Numbers told the truth eventually.

By two in the morning, Lydia discovered the first pattern.

“These aren’t dates.”

Gideon looked over her shoulder.

“What are they?”

“Fabric measurements.”

He frowned.

“At Bellweather, shipping records use two numbers. Loom count and lot designation.”

She wrote several examples.

“Briggs had me balancing production ledgers.”

“Why?”

“I thought because I was good at arithmetic.”

Her face changed.

“Oh, God.”

“What?”

Lydia stood so abruptly the chair tipped over.

“The women.”

“What women?”

“Margaret Price. Florence Keene. Anna Doyle.”

She rushed through the papers.

“Three women disappeared from the factory.”

Her fingers found names.

There.

M. PRICE

Crossed out.

F. KEENE

Crossed out.

A. DOYLE

Crossed out.

Lydia pressed both hands over her mouth.

“I corrected these accounts.”

Gideon watched her.

“What does that mean?”

“I corrected Briggs’s ledgers whenever totals were wrong.”

Understanding struck.

“I was correcting their records.”

Her voice cracked.

“I helped them keep track of the women.”

Gideon came closer but stopped before touching her.

“Lydia.”

“I helped them.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I wrote these numbers.”

“You were balancing factory accounts.”

“I wrote them!”

Gideon’s voice became firm.

“You were surviving.”

She looked at him.

“You had no idea what those numbers meant.”

Tears finally came.

Not delicate tears.

Years of exhaustion broke open.

Gideon waited.

Then Lydia crossed the distance between them herself.

She pressed her forehead against his chest.

His arms lifted uncertainly.

He did not touch her.

Not yet.

Lydia grabbed the front of his shirt.

That was permission enough.

Gideon wrapped both arms around her.

Carefully.

As though Lydia were something powerful enough to choose him and fragile enough to be protected simultaneously.

She cried until she had nothing left.

Morning brought clearer answers.

And worse questions.

Lydia examined her childhood embroidery beneath the window light.

Her mother had taught her sewing.

Every stitch mattered.

Every hidden knot mattered.

Suddenly Lydia noticed the backing.

It had been repaired.

Not by her.

She found a tiny seam along the bottom.

“Knife.”

Gideon handed one to her.

Lydia cut three stitches.

Inside the cloth was a folded scrap of paper.

Seventeen years hidden inside something made by a child.

Lydia unfolded it.

The handwriting made her knees weaken.

Her mother’s.

Lydia, if this reaches you when you are grown, do not believe Thomas Fenwick died in the river.

Lydia stopped.

Gideon read over her shoulder.

Thomas Fenwick.

Her father.

A man Lydia barely remembered.

A man supposedly drowned when she was three.

She continued.

He changed his name. He will change it again. Trust no man who knows too much about your childhood. Trust the books. The books remember what people lie about.

Below the warning was a small symbol.

A crow inside a circle.

Gideon went motionless.

“What?”

He reached for one of Abigail’s documents.

At the bottom of a marriage contract was a wax seal.

A bird.

A circle.

A crow.

Lydia whispered one word.

“Crowley.”

A horse screamed outside.

Gideon turned.

Someone was coming.

Through the snow appeared four riders.

One wore a deputy marshal’s badge.

Another wore a long black coat.

Lydia recognized him immediately.

Edmund Crowley.

Gideon reached for his rifle.

Lydia caught his arm.

“If they wanted us dead, they could shoot through the window.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t want us dead.”