“I say, you have me very curious,” Norton replied before taking a slow sip from his glass. “However, if you are interested in the Fairfax family legacy, you will dig up old bones. The viscount’s only daughter…” He shook his head. “Very sad that she had to perish in the fire.”
“True. However, some fires never quite die out,” Elias said, stepping closer. “Especially the kind started on purpose.”
That earned a few glances from the nearby guests. Norton shifted his stance slightly, angling his back to the others. “I suggest you mind your words, captain,” he said coldly. “Insinuation without evidence is how duels begin.”
“And guilt without consequence is how monsters thrive.”
Norton’s nostrils flared. His polished calm began to fray.
Elias reached into his coat and drew out a folded leather folio. The edges were worn, the documents within meticulously prepared. “I thought you might appreciate an update from the Office of Records.”
He handed the first sheet over, deliberately facing it downward, letting Norton flip it. It was a forged—but perfectly executed—declaration revoking Isobel Fairfax’s death certificate, complete with registry seals and two notarized signatures. It stated, in elegant type:By order of the Crown Registrar, the subject’s death shall henceforth be considered unverified pending further inquiry.
Norton’s fingers tightened on the parchment.
Elias offered the second page, a legal statement of guardianship renunciation, declaring Miss Fairfax alive, sane, and intent on reclaiming both her identity and estate.
“This is a fabrication,” Norton spat.
“Is it?” Elias’s voice was low, deliberate. “Because I’ve already shown copies to two journalists and an associate at the Exchequer. I wonder which will print it first.”
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Norton snapped, voice sharp as glass.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Elias replied. “I’m reminding the world that Isobel Fairfax never died. And that the man who declared her lost—who claimed her dowry and used her estate to prop up his political ladder—lied the entire time.”
Norton stepped in, fury pulsing beneath his skin.
“Take heed, dearcaptain.You are meddling where you shouldn’t be,” he growled. “You think anyone cares about a dead girl five years gone?”
“But what if she’s not dead?” Elias asked with a voice like steel. “And what if she’s not afraid of you anymore?”
Fear flickered in Norton’s eyes. “I’ll ruin you,” he said.
“You’ve already tried,” Elias answered. “And failed.”
The music in the ballroom faltered slightly, and the quartet hesitated on a note. Heads turned, murmurs rising. The guests knew something was wrong, even if they didn’t understand what. Norton seemed to sense it too.
He reined in his anger, smoothing his face into something close to civility. “You’ve made your point, so I strongly suggest you leave. Now.”
Elias stepped back, inclining his head. “Gladly.”
But as he turned to go, he looked over his shoulder one final time. “Ghosts are difficult to silence, Norton. Especially when they’ve found their voice again.”
He left the ballroom without another word, letting the warmth and noise fall away behind him.
*
The fog wasthicker than before, heavy as wool and clinging like regret.
It wrapped around her like wet linen, silencing the world, stealing shape and sound until the cemetery looked like something unholy—a forgotten realm where even ghosts dared not speak. Trees blurred into skeletal silhouettes. The iron fence groaned low as wind hissed through its rusting teeth.
Isobel moved like a whisper, boots gliding over damp stone and earth. Her pulse ticked high in her throat. The lamp she carried was shuttered to a mere slit of light, just enough toilluminate the graves at her feet—familiar names she’d once traced with her fingers. The dead, at least, she could trust.
She was nearly at her little cottage behind the overgrown wall when she heard it. Footsteps. Close. Too close.
She darted behind a crooked tombstone, lungs frozen mid-breath. Two men emerged from the mist, dark shapes outlined only by the glow of their lantern. One carried a cane. The other had something tucked beneath his coat that glinted when the light hit just right. A blade?
She crouched lower and extinguished her lantern. One of the men laughed—a sharp, quiet sound that made her stomach turn.
