Eulothorne scoffed, his laughter folding itself into the cold air like a blade drawn slow. The lamplight faltered, its glow paling as the curtains lashed violently from an unlatched window. Shadows leapt along the walls, and the room sank into something uncanny, as though the night itself had leaned in to listen.
"I don't think you understand what it means to be sold, Loxley."
Florence stepped forward. Whatever clarity had seized her did so like a fever; sudden, reckless, and sharp. "You are the one who does not understand, Eulothorne."
His brow furrowed at the sound of his name stripped bare of honorifics. Still, her heels struck the ceramic floor with a steady resolve that betrayed her trembling heart.
"I know why you are so insistent on this marriage," Florence said.
She had expected surprise, some fracture in his composure, but his face remained carved from ice. Her jaw tightened.
"Oh?" Eulothorne arched a brow, a faint smile threatening the corner of his mouth. He did not look exposed. If anything, he looked entertained, as though indulging a child's bravado.
Florence drew in a breath, forcing the words through the fear clawing at her throat.
"You need me. If you did not, you would not be in such haste. You need me for something, and I know it."
Eulothorne studied her in silence, his gaze sinking past her defiance and into the fear glinting in her eyes; the truth her voice denied. A slow smirk curved his lips, one filled with unsettling certainty.
He reached out and placed a hand upon her head.
Florence stiffened, nerves screaming, but the touch was unexpectedly gentle. Almost reverent. He withdrew at once and turned, gripping the door.
"Meet me at the private chapel," he said coolly. "The day after tomorrow."
The door slammed shut with a thunderous crack against the frame. Florence flinched instinctively. Loud sounds had always meant anger to her—but with Eulothorne, she could never tell. His fury was too quiet, too controlled.
As she made her way out to the stillness of the candlelit corridor, a servant awaited her in the corridor. She was slight, almost fragile in appearance, her features soft and unassuming. In her arms she carried a long box, nearly four feet in length. Florence needed no explanation. She recognized it at once, a gown of rare make, unmistakably expensive. Her breath caught when she noticed the familiar scratch along its edge.
Some fates, it seemed, remained unchanged.
She understood then: meeting Eulothorne again had always meant marriage. London was still a maze she could not navigate, and escape had already slipped beyond her grasp.
"I have prepared a carriage for you, Miss Loxley," the servant said gently, offering a polite smile.
Florence bowed in thanks. As she stepped beyond the manor gates, moonlight spilled across the servant's face, illuminating features Florence had once known by heart.
"Rhea…" The name left her lips in a breathless whisper.
Her chest tightened. She had nearly forgotten that face, forgotten her entirely. Tears blurred Florence's vision as the realization struck her: the woman she had once confided in stood before her, alive.
The servant tilted her head, faintly amused, and lowered her gaze in courtesy. "Do you know me, Miss Loxley?"
Florence forced a smile. "You seem… familiar."
The bitterness beneath it tasted like regret. If only she had not tried to flee her fate in her former life, Rhea would not have been placed in danger. After Florence's death, she had never learned what became of her, and that uncertainty had haunted her more cruelly than memory itself.
A horseman waited beside the carriage, his silhouette rigid against the iron lamps lining the drive. At the sight of the two women emerging from the manor, he hurried forward and bowed low.
"Good evening, Miss."
He relieved the servant of the long box and secured it atop the carriage with practiced ease. Moments later, he swung open the black iron door. Inside, the carriage was lined with rose-hued fabrics and quilted velvet, lavish and intimate, as though prepared not for a guest, but for the lady of the house herself.
Florence stepped inside, her slight weight drawing only a faint creak from the carriage floor. She had always been small, easy to overlook, easy to move aside. The horseman wasted no time; the reins snapped, hooves struck stone, and the carriage lurched forward into the waiting night.
The servant remained where she stood, eyes fixed upon the darkened window, as though sheer persistence might allow her to glimpse Florence within. Her thoughts churned in quiet confusion. She could not fathom how the young woman might know her, she could not reconcile the familiarity in Florence's gaze with the certainty that they had never met.
Even when the black carriage dissolved into fog and distance, the servant did not look away. She watched until the street swallowed it whole.
