//CLARA//
I can't sleep.
The candle had burned down to a sputtering nub of tallow, drowning in its own melted wax like my last remaining brain cells.
I'd been sitting here for hours, my back screaming, my eyes crossed from staring at page after page of cramped, nineteenth-century cursive.
The hearth had long since collapsed into spiteful embers. Outside, the winter wind rattled the windows like an extra from a horror film.
And after all this? Nothing. Absolutely zero. Nada.
I'd read every line item. Every stuffy name, every sketchy address.
The only takeaway was that the syndicate had its hooks in half of New York's high society. Scandalous? Sure. Useful to my current predicament? Debatably.
Casimir's page was still just… sitting there. His name at the very top of the final page, mocking me.
I slammed the ledger shut, the cloud of dust making me sneeze.
