Chapter 7

Bo Li’s expression was solemn; she wasn’t joking.
She really was exhausted. She wanted to sleep for a while with Eric there, then deal with the walking disaster that was Nanny after she woke up.
And by “sleep,” she meant exactly that—sleep. Nothing else.
She didn’t “like” Eric—not in that way. Even knowing that in the nineteenth century people didn’t live long and boys his age could already marry and have children under their parents’ blessing, to her he was still just a high school boy.
If he were in the modern world, he’d probably be in his first or second year of high school. With his brains, he might have skipped a few grades and gone straight to university.
Thinking that calmed a lot of the fear churning in her chest.
Eric, however, thought she was mocking him.
Before she even finished speaking, he yanked the dagger out and slammed it into the pillow beside her head, then stared down at her, cold from above.
He’d clearly been taunted like that many times and hated this kind of “joke.”
His breathing grew sharper inside the white mask.
Bo Li could practically picture that hot, furious air swelling inside, condensing, and finally dripping down the inside of the mask.
She swallowed, her throat tightening. Outwardly she stayed calm, but she was a hair’s breadth from losing control of her bladder, just like Nanny.
If they ever grew familiar enough to talk like normal people, she was absolutely going to make him break the habit of waving a knife around.
“…You misunderstand me,” she said with difficulty. “I truly want you to stay. To sleep a little with me here.”
The air seemed to solidify.
Eric stared at her, ice-cold.
Under that stare, her scalp tingled and every hair on her body stood on end.
She suddenly realized he might never have believed her—not really. He might never have intended to work with her at all.
He had been stunned—panicked, even—by that kiss. But he’d very quickly realized it came with strings attached.
He might bend for a kiss, but not for one that had a price tag attached and no real feeling behind it.
Cold sweat broke out across Bo Li’s back.
She had almost forgotten: for all that he seemed empty and numb, like a soulless wax figure, he had an alarmingly sharp mind.
Other people took a month to learn something; he learned it in a glance. Of course he could see through her lines just as quickly.
The good news was that, for reasons of his own, he had punished Nanny on her behalf.
Maybe he meant to repay her “sympathy,” even if that sympathy had an agenda. Maybe he just wanted a convenient outlet for his killing urge.
Whether his punishment would land Bo Li in even more trouble clearly didn’t factor into his thinking.
For an instant, a dozen ideas flashed through her mind, but none of them could defuse the situation.
At last she gritted her teeth and made up her mind—forget it. First keep him here.
If a kiss wasn’t enough, what about a hug?
The only times she’d managed to really shake him had all involved physical contact.
He was reclusive and strange, and hyper‑vigilant. Everyone around him recoiled just hearing his name. How could someone like that easily get close enough to touch anyone?
Maybe a hug could narrow the distance between them.
Bo Li knew she was playing a dangerous game—he had a knife, and every movement was unpredictable. Hugging someone like that was no different than offering your neck to the blade.
But letting him walk out and leaving herself shut in with a badly injured Nanny wasn’t much better than waiting to die.
She stopped hesitating, leaned forward, and threw her arms around him.
For a heartbeat, time seemed to stop.
Eric froze.
His harsh breathing cut off.
Her chest tightened almost to a cramp. She was nowhere near as calm as she looked. No one knew what Eric was thinking; he could drive the knife into her back at any second. Just picturing it was enough to make her knees go weak.
But thankfully, her guess was right.
He couldn’t handle physical contact.
She felt the muscles in his arms go taut, then slacken, as if he were torn between shoving her away, killing her, or simply staying like this.
He was thin—thinner than she’d imagined. He felt like nothing but bones under her arms, like a hungry, muscular predator that had gone too long without a proper meal.
Someone like that could pin down a strong grown woman with one hand—or be caught off guard and held in place by a calculated embrace.
Something strange stirred in Bo Li’s chest. She couldn’t tell if it was pity or something else.
She didn’t know how long passed before Eric finally moved.
He let her cling to him as he bent forward and pulled the dagger from the pillow. The blade tilted, the edge coming to rest against her back.
For a moment her heart nearly stopped. Her blood turned to ice. She thought she’d never see another sunrise.
But all he did was drag the edge lightly across her back to wipe it clean, then slide the knife back into his boot.
Bo Li let out a breath so hard it was almost a sob, as if someone had squeezed her throat and then suddenly let go. Blackness swam at the edges of her vision.
…One way or another, her gamble had paid off.
He hadn’t left. And she was still alive.
“Thank you…”
She didn’t even know what she was thanking him for. Fresh from the edge of death, the words slipped out before she could stop them.