From above, the view was indistinct, the lamps below blurred by creeping mist and the thickened dark. Yet Eulothorne saw clearly enough. Fog and shadow could dull many things, but not his attention. He observed her departure with a hunter's stillness, eyes narrowed, mind alert.
Like a constable studying a suspect whose crime he could not yet name, he watched Florence Loxley vanish into London's veins; unease stirring within him, sharp and inexplicable.
Elizabeth lingered upon the balcony of the hotel suite, a crystal goblet of costly wine resting loosely in her hand. The night draped itself around her as though it belonged to her alone; even her posture carried the arrogance of ownership, as if the city below were merely an extension of her will. Her sharp eyes traced the streets as they slowly emptied, lanterns dimming one by one as the hour grew old and weary.
Boredom clung to her like a persistent ache. She could not shake it off, yet she was bound in place, her funds nearly spent, her freedom curtailed by the very extravagance she could not relinquish.
"That man… Eulothorne," she muttered, scratching at her temple. "Clever to the point of irritation."
Her gaze drifted to the small pouch at her side, its weight pitiful, only a few sovereigns remained from her arrangement with Emaranthe. Elizabeth had never denied her nature as a spender, but London demanded far more than she had anticipated. To appear wealthy here was a far costlier performance.
"Perhaps asking for more would not be so improper," she mused aloud, lips curling faintly. "After all, they are buying my daughter."
A low laugh slipped from her, sharp with mockery. A smirk twisted her mouth, disdain pooling in her eyes. "Should I demand a share of Florence's inheritance?"
She scoffed at the thought almost immediately. Absurd. Dangerous. In the depths of her heart, she knew better than to touch what Gillian had left behind for his child. That fortune was a curse wrapped in gold, and she had no wish to be crushed beneath it.
Her gaze lifted toward the darkened horizon, and her voice softened into something colder, more venomous.
"Amusing, is it not?" she murmured. "That wretched old man is dead, and I still draw breath to see it. All his wealth could not spare him from such an end."
She raised her glass and drank, the wine bitter on her tongue, as the city below slept, unaware of the bargains sealed above its streets.
Elizabeth continued her endless muttering, amused by her own thoughts; by what she found laughable, by the countless ways she might yet wring more coin from her circumstances. She did not sense the change in the air, did not hear how the wind carried with it footsteps steeped in barely restrained fury.
Florence's strides struck the tiled floor of the hotel corridor, each step heavier than the last. The sound alone was enough to make the receptionist stiffen, color draining from his face. There was something unmistakable in her bearing, something imperious and dreadful that recalled the man who owned the establishment himself. After all, she bore the blood of the Loxleys.
Still lost in her merriment, Elizabeth remained oblivious to what approached. She had never truly known Florence, never imagined her capable of such concentrated rage. She swayed lightly to the distant music drifting in from another room, her movements careless, foolish—unaware that this fragile calm was nothing more than the eye of an oncoming storm.
Then the wind surged.
Candles guttered and died all at once, their flames snuffed out as if by an unseen hand. Only a solitary lamp remained by the bedside, casting a thin, trembling light across the room. It was as though the gale itself had answered Florence's wrath.
Footsteps thundered closer, reverberating through the suite like an accusation that refused to be silenced. The door flew open under Florence's hand. She stood there, eyes rimmed red with fury, her presence heavy enough to crush the air.
Elizabeth startled, spinning around.
"Florence, you're back already?" she exclaimed. "What did Eulothorne say to you?"
Florence's restraint shattered.
Elizabeth mistook the tension for theatrics, dismissing it with a careless air. Whether dulled by age or by a lifetime of cruelty, she failed to recognize true anger. Perhaps because she had never afforded Florence the dignity of humanity enough to learn its signs.
"You sold me to the Oberons?" Florence yelled.
Elizabeth did not flinch. She only laughed, light and dismissive, as though mirth alone might pacify the storm she had summoned. "I suspected you'd find out eventually."
Florence's expression darkened, revulsion twisting through her veins. Then Elizabeth spoke again; softly, carelessly, and the words struck harder than any blow.
"You already know, don't you?" Elizabeth said, her smile sharp and unguarded. "You're my merchandise."
The grin she wore was never meant to be seen, yet now it bared itself fully, monstrous in the lamplight.