It's a deliveryman, thank God, and nobody they know, nobody they'll ever have to see again; it's enough to break Flavia out of her sudden paralysis and send her over to join Ophelia at the door, to laugh (the sound forced and strange to her ears, and she prays he's not astute enough, this early in the day, to tell) as the man realizes his error, that he'd knocked on the wrong door. Number fifteen's two floors up, she hears herself say, like it's the most natural thing in the world, and then he's gone, toting his armful of parcels to the elevator and she can shut the door, throw the bolt, start to take stock. She was a de Luce, and a scientist, and between those two things, there wasn't anything she couldn't do.

Wasn't there?

Flavia tries to regulate her breathing, to project an air of outward calm, before turning back to face the girl who used to be--who still was, she reminds herself--her older sister. "Ophelia," she says, before stopping short, not knowing what to say after that.