The rain had started up again, a soft, insistent tap-tap-tapping on the iron door above. It was the only sound for a long moment, besides the ragged symphony of their breathing. His, a shallow, guilty pant. Hers, a desperate, scraping gasp, each one a battle against the weight in her chest.
She was a crumpled sketch of a person on the cold stone floor, all sharp angles and trembling limbs wrapped in a cheap burial shroud. Her eyes, a startling hazel even in the bad light, weren't just wide with fear. They were shattered. They darted from the glass jars with their pale, floating things to the scalpel on the floor between them, its edge catching the lamplight in a cruel wink. He saw the moment her mind connected the instruments to the slab, to him, and the silent understanding that she'd traded one tomb for another.
His own heart was a frantic animal beating against his ribs. He could smell the damp wool of his coat, the coppery tang of old blood, the formalin that never really left the air. He could smell the fresh, clean scent of rain on her, a brutal contrast to this place. He took a step, just one, and the scrape of his boot on the stone made her flinch so violently it hurt to watch.
"Please." The word came out rough, unused. His throat was tight. "I didn't know. You have to... you have to believe I didn't know."
She made a sound then, low in her throat. It wasn't a word. It was the kind of sound a rabbit makes in a snare. She shoved herself backward, her shoulder knocking a shelf. The jars trembled, the things inside swirling in their cloudy broth. The movement wasn't threatening. It was pure, unthinking panic.
"Don't." It was a whisper, raw and torn. "Don't come near me."
He stopped. He raised his hands, showing her his empty, dirty palms. The gesture felt stupid. Meaningless. What were empty hands in a room full of this?
"I'm a doctor," he said, and the title felt like a lie he was telling both of them. He tried to gentle his voice, the way he did for Clara when the fevers were bad. "There was a mistake. At the cemetery. You were... I brought you here." He couldn't say the rest. The truth of what he'd been about to do sat in his gut like a stone.
Her eyes, glassy with unshed tears, flicked from his face to the scalpel and back. The question was there, hanging in the air between them, more terrible for being unasked.
"Alistair Finch," he said, and slowly, carefully, he lowered himself to his haunches. The cold of the floor seeped through his trousers. "My name is Alistair Finch. You're in London. You're safe." He heard the hollow ring of the lie as soon as he said it. Safe. This woman would never feel safe again.
A shudder wracked her whole body. She pulled the rough linen tighter, a pathetic shield. "Safe," she repeated, and the word was a bitter, broken thing. Her gaze swept over the blood on his cuffs, the saws, the relentless, grim order of his work. "This is hell."
And then the cough took her. It wasn't a polite cough. It was a deep, racking convulsion that bent her double, a sound that stole her breath and left her shaking. It was a sound he knew in his bones, a sound that echoed from the small room above the apothecary shop. When it passed, she was left gasping, and a bright, fresh stain of crimson bloomed against the pale cloth at her lips.
Consumption.
The word didn't just enter his mind. It slammed into his chest, knocking the air from him. The weak pulse, the shallow breath. It wasn't just a tragic error. She was sick. Dying. The same thief that was stealing Clara was stealing her. And he had been moments from...
The shame was a hot, sick flood. He moved without thinking, stumbling to the basin, fumbling for a clean rag. He wet it, the water shockingly cold on his skin. He approached her like she was a wounded bird, every movement slow, obvious.
"You're ill," he said, his voice low. He held out the cloth. "Please. Let me help. I am a doctor." This time, he meant it. This was the only part of it that was ever supposed to be real.
She recoiled from his hand, but her eyes were fixed on the damp cloth, on the simple promise of relief. He saw the war in her face, the animal fear fighting a basic, human need. Her hand, trembling badly, escaped the shroud and snatched the cloth from him. She pressed it to her mouth, then to her forehead, her eyes squeezing shut. For one second, just one, her face softened into something like peace. The simple humanity of it, a small comfort in all this horror, made his throat ache.
When her eyes opened again, the raw terror had receded just enough. She was looking past him, at the shelves of books, the pinned diagrams of muscle and bone, the hanging herbs. She was reading the room, the story of him.
"Doctors," she said, her voice gaining a thin, sharp edge, "work in clean rooms. With light." Her eyes came back to him, accusing, but now they were asking a real question. Who are you?
He had no answer. He could only stand there, exposed.
Her gaze traveled, searching, and then it stopped. On the small table in the corner. It was cleaner than the rest. The tools there were finer, more delicate. And beside it, propped against the stone wall, was a small, hand-painted portrait of a girl with kind eyes and a smile that didn't quite reach them, because it couldn't.
The woman on the floor saw it. He saw her see it. Her eyes moved from the portrait to the delicate tools, to the raw anguish on his face that he could no longer hide. The pieces, the awful, understandable pieces, were clicking into place. The monster was fading, replaced by something far more complicated.
The silence stretched, filled only by the drip of water and the ragged saw of her breath.
She looked from the portrait back to him, and her expression changed. The fear was still there, a bedrock, but on top of it settled something else. A dawning, horrifying understanding.
"Who is she?" Her voice was quiet, but it wasn't a whisper anymore. It was clear. It demanded.
The question broke him. The weight of it all, the months of fear, the solitary nights in this grim place, the terror of what he'd almost done crashed down. His legs gave out. He sank onto a wobbly stool, the wood groaning, and dropped his face into his hands. The smell of his own hands, of chemicals and earth, filled his nose.
"My sister," he choked out, the words thick and muffled by his palms. "Clara. She's dying. I was... I was trying to learn. To save her."
He waited for the scream. For the curses. For her to scramble away from the madman.
The sound that came was worse. It was nothing. A silence so deep he could hear the sweat trickle down his back.
He forced himself to look up.
She was just watching him, the damp cloth a tight ball in her fist. The terror in her eyes had been joined by something that made his stomach twist into a cold knot. A shared, devastating grief.
Her eyes went to the main slab, then back to the clean, careful tools meant for a living, breathing heart.
The awful truth settled in the space between them, cold and final.
When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow. Empty.
"And I was the practice."