The peace of the lamplit basement was a fragile thing, a thin veneer over a well of exhaustion and unspoken fear. Alistair stood for a long time, just watching them. Clara, breathing the deep, easy breaths of a miracle. Elara, asleep in a chair, her own rest looking thin and frayed at the edges, a faint line of worry etched between her brows even in slumber.
He should wake her. She should go upstairs to a proper bed. But the thought of disturbing the scene, of breaking the spell of this hard won tranquility, felt like a violation. Let her have this peace for a little while longer.
His own body was a collection of aches and tremors. The adrenaline that had sustained him through the surgery and the confrontation had drained away completely, leaving him hollowed out. Every muscle protested as he moved quietly to his desk, sinking into the wooden chair with a soft groan. He dropped his head into his hands, his fingers pressing against his closed eyelids until he saw stars. The images of the day played behind them in a horrific slideshow. The scalpel. The blood. Silas Vane's cold, smiling eyes.
He didn't know how long he sat like that, lost in the dark behind his own eyes. A small sound pulled him back. A shift in breathing.
He looked up. Elara was stirring. Her eyes fluttered open, blinking against the low light. For a moment, she was disoriented, her gaze unfocused. Then it landed on Clara, and memory snapped back into place. She sat up quickly, her hand instinctively reaching out to check the pulse in Clara's wrist.
Finding it steady, she let out a soft sigh of relief. Only then did her eyes scan the room and find him watching her.
"You are still here," she said, her voice husky with sleep. "You did not rest."
"Neither did you," he replied. The words were simple, but they carried the weight of the night they had shared.
She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "I could not leave her." She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was barely a whisper. "I was afraid if I looked away, the breathing would stop."
He knew that fear intimately. It had been his constant companion for months. To hear it from her, to know she had shouldered that burden for him, even for a few hours, unlocked something tight and clenched in his chest.
"Thank you," he said. The words were inadequate, but they were all he had.
She simply nodded, accepting it. Her eyes traveled over his face, taking in the deep shadows under his eyes, the grim set of his mouth. "What happened upstairs? I heard a man's voice. Raised voices."
The memory of Silas Vane's visit crashed back into the quiet room. The fragile calm shattered. He took a slow breath, choosing his words with care. He would tell her the truth, but he would spare her the full weight of his new lie, the one about her fleeing a cruel brother. That was his burden to carry.
"He came here. Silas Vane."
He saw the color drain from her face. Her hands clenched in the fabric of her skirt. She didn't speak, but her eyes asked the terrified question.
"He had heard rumors. About the grave. About my questions at the chemist." Alistair kept his voice low and even, trying to project a calm he did not feel. "He accused me of stealing from him."
Elara made a small, choked sound in her throat. Her fear was a physical thing in the room, thick and suffocating.
"He threatened to bring the constables," Alistair continued. "I told him to do it. I called his bluff. I told him if they found nothing, I would ruin him." He let out a short, humorless breath. "He left. But he will be back. He is not a man who gives up."
Elara was trembling now, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She looked like she had in those first terrible moments in the basement, the ghost seeing a ghost. "He will find me. He will finish what he started."
"No." The word came out sharper than he intended, fueled by a sudden, fierce protectiveness that surprised him. "He will not. Mrs. Dobbs knows he was here. She knows his name. She believes he is a cruel man you fled from. She is on your side. On our side. This house is your fortress now."
He watched her process this, the information slowly cutting through the panic. Mrs. Dobbs's kindness was a shield she had not expected. A tiny flicker of hope lit in her eyes, so fragile it threatened to extinguish with a wrong breath.
"She believes that?" Elara asked, her voice small. "That I ran away?"
Alistair hesitated, then gave a single, grim nod. "It was the only story that made sense to her. It is the story that will keep you safe."
He could see the conflict on her face. The relief of being protected warring with the shame of the deception. She was living a life built on another person's compassion for a fiction.
Before she could respond, a weak cough from the table broke the tension. Not the old, wrenching hack, but a faint, clearing sound.
They both turned, their shared worry instantly redirecting to Clara.
Her eyelids were fluttering. A soft moan escaped her lips. Her hand twitched on the blanket.
Alistair was at her side in an instant, Elara just a step behind him.
"Clara?" he whispered, his heart in his throat. "Clara, can you hear me?"
Her eyes opened. They were glassy with sleep and confusion, but they were focused. They found his face. For the first time in weeks, she truly saw him.
"Alistair?" Her voice was a dry, raspy thread of sound. "My throat… it hurts."
It was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.
Tears, the ones he had been too numb and terrified to shed, finally welled in his eyes. He grabbed the cup of water, supporting her head with a tenderness that made his hands shake, and helped her take a small sip.
"What…" she murmured, her eyes drifting around the strange, dim room, the stone walls, the shelves of jars. They landed on Elara, standing anxiously behind him. Confusion deepened on her pale face. "Who…?"
Elara looked to Alistair, her own eyes wide. This was a question they had not prepared for.
He made a split second decision. Truth. As much as he could give.
"This is Elara," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "She is a friend. She has been helping me. Helping you."
Clara's weary gaze studied Elara for a long moment. Then, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her cracked lips. "Pretty," she whispered, before her eyes fluttered closed again, succumbing to a deep, natural sleep.
The two words hung in the air. A simple, innocent observation that seemed to change everything.
Alistair looked at Elara. A faint blush had risen on her cheeks. She looked away, suddenly fascinated by the edge of the blanket.
In that moment, the basement was not a tomb of horrors. It was not a prison of lies. It was simply a room where a sick woman had woken up, seen a pretty face, and gone back to sleep. The normalcy of it was utterly disarming.
The fear of Silas Vane, the weight of the deception, the memory of the surgery, it all receded, just a little. They were not a resurrection man and his stolen corpse. They were not a doctor and his accomplice. They were just two tired people, standing vigil over a third, bound together by a miracle they still didn't fully understand.
Alistair gently adjusted Clara's blanket. "You should go up," he said to Elara, his voice soft. "Mrs. Dobbs will have a proper bed for you. You need real sleep."
"What about you?" she asked, her concern for him a quiet, steady thing.
"I will stay here," he said. "I will keep watch."
She didn't argue. She just nodded, understanding the need for it. She turned to go, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to take one last look at Clara, ensuring the breathing was still steady.
Their eyes met across the room. No words passed between them, but a world of understanding did. They were partners in this now, for better or worse.
Then she turned and climbed the stairs, leaving him alone with the sound of his sister's breathing and the echoing silence of all the things that remained unsaid.