Page 33

I return to my work and allow the silence to hold what they cannot. Lazarus, for once, seems to recognize the boundary. He busies himself tying another parcel. Alcott watches me. Not hungrily. Not even flirtatiously. Curiously. As though I am a locked cabinet and he has already begun imagining tools to pry me open.

“And you, Widow?” he asks.

Edward’s gaze snaps toward me. The question hangs between us. I should lie.

I have built an entire life upon carefully chosen truths and beautiful omissions. Men trust a pretty lie far quicker than an ugly confession.

But the room is red and gold and impossible. The men before me are in color. And some reckless part of me is tired of being unseen.

“My mother died because men believed they had the right to take,” I say.

None of them interrupt.

Good.

“My life became very clear after that. Men with money and power are often praised for the very appetites that would have condemned women like us. They ruin lives, purchase silence, and call it business.”

I wipe my blade clean with slow, deliberate strokes.

“So I married them.”

Lazarus’s eyes brighten in interest. Edward looks pained. Alcott appears delighted.

“I let them believe I was soft. Grateful. Easily managed.” A smile touches my mouth, though there is no humor in it. “Then I relieved them of their fortunes, their influence, and eventually their lives.”

Alcott exhales a pleased sound. “Marvelous.”

Edward turns on him. “Do not encourage her.”

“I am encouraging artistry,” he retorts.

“I am not art,” I say.

All three men look at me.

I lift my chin. “I am consequence.”

The words settle over the room. For a moment, no one speaks. Then Lazarus presses one hand to his chest. “I fear I may be in love.”

Edward’s head turns slowly toward him.

Lazarus immediately lowers his hand. “Respectfully.”

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. Small. Startled. Entirely inappropriate. Yet once it leaves my mouth, the room changes. Not enough to erase the blood. Not enough to soften the dead. But enough. Lazarus smiles. Alcott grins. Edward looks at me as though I have just handed him something fragile and dangerous. I look away first. I do not know what to do with this feeling. I do not know what to call it. Safety seems impossible. Trust seems foolish. Comfort seems indecent.

Yet as we stand together in that dreadful shop, surrounded by evidence of every terrible thing we are capable of doing, I feel something I have not felt in years.

I feel less alone. The realization terrifies me. So I reach for another parcel and drop it into the crate.

“We are not friends,” I say.

“Of course not,” Alcott replies with a wicked grin.

“Certainly not,” Lazarus agrees with an equally sinful smile.

Edward’s voice is quieter. “No.”

But when I glance at him, his eyes are already on me. And for the first time since color returned to my world, I wonder if perhaps I should stop trying to name what is happening and simply allow myself to see it.