“They grow on you.”
“Fungus grows on you.”
Alaric allowed himself a twitch of a grin.
Castlebury sighed. “Go on, then. Go tell her. You look like hell, and if you don’t get this off your chest, you’ll muck up the rest of your life.”
“I thought you were going to lecture me about fraternizing with fiancées and how this is a bad look for the Yard.”
“Iwas. But you did your job. You protected the plot. Got your man. And didn’t even break your nose this time.” He squinted at Alaric’s shirt sleeve. “Although your spleen might’ve taken a hit.”
Alaric rose, wincing as his side pulled. “It was worth it.”
Castlebury didn’t argue. Instead, he waved him off with a grunt and reached for a stack of untouched paperwork. “Go. But if she winds up back in that cemetery before dusk, I’m sending youandthe ghost of my grandmother to drag her out. And trust me, nobody wants that.”
Alaric nodded, tugging on his coat with a wince and buttoning it despite the blood. “Understood.”
“And Ward?”
He paused in the doorway.
Castlebury looked at him, something unreadable in his expression. “Tell her… I’m sorry.”
Alaric’s throat tightened. He gave a single, solemn nod. Then he turned and strode into the gray-stained evening, aching all over, one hand pressed carrying Thea’s trunk, the other gripping the strap of the bag that held her camera and the undeveloped plate.
He had no idea what she’d see when she looked at it. But heprayed—with every ache in his damn ribs—that she’d see him there. And know what it meant.
By the time Alaric reached Thea’s townhouse, the London sky had surrendered to a weeping dark. Drizzle clung to his coat in stubborn patches, and gas lamps flared in the mist like watchful eyes. The entire day had gone to hell in a ledger, every minute since sunrise devoured by blood, bureaucracy, and one very smug grave robber now missing two teeth and nursing a sprained wrist.
He was soaked. Bruised. Exhausted. And all he could think about washer.
He shifted the weight of the trunk on his shoulder and adjusted the long camera bag in his other shoulder, the strap digging cruelly into muscles already sore from hauling bodies—living and otherwise—out of Highgate. A coal cart splashed past, sending a wave of cold muck over his boots. He didn’t flinch. Couldn’t afford to. Not with his insides already a quagmire of guilt and unspoken things.
The townhouse was lit.
Not brightly, not rudely—just a low golden glow from the front windows, warm and steady, like a hearth that didn’t judge. He stood there longer than he meant to, watching the flicker of movement behind the curtains, half tempted to leave the trunk and camera on the step and vanish back into the night like a man without tether.
But then he imagined her opening the door and not finding him there. And that—that was unbearable.
He knocked. Once.
The door opened almost instantly. Thea stood there in a shawl and stockinged feet, curls piled messily atop her head like she’d tried to distract herself with something domestic and failed spectacularly. Her eyes were wide and dark in thelamplight, catching on his bruised face and damp shoulders, then on the trunk, then—gently—on him.
“You came back,” she said, voice soft as chimney smoke.
“I said I would.” He cleared his throat. “Didn’t realize I’d have to beat a man with a tombstone to do it, but—”
Her mouth fell open.
He set the trunk down. Then, with more care than he’d shown anyone all day, he unslung the long camera case and held it out to her like an offering. “This was still there. Dry. Untouched.”
Her hand hovered over it like she was afraid it might vanish. “Thank you.”
He hesitated, eyes flicking from the case to her face. “Camera went off on its own. Thought you’d want to… see if it caught anything.”
Her brow knitted. “It just… went off?”
He gave a slow nod, jaw tight. “No one was near it. No onetouchedit.”
