.

Well... not entirely.

Regardless, it wasn’t as though she were asking for a biblical, survive the next plague sort of miracle. Just a smallish,

rainy morning in London sort. Half a miracle, really.

Pausing just outside the shop front of her favorite stationers, she dragged in a stalwart breath that left no room for doubt.

This would do the trick. It had to.

When her thready exhale collected in a brief, tenuous fog before a biting April breeze carried it away, she refused to acknowledge

it. Instead, she reached out and opened the door .

A bell jingled overhead as a waft of achingly familiar scents filled her nostrils. The mélange of sweet paper, rich leather,

sharp ink and a hint of pipe tobacco had never failed her. She’d always been able to depend upon the divine fragrance to make

her scalp tingle in a frisson of anticipation, the sensation sprinting down her arms and to the tips of her fingers as if

with some ancient calling. The same calling that had inspired the first Egyptians, Greeks and Romans to chisel away at rock—the

need to tell a story.

That need ran through her veins, too. It had been with her all her life.

At least, until recently. Now it seemed that all the words that used to flow as freely as the blood in her veins had dried up. Much like her heart.

But she wasn’t going to think about that.

All that mattered was that she’d returned to London for another Season and everything would be different this time.

Squaring her shoulders, she took two resolute steps into the shop, ready for her miracle.

Let the tingling begin!

Yet, as the beveled glass door closed behind her and the bell offered a discordant plink , all she felt was a cold plop of rain falling from the brim of her bonnet to the tip of her nose.

Then again, it was still morning and far too early to give up hope. Besides, perhaps the Office of Celestial Intervention

had yet to open. After all, who knew if Heaven was on London time? Therefore, she was willing to give her miracle a few more

minutes.

Fife’s Feathered Quill was a little shop. Unlike other stationers, Mr. Fife was not a bookseller as well. His specialty, he

often said, was paper and ink. Simple as that.

The narrow space was flanked by walls of towering walnut shelves filled with an array of boxes of assorted sizes that housed

every type of paper, ink and writing implement imaginable. Along the far wall, which was a mere seven steps from the door,

was a glass display case of tortoiseshell pens, feathered quills with scroll-etched nibs, and embossed silver letter knives.

She’d found the cozy shop purely by accident during her first Season, two years ago. One day, after leaving her modiste, she’d

taken a wrong turn down a winding alley. Well, several wrong turns actually. Countess Broadbent—an old family friend who was

her sponsor and chaperone—had been quite vexed with her at the time and accused her of having the directional wherewithal

of dandelion fluff.

Sadly, she wasn’t incorrect.

Be that as it may, Thea often considered her own tendency to end up not quite in the location she’d set out for as an opportunity for happenstance. As everyone knew, happenstance was the gateway to creativity.

That day it had led her here. And, she’d hoped, one step closer to realizing her dream of writing a play for the London stage.

The reminder sent a twinge to the center of her chest.

She chose to ignore it. And why shouldn’t she? In the past year she’d become exceptional at ignoring whatever plagued her.

Surely, taking such pains to spare her family and acquaintances from a veritable tidal wave of misery ought to earn her some

favor in the heavens.

She cast an expectant look up to the tin ceiling. But the tick-tocking from the pendulum clock in the corner continued on

without even a snick of a miracle. Honestly, had the celestial being assigned to dole out favors to the deserving fallen asleep

at his post?

Wake up, you dolt!

The entire purpose of coming back to London to endure a third Season of idle chitchat with dullards and popinjays was to reclaim

what she’d lost. Her last hope was to find it here. And yet, her creative spark still wasn’t sparking.

Her heavy sigh filled the empty shop as she trudged toward the back.

Stopping at the glass case, she glanced down to a selection of ornate silver letter knives. Dimly, she wondered if she were

to drive the point through the layers of wool, cambric and bone stays between her breasts, would the blade simply sail through

the empty husk that used to be her heart? Or was there a kernel of something that remained of her old self that might still

bleed?

She also wondered if she was being a trifle melodramatic.

Hmm... perhaps. But as the youngest child in a family reared on daily performances of Shakespeare, she could hardly have turned out any other way. Therefore, she blamed her parents.

