LINA FOUND THE NOTE IN THE TOP DRAWER OF WILL’S dresser, tucked into the pocket of a navy coat. She lit the oil lamp on the chest, cranking the canvas wick and touching it gently with a match. The letter was written on a torn piece of thick cream paper, the kind that Elizabeth used for all her correspondence.

She ran her fingers along its gold edges, and thought how difficult it must have been for Will to resist Elizabeth. She must have seemed very rare to him, a possessor of magic objects, which was how she used to seem to her personal maid, too. But now Lina was catching glimpses of a new Elizabeth. She was a girl who had to be put together, hair and face, who preened alone in her own rich bedroom. She was a mirage.

Lina turned the note in her hand, her face growing hot and furious as she thought about the things her onetime friend had just said to her. Her words had been brutal and her haughtiness disgusting. As long as she thought about Elizabeth she stayed angry, but then the memory of her mistress faded and the reality of Will’s absence began to set in. Lina lay back on his mattress, stretching her long arms over her head, and tried to think him back into the room. This only made her growing sadness worse. The only boy she’d ever imagined herself loving was gone. And she had never so much as kissed him.

She put the heels of her palms against her eyes to keep from crying, and when that instinct passed, she brought herself back up. The worst of it was, he had left without even considering Lina—but perhaps it was not too late for that. She went to the dresser and removed the navy coat. It was the kind of coat that sailors wore and she had seen it on Will in winters past, when he was shoveling snow or bringing blankets out to the horses. He must have left it for Elizabeth, in case she decided to follow him into the night—that was the kind of boy he was—but Elizabeth had overlooked it. Lina put the coat on and slipped the note back into its pocket. She collected the little pearls from the floor that she had laced into Elizabeth’s hair earlier in the night, and then took the small side door onto the street.

The night was balmy and Lexington Avenue was still full of people. They had been celebrating the return of their war hero all day, and they continued to celebrate now, charging through the streets with flags, leaning on one another in happy fatigue. No one noticed Lina as she walked quickly, pulling Will’s coat around her body. She hardly needed it, but it smelled like him—like hay and soap—so she kept it on.

She walked the more than twenty blocks to Grand Central without letting her feet bother her. The delicate Elizabeths of the world would not understand, of course—walking like this in the middle of the night would frighten them or tire them out or destroy their reputations. But to Lina, it felt dignified and good. When she saw the great building, with its imposing classical façade, turreted towers, and oval-shaped windows, she broke into a run.

Inside, the terminal was almost empty. There were a few people, covered in light blankets and napping in the long wooden seats. Lina hadn’t thought to look at a clock in a long time, but it seemed much later here than on the street. She hurried across the waiting area, her low heels clicking lightly against the marble, until she reached the ticket counter. The attendant was asleep, and she had to knock on the glass to wake him. When he finally heard her, he pushed the black cap away from his eyes and leaned forward. Lina gave him her most hopeful face. He was young, probably not much older than she was. He looked like he might sympathize with her mission.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, focusing his sleepy eyes on her.

“I want to know…” Lina began, and then stopped herself. It occurred to her for the first time that she might look a bit crazed, that she was carrying no luggage and hardly wearing the proper clothes for travel. “Could you tell me,” she began, trying to make her voice sound confident, “was there a young man who came through here tonight? He would have been going west? Maybe to California?”

“A young man?” The ticket counter attendant repeated slowly, a faint smile spreading across his face. “What kind of a young man?”

“About your age, I guess.” Lina felt a little breathless and she didn’t know why the attendant seemed so amused by everything. “He would have been traveling alone.”

“A young man traveling alone? And why would you be trying to find out where he was going so late at night?”

“That’s none of your business.” Lina pulled the coat around her and tried to look as entitled as possible. She wanted to do what Elizabeth would have done in the same situation, and so she turned her chin upward and to the side. “Well,” she went on, “are you going to help me, or are you just going to stand there?”

“I would like to help you,” the attendant drawled, his eyes sparkling at Lina. She couldn’t imagine why, but he seemed to be looking her over with a certain interest. “But I work for the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. If your fellow was going to California, he would have been taking the New York Central.”

“Oh,” Lina replied in a smaller voice. She must have looked a little sad and confused, because the attendant pointed across the huge waiting room.

“Their operation is in the next hall over, right through that doorway there.”

Lina nodded in thanks, then turned and began to run in the direction he had pointed.

“If you can’t find him, come back and pay me a visit…” he called after her. Lina paused to have a look back and caught a wink from the attendant. She couldn’t be sure, because she had never been flirted with before, but she thought perhaps the railroad attendant was doing just that. This seemed like a good sign. She managed a smile, and then resumed her hurried pace across the marble floor.

At the New York Central ticketing booth, she found an older man who was fully awake and completely indifferent to any charms she might possess. He wore muttonchops, which did nothing to disguise a large, shiny face.

“He was tall, you say?” the New York Central man replied.

“Yes, tall, with very light blue eyes and a handsome face. He wouldn’t have had much with him, and he would have been traveling alone.”

“We get plenty who fit that description.” The man paused to rearrange some papers, as Lina looked on urgently.

“But not so many late of a Friday night. I know who you’re talking about, and he left on the eleven o’clock train to Chicago. If you say he’s heading to California, I’d imagine he’d transfer there for another train, take him all the way to Oakland.”

“What time is it?” Lina said, her heart sinking. She knew from the way he was speaking that the eleven o’clock was long gone.

“It’s ten to two.”

“When is the next train to Chicago?” she asked, pressing her callused fingers against the marble counter.

“Not until morning, young lady. Seven o’clock is the next Chicago-bound train.”

Lina thought about going back to the Hollands’ and facing Elizabeth again. “I’d like a one-way ticket to Chicago.”

The attendant gave her a skeptical look. “All right. How much money do you have?”

Lina’s eyes fell to the ground. She felt in her pockets—maybe Will had left train fare for Elizabeth there? But there was nothing, of course. He would never have left money behind, when Elizabeth had so much. “I don’t have any,” she said pathetically.

“Well!” the attendant said loudly. “Come back when you do.”

Lina turned away from his window and walked back between those churchlike rows of seats. They seemed to go on forever, and she considered for a moment settling into one. Perhaps she would be swept up by the social reformers, and sent to a house for loose women. That would be a fittingly awful end to her evening, and anything seemed preferable to facing Elizabeth again.

All the locomotives were asleep under their glass dome, and beyond them to the east was the shantytown of Dutch Hill, where the new Irish squatted. A girl like her might go in and then never come out again. Will—gorgeous, perfect Will—had made sure that he had the means to escape the Hollands, but Lina could go only as far as her feet would carry her. She walked swiftly and without looking at anyone as she left the station.

When she emerged back on the street, she found the noise and lights almost shocking. There were cheers with every exploding spray of color in the night sky. Up above her, the universe was expansive and incandescent, but it seemed to Lina to be mocking her, reminding her that while it was large and glittering, her own world was small, unforgiving, and inescapable. She hated her job and herself, but most of all she hated Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth who had ruined everything, before Lina even had so much as a chance to win Will.

Tonight she had been too tired and too poor to get out, but as she looked at the New York sky, so big and so full of eruptions, she knew that there had to be a way.