If she’d known she’d end up living like this, she wouldn’t have gone to acting school—she’d have trained as an animal handler. Or volunteered at a wildlife park.
Bo Li wiped away the last of her involuntary tears. “You lie down for a bit first,” she said. “I’ll go stop her bleeding. She can’t die here yet. I still have things to ask her.”
Eric neither agreed nor disagreed.
Nanny had already passed out from blood loss. Bo Li sprinkled more hemostatic powder into her palm and fed her another ibuprofen to keep her from spiking a fever and going into shock. Then she climbed back into bed.
Afraid Eric would change his mind in the middle of the night and decide to stab her, she buried her head against his chest and wrapped both arms tightly around his.
Maybe because he really was starved for physical contact, dawn found her still alive and in one piece.
Nanny was awake too, staring at them with a strange expression.
Bo Li pulled out the gold pocket watch and checked the time. Five in the morning. There was still a while before anyone else woke up.
When Nanny saw the watch in Bo Li’s hand, her eyes flew wide in disbelief.
Bo Li ignored her. She slipped quietly out of the sleeping bag, but no matter how soft her movements, Eric woke—or maybe he’d never slept at all.
One night was enough for her to crawl back from the edge of terror.
Her calves still went weak when she met his eyes. “…Are you hungry?”
No answer.
She was used to that. “I want to ask Nanny a few things…about you. Do you mind? If you do, I won’t.”
No words. No movement.
So that was consent.
Bo Li let out a breath.
Good.
She couldn’t keep guessing his thoughts forever.
Controlling him wouldn’t be easy. She needed to know more about who he was and where he’d come from.
Thinking a moment, she walked over to the pile of dirty clothes, turned her back to Nanny, and fished out the first-aid kit. From inside, she took an energy bar.
Chocolate flavored. Hopefully he’d like it.
She tore the wrapper open, broke it in half, and held one piece out to him. “It’s sweet. Good for your strength. We can split it, okay?”
Bo Li ate her half first.
Eric stared at the chocolate for a long time before finally taking it.
Chocolate already existed in this era, so he didn’t have to wonder what it was. Instead, he lowered his head and carefully smelled it.
After several long seconds, he tilted his head, pushed one corner of the mask up, and revealed a sliver of his jaw as he popped the bar into his mouth.
It was the first time Bo Li had seen his face beneath the mask, even if it was only his jaw and lips. He didn’t look deformed at all; his jaw was narrow and sharply cut, his lips so pale they almost blended into his skin.
Just from the line of his jaw, he could easily be called handsome.
She wondered which version of disfigurement he had—was he skull‑like, like in the original novel, or only half‑ruined, like in the musical?
Sensibly, Bo Li kept any comments about his chin to herself.
It was still early. She decided to get a little closer to Eric before turning her attention to Nanny.
She sat down and tentatively reached out, inch by inch wrapping her fingers around his wrist.
Eric lowered his head to look at her hand, but he didn’t pull away.
Bo Li quietly exhaled. “I’ll tell you a secret,” she said softly.
No response.
“When I woke up, I’d forgotten a lot of things… I didn’t even remember who I was, or why I stole the pocket watch and framed you. All I had were a diary and a strange‑looking bag… The diary told me not to go near you, said you were dangerous. But I don’t know why—I just kept feeling like I could trust you.”
“Maybe you’ll end up killing me,” she said. “If you do, I won’t blame you. It’ll be my own choice. I chose to come close, to try to be your friend. I can feel you’re not a bad person—”
She held out her injured hand. The welt had swelled into an ugly purple‑red bruise.
“When you saw I was hurt, your first reaction was to take revenge for me… You didn’t even know if I had an agenda in getting close to you, and you still did it. If *you* count as a bad person, then I don’t know what a good person is.”
Bo Li held his gaze. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, and I’m not going to judge your past. I just want to know you better—to be your friend. Is that okay?”
Silence stretched.
Eric stared at her palm, his thoughts unreadable.
At last, a voice sounded by her ear. “…Why.”
Bo Li’s head snapped up.
He’d actually spoken.
She was so shocked that for a second she couldn’t even describe his voice. She only knew it was clean, pleasant—
The most beautiful teenage voice she’d ever heard.
After a long moment, she found her own. “Because you make me feel safe.”
It was the truth.
Even with the constant threat that he might kill her, his presence still filled her with a twisted kind of safety.
Maybe because, in this time, he was the only person she truly knew.
She even knew the arc of his fate: that he would one day live in an underground maze beneath Paris, and fall in love with a ballet girl named Christine.
A sharp, derisive laugh cut through the air.
Bo Li turned toward the sound. At some point, Nanny had spat out the rag gagging her and was watching them with a sneer.