The men still followed, asking her questions she couldn’t hear. But she was nearly to the top, the gas lamps and storefronts gleaming on the street ahead, but the men were gaining, and she swore she could hear them panting now, feel their hot breath, feel the brush of their fingers on her neck.
“Miss?” the man with the broken teeth said again.
“I said get away!” Persephone turned around, threw her arms back and screamed as loud as she could. But when she opened her eyes, the alley was empty. The men had retreated into the fog, slinking away like rats.
A voice came from behind her.
“Madam,” the voice said. It was a man’s voice, deep with a pleasantly aristocratic accent. She turned around, and a coach stood before her. The carriage was black, laced with silver coachwork of five-petaled flowers and speckled ivy. Two horses stamped their feet in the mud; magnificent pale mares, their breath steaming in the rain. The door of the carriage was open, but the lanterns within were unlit. Only darkness waited beyond the doors.
“Madam,” the voice repeated, “I could not help but notice that you appear distressed. I stopped my coach to see if I could offer you some assistance.”
Persephone smiled through the tears. A coach, after her ownhad abandoned her. And what a fine coach it was; her savior was surely very wealthy. She thought, in that blissful moment, that fortune must be smiling down on her.
“That would be lovely. I’m afraid I’ve gotten quite lost,” she said, her voice cracking. “My coach dropped me off in the wrong spot, you see. I feel quite foolish. I have a ball to attend at Syon House.”
The man laughed, a cold, clear sound. “I was actually on my way to the very same ball. Although I would imagine you would like to change your gown, first. Might I have the pleasure of escorting you home?”
Persephone knew—everything she had been taught from girlhood told her—that she should not enter a carriage with a strange man unchaperoned. But in that moment, in the cold, bleeding and drenched in mud, she did not care.The man’s honor must be impeccable,she thought,to drive a coach so fine.
She curtsied, leg shaking and stomach screaming. “That would be most generous, my lord. I would owe you a debt.”
A hand extended from the shadows, clad in a black glove. “Come along, my dear,” he said. Before she took his hand, Persephone looked upward. Snow fell through the alleyway, little white stars that mingled with the ash. The very first snowfall of the year.
Persephone took the man’s hand and stepped into the carriage, sliding into the seat across from him. The door closed behind her, and the coach lurched forward.
It was a spacious coach, and she found she could still not see the man’s face beneath his hat and collar. He seemed half a shadow, much like the rest of the compartment. Thin slats of light crept through the gaps in the curtains.
“I must thank you again, sir,” Persephone said. “May I have the name of my benefactor?”
The man laughed. “You look pale, my dear. Have you eaten this evening?”
“Oh, no. I’m not hungry,” she said. Her stomach still ached, but the carriage was warm. She felt as though she could sleep. Sleep and never wake again.
“You must be famished, after all you’ve been through. Here,” he said, “have something to eat.”
The man’s gloved hand appeared as they moved past a gas lamp. She watched, in the flickering light, as a tendril snaked from beneath his sleeve, the tip swelling into a small, dark fruit. A single grape shone in the man’s palm.
“Please,” he said, “you must keep your strength.”
Persephone looked at the fruit. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful, and good manners dictated that she accept any food that was offered. If she refused him, he may be offended. And what would he do then?
“Thank you, my lord,” she said. She took it, examining the fruit in the flickering light. She placed it in her mouth and she bit down. A rush of sweetness overcame her. He was right—she had been famished. The grape was a little piece of spring in a long, cold winter.
She swallowed. A tingling traced down her throat.
“Good?” the man said.
Persephone nodded, attempting a smile. But her face did not move.
In a moment, her head lolled to the side. She tried to lift it again, but she couldn’t. The shadows in the carriage began to move, swirling around her, closing in. She attempted to speak, but her mouth was numb. Her whole body was numb. Even the pain in her stomach was gone, a distant memory.
Something tickled her legs, crawling over her gown.
“Yes. You will do splendidly,” he said. His voice echoed back to her in parts, as though it were refracted through glass.
Something snaked over the bodice of her gown, weaving through the layers of fabric. She tried to look down but found she couldn’t move her head. Still, in the half-shadow, she thought she saw ivy. Ivy, creeping up her gown. It tickled as it grew over her neck, over her face, between her lips.
The man across from her leaned forward, bringing his face into the light of the gas lamps. She saw it there, for the first time: not a face at all but a nest of green tendrils, writhing like serpents.
