Chapter 43: Meeting with Jessaline
He was not a coward by any means. He did not fear an attack and knew he could defend himself if such a thing ever happened. It was hard to describe what he did fear. It was something incorporeal, inexplicable, and menacing. It had no shape or form. It flitted in and out of his heart.
He longed for some sort of company. Instead of taking his walk along the riverbank, he found his feet moving in the direction of Cremorne Gardens. Visiting these pleasure gardens in the daytime with Ellie and his mother was charming and perfectly respectable. But now that the blanket of night had fallen over everything, a new population came forth just as bats and night-owls and other creatures came forth when daytime animals and birds were all a-roost. This population rustled with silks and satins and floating laces; rare night birds were these, night peahens searching for their cocks.