//CLARA//
The stone-carved bench was biting cold through the silk of my skirts, but I didn't care. I needed the chill. I needed the way the night air burned in my lungs to remind me I was still alive, still human, and still trapped in this century.
I stared up at the smudge of stars above the Manhattan skyline, so much brighter and more distant than the electric glow I remembered from the future. Everything was a mess. Gary was here, a living, breathing liability from my own time.
I had to protect him, but how? Every move I made to help him was another shovel-full of dirt on my own social grave.
And then there was Casimir.
The thought of telling him the truth bubbled up in my throat, tasting like salt. I'm not Eleanor. I'm a stranger wearing her face. I'm a ghost from a century you won't live to see.
My stomach twisted.
What would he do?