Besides, how else was she supposed to feel after dragging the corpse of her crushed soul behind her for nearly a year? Her

inner Greek Chorus agreed with a solemn nod.

“Why, Miss Hartley, as I live and breathe.”

Thea looked up from the knives to find the old shopkeeper emerge from the back room. A bird’s nest of wiry silver brows arched

over a pair of wizened gray eyes at the sight of her.

She held out her hand in warm welcome and he clasped it. “Mr. Fife. How good it is to see you again. You are well, I trust?”

“Better now at the sight of my best customer.” He patted her hand before he released her, his face creasing like parchment

with his smile. “Though, I daresay this is quite the surprise. When you’d disappeared last spring, I thought you’d lost your

heart to some dashing gentleman and married. Perhaps to that playwright who accompanied you a time or two?”

Thea swallowed, her throat tight. “No.”

“Ah. Then you’ve returned to take a crack at another Season. Good on you,” he said with an encouraging nod. If he noticed

a twitch from the corpse on the tiled floor behind her, he was good enough not to mention it. “You’re just in time, too, for

I received a new shipment of pocket ledgers yesterday.”

His brows lifted in expectation. He knew this news had always thrilled her in the past.

Ever since she was a little girl, pockets had been sewn into her day dresses.

This practice had begun shortly after her nurse confiscated the stub of a pencil and scrap of foolscap stashed in her stockings one Sunday morning before church services.

The nurse declared that only when the vicar began carrying odds and ends on his person could Thea do the same.

Naturally, this brought on a slew of questions. So, in the middle of service, she’d asked what the vicar had beneath his robes.

Even though her parents weren’t the sort to become embarrassed—and in truth her father always had a merry chuckle every time

someone mentioned the vicar’s robes—it was enough to prompt the addition of hidden pockets to all her dresses. That way she’d

always had a small ledger on hand whenever inspiration struck.

“Shall I put your usual order together?” Mr. Fife asked.

“Thank you, yes. That would be lovely.”

Perhaps if she continued to pretend that everything was as it should be, inspiration might strike again.

As the shopkeeper turned away to assemble her parcel, she glanced once more toward the ceiling. I’m still waiting.

She’d had no trouble finding worthy ideas during her first Season. Of course, she’d had to cajole the ever-proper Lady Broadbent

into asking their modiste to add pockets to her ball gowns. But she’d succeeded and was prepared for every tingle of creativity.

Her second Season had begun in the same fashion until... Well, she didn’t want to think about that.

For this third Season, she’d only pressed for two of her gowns to have pockets. Though, she wasn’t sure why she’d bothered

at all. Moths were more likely to fly out of the plackets than ideas.

There she’d be, midwaltz in a grand ballroom as a flurry of gray winged insects would cloud around her. Then everyone would

watch on in horror as the moths—doing what those fools naturally did—would fly to the flicker of candlelit chandeliers and

incinerate themselves in acrid puffs of smoke.

Dimly, she wondered if she’d been a moth in a former life. It would explain so much.

“Here we are,” Mr. Fife said as he turned back to her, setting the paper-wrapped parcel between them. Twin birds’ nests waggled

in eager anticipation as he chafed his hands together. “Any new stories to share, hmm?”

This had always been a game of theirs. She would tell him about a play she was developing—which was usually inspired by real

episodes of the ton behaving outrageously—and he would try to guess the parties involved.

Like her, he enjoyed observing people. For him, it was more for entertainment. For her, she enjoyed the puzzle of it, fascinated

to uncover the mystery of what lay beneath the surface of the facade that individuals presented to the rest of society.

Shakespeare had been a master of that. So was London’s current famed playwright, Sir Kellum Archer. Who, for a time, had been

the center of her world. She’d even allowed herself to believe...

Thea let the thought fade away, unfinished as a blank page.

“Regrettably, no,” she said to Mr. Fife with a sad shake of her head. She couldn’t admit aloud that she’d been unable to write

a word since last year. But when his eyes softened as if he could see through to the truth of the matter, she hastily added,

“I haven’t been to any soirees yet. In fact, you are the very first notable person I’ve seen since my arrival.”

He was kind enough to pretend to believe her. Patting her hand once more, he said, “Next time, then.”

“Next time,” she promised.

It wasn’t a lie. Not entirely.