The gentle rhythm of her breathing was the only sound in the charnel house. Elara slept, curled in on herself like a fallen leaf, swallowed by the bulk of his coat. In the swaying lamplight, she looked peaceful. The terrible awareness had vanished from her face, leaving behind only the pale, sharp lines of exhaustion. For a few stolen moments, Alistair could pretend this was just a patient resting in a sanitarium.
The illusion was shattered by the jar beside her head, its pale, floating occupant a stark reminder of where they were. Of what he was.
He hadn't moved from the stool. His muscles were stiff with cold and a tension that had settled deep into his bones. Every few minutes, his eyes would dart to the iron door at the top of the short stairs, half-expecting a furious pounding, the inevitable arrival of the law or grieving relatives. But there was only the drip of water and the soft, wet catch in Elara's chest with every other breath.
What happens when I wake up?
Her question echoed in the silence, taunting him. He had no answer. Every path forward seemed to lead to ruin.
Letting her go was impossible. She knew his face, his name, the location of his secret. She'd seen things that would see him hanged. The moment she spoke to anyone, his life was over, and Clara's last, fragile hope vanished with it.
Keeping her here was a different kind of damnation. It made her question a reality. It made him a jailer. A kidnapper. The title felt even heavier than resurrection man.
He dropped his head into his hands, the heels of his palms pressing hard against his eyelids until he saw stars. The metallic scent of the room was a permanent stain in his sinuses. He was so tired. The kind of tired that sleep could never fix.
A soft rustle of fabric snapped his head up.
Elara was stirring. A low moan escaped her lips as consciousness returned, and with it, undoubtedly, the pain. Her eyes fluttered open, and for a heart-stopping second, they were soft with confusion. Then memory flooded back. He saw it happen a physical recoil, a tightening of her entire body. Her gaze swept the room, the jars, the slab, and finally landed on him. The fear was back, but it was sharper now, tempered by a grim understanding.
She pushed herself up slowly, wincing. The greatcoat slipped from her shoulders, but she clutched it closed with a white-knuckled fist.
The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. What did one say? Good morning felt like a obscene joke.
It was she who finally broke it, her voice raspy from sleep and illness. "Is there water?"
The mundane request was a lifeline. He nodded, too quickly, and stood. His joints protested. He fetched the tin cup, filled it from a relatively clean pitcher, and brought it to her. This time, he didn't set it on the floor. He held it out.
She hesitated, her eyes flicking from the cup to his face. The war was still there, but need won again. Her fingers, cold and slight, brushed against his as she took it. A tiny, electric shock of contact. She drank greedily, water sloshing down her chin.
"Thank you," she murmured, handing the empty cup back. She looked around again, her expression bleak. "It wasn't a nightmare, then."
"No," he said, his own voice rough. "It wasn't."
She drew a shaky breath. "You said you were a doctor."
"I am. I was. I trained at St. Bartholomew's." The words felt like a confession.
"And this?" She gestured vaguely at the macabre collection. "This is where doctors from St. Bartholomew's practice?"
"No." The word was final. He looked away, towards Clara's portrait. "This is where desperate men do desperate things."
She followed his gaze, her intelligent eyes taking in the careful setup of the second table, the clean tools. The pieces were still connecting in her mind.
"The procedure," she said slowly. "The one you were going to… practice. For your sister. What is it?"
Alistair went still. To speak it aloud was to make it real. To confess the depth of his madness. But her eyes were on him, not judging yet, just… asking. The words came out in a reluctant tide.
"The phrenic nerve," he said, his voice dropping into the clinical tone of his lectures. "It controls the diaphragm. The coughing… it's a spasm, a relentless, tearing spasm. I theorized that a precise intervention could interrupt the signal. Calm the muscle. Give the lungs a chance to heal." He laughed, a short, bitter sound. "It is… it is a monstrous risk. One slip and it paralyzes the diaphragm entirely. They would suffocate. I had to be perfect. I had to see the anatomy, to feel it…"
His voice trailed off. He had said too much.
Elara was just watching him, her face unreadable. She brought a hand to her own chest, as if she could feel the ghost of his scalpel.
"You were going to cut into a dead man to learn how to save a living woman," she stated flatly.
"Yes."
"And instead, you found a living woman."
"Yes."
Another silence. This one was different. He could almost see her turning it over in her mind, examining this twisted knot of morality and desperation from all angles.
"They told my family I was gone," she said quietly, not looking at him. "The fever was so high. The cough… they said my heart had stopped. I remember the dark. I remember the taste of soil." She shuddered, a full-body convulsion that threatened to trigger another cough. She fought it down, her eyes squeezing shut. When she opened them, they were glistening. "They were so quick to put me in the ground."
A fresh wave of shame washed over him. He had been just as quick to put her on the slab.
"I am… sorry," he said. The words were utterly inadequate.
"Sorry doesn't change it," she said, but there was no malice in it. It was just a fact. She was silent for a long moment. "You need me to be quiet. To disappear."
He couldn't deny it. He just nodded, his throat tight.
"And if I don't? If I walk out of that door? You hang, and your sister dies."
He nodded again, unable to speak.
She looked at Clara's portrait, then at the tools meant to save her. She took in the desperate, crumbling man in front of her.
"I want to live, Alistair Finch," she whispered, her voice trembling with a new kind of strength. "And it seems you are the only one who can currently ensure that I do. And you…" She took a ragged breath. "You need my silence to try and save her."
She was stating the terms of their mutual destruction. Their terrible, shared secret.
"So it seems," he managed to reply.
The faintest, most fragile understanding passed between them in the gloom. They were not allies. They were co-conspirators in a tragedy not of their making, chained together in this underground world.
The first, faint light of dawn was beginning to seep under the iron door, a grey, unwelcome sliver of the world outside. Their night was over. Their impossible day was beginning.