Still, she walked on.
Every time Marianne glanced over, Elizabeth straightened, as if by reflex. She drew her spine taut and added purpose to her step. It was instinct:don’t let them see.
Even Marianne, who had held her hand through their mother’s funeral, wasn’t allowed to see the full weight of her despair.
But Marianne knew anyway.
“It’s all right, Lizzie,” Marianne said softly, her voice like a steady hand. “You must let yourself feel what you need to feel.”
Elizabeth only nodded, unable to trust her voice to speak the truth.
That night, she sat before her sketchbook by the pale glow of a candle, the room heavy and still around her. The pencil felt awkward between her fingers, as though it belonged to someone else. She had avoided drawing since everything had shattered.
Her hand moved uncertainly at first, drawing tentative, trembling lines which scratched the paper without form or purpose.
Then, as if the pencil had a will of its own, it began to sketch a figure: a fragile woman seated alone on a cold bench beneath a skeletal tree stripped bare of leaves. Her shoulders were hunched, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Shadows clung to her like a shroud.
The branches above curled and reached out like gnarled fingers, threatening and unforgiving. The ground beneath was cracked and barren, strewn with fallen petals turned brown and brittle.
Elizabeth’s breath hitched as the drawing unfolded, her own sadness etched in every desperate line.
The woman’s face was hidden, turned away, but her loneliness screamed in the curve of her neck and the stiffness of her posture.
The pencil slipped from Elizabeth’s fingers. Her hands trembled as tears blurred the edges of the page.
She pressed her forehead against the cool wood of the desk and whispered into the silence, “This is where I am. This is what I feel.”
For the first time in days, she allowed herself to mourn fully.
It was not a hopeful drawing. It was not meant to be.
It was pain made visible. And, somehow, that made it real.
There was no point in waiting any longer. Alasdair had delayed justice for too many years, and now that a path had finally opened, he meant to walk it—whatever the cost.
The following evening, he went alone to The Hollow Lantern, a shadowed coffee house tucked near the edges of Shoreditch, known for its inconsistent hours and clientele who kept their hats low and questions to themselves.
Rain misted from the sky in fits and starts, slicking the cobblestones outside and making the gaslight reflections shimmer like oil on water. Alasdair wore his darkest coat, collar up, shoulders squared.
Beneath his left sleeve, a blade rested snug against his wrist, not for show, but because he trusted no one tonight.
Seth had offered to come, but Alasdair refused. There was no need to put his friend in danger.
The Hollow Lantern smelled of bitter coffee and old stone. Few patrons lingered tonight, and those who did kept their conversations hushed.
A man stood at a far table by the fogged-up window: tallish, wiry, with a face that looked like it had once been handsome before time, regret, and drink carved lines into it. His eyes were sharp beneath a broad-brimmed hat, and his well-worn coat was tailored enough to suggest he hadn’t always belonged to shadows.
“You Redmoor?” the man asked without standing.
“Aye,” Alasdair answered simply.
“Then I reckon I’m Thomas Cray,” the man replied, tilting his head toward the bench opposite. “Have a seat. We don’t need to be theatrical about it.”
Alasdair sat, but he didn’t remove his gloves. Or take his eyes off the man.
Cray didn’t bother with preambles. “I’ve got what Ambersen told you about. Though I doubt he mentioned the price.”
“Two hundred pounds,” Alasdair replied, already withdrawing a folded stack of notes from his coat.