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Lazarus’s jaw flexes and Edward looks toward the window, then back at Haskell.
His voice is flat. “He cannot warn anyone.”
Haskell sobs harder, the room belongs to the decision. Then Lazarus kneels beside Haskell and speaks softly. “Mr. Haskell.”
Haskell looks at him with desperate hope, then Laz’s sickle slides free.
“There are women and children whose names you never learned because ledgers made them cargo. I know some of their names. Not enough. Never enough.” His voice lowers. “This is for the ones I do not know.”
The blade moves quickly. Merciful, compared to what I’d had planned.
I sigh. “You have stolen my amusement.”
Lazarus wipes the blade on Haskell’s coat. “You were playing too much.”
Edward’s mouth twists, an almost horrifying smile. The room smells better with death in it. Alcott stirs beneath my ribs and I turn toward the table, where Haskell’s papers sit scattered among bottles and unpaid debts. I gather everything, shipping receipts, keys, and a folded map of the south docks with markings.
Olive is not merely gone, she is just moving. Lazarus opens the door and looks into the rain-slick alley. “We need a ship.”
Edward answers at once. “We need the fastest one in Lockham.”
I tuck the papers into Alcott’s coat and step over Haskell’s body. “And explosives.”
Edward glares at me, then Lazarus smiles faintly as I continue toward the stairs.
“And knives, money, and perhaps a priest for anyone foolish enough to stand between us and her.”
Run, Collector.
We are coming and I have such beautiful things planned.
39. Time is Not Your Friend – Olive
Enough, Enough Now
Three months , I think, but time does not behave properly in captivity. It stretches, splinters, then vanishes. Some days last a century. Others disappear beneath laudanum, fever, pain, and the soft click of a door locking from the outside.
At first, I counted. Days scratched into the underside of a table, nights marked by candle stubs and some meals refused while some meals forced. Footsteps cataloged, voices sorted, routes guessed, windows measured and locks studied. I was The Widow then. Even chained, I was The Widow. Even starving, I sharpened myself against every wall of this place. Then he took the table, candles, window, my hairpins, my rings, clothing. He even took my blood. My womb. After that, time became less useful. Pain measures nothing honestly, it only insists.
I lie now upon a velvet chaise in a room painted baby blue, dressed in white silk and ribbons I did not choose. My hair has been brushed until my scalp ached. Powder softens the hollows beneath my eyes and rouge stains my cheeks into the appearance of health.
A doll must not look ill, only delicate. Only pretty enough to keep.
I stare at the ceiling and try not to move for movement invites attention, because attention invites correction. Then correction invites him. The Collector.
No.
I should call him by the name he had before the fire. The boy who unfortunately survived, the stepbrother I buried in ash and memory. Perhaps what crawled from that burning house was never a boy, but something the fire failed to finish. The door opens and my body reacts before my mind does and I flinch. Small and humiliating.
“Good morning, Little Doll.” His voice is sickly cheerful.
Austrian edges wrapped around English words like smooth butter. I do not answer, so he crosses the room slowly, cane tapping once, twice, three times against the floor. He has taken to carrying one lately, not because he needs it. Because he knows I lost mine and cruelty, in his hands, is never accidental. He stops beside the chaise and studies me.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “So much calmer now.”
Calm. Is that what he calls it? This hollowed thing inside me? This body that has learned to stop fighting when fighting only brings more hands, more straps, more threats whispered near my ear? He touches my chin. I do not bite him.
I want to.
