The plan was born in the cold, still hours before dawn, whispered between them on their shared blanket, their bodies a fortress against the world outside. It was a desperate, dangerous plan, a gambit that relied on Silas Vane's own monstrous nature.
"He is a predator," Alistair murmured, his voice a low vibration against her ear. "He believes he is hunting wounded prey hiding in a den. We must make him believe the prey is vulnerable, exposed. We must make him reckless."
Elara listened, her heart hammering against her ribs, not with fear, but with a fierce, sharp focus. She was no longer a passive player in this game. She was his strategist, his accomplice in truth now.
"How?" she asked.
"We use what he wants most," Alistair said, his eyes glinting in the near darkness. "You. We give you to him."
She flinched, a involuntary jerk of her body.
"Not in truth," he said quickly, his arms tightening around her. "Never in truth. We dangle the bait. We let you be seen. Alone. Vulnerable. We make it seem like you have fled my protection, that we have had a terrible row. That you are on the streets, desperate, with nowhere to go."
He laid it out for her. She would leave the apothecary at a specific time, dressed in a worn, plain dress, carrying a small valise. She would go to a specific part of the city, a place where Silas's spies were most likely to see her. She would linger, looking lost and frightened. She would then take a room in a modest, crowded boarding house he had already identified, a place where a single woman would not be remarkable.
"And then we wait," Alistair finished, his voice grim. "He will not be able to resist. His arrogance, his belief that he has already won, will be his undoing. He will come for you himself. He will want to gloat, to savor his victory before he... disposes of you."
The word disposes hung in the air, cold and brutal.
"And you?" Elara asked, her throat tight.
"I will be there," he promised, his voice absolute. "Every moment. I will be watching. I will be waiting. The moment he shows himself, the moment he tries to take you, it ends."
It was a plan that made her blood run cold. It placed her directly in the lion's mouth. But looking into Alistair's eyes, seeing the cold fire of certainty there, she believed him. He would be there. He would not let the lion bite down.
"And Mrs. Dobbs? Clara?" she asked.
"A short trip to the seaside for her health," he said. "I will arrange it tomorrow. Mrs. Dobbs will take her. They will be far from here, safe from any fallout."
The simplicity of it was its brilliance. It cleansed the board of innocent pieces, leaving only the players.
She was silent for a long time, turning the plan over in her mind, examining its every terrifying facet. She thought of Silas's smiling face over her sickbed. She thought of the cold earth. Then she thought of Alistair's hand in hers, of Clara's steady breathing, of the feeling of belonging she had fought so hard to find.
She would not go back into the dark.
"Alright," she said, her voice barely a whisper, but filled with a steel he had never heard before. "We do it."
The next two days were a study in controlled chaos and painful lies.
Alistair became a man on the brink. He staged their argument for Mrs. Dobbs's benefit, his voice rising in uncharacteristic anger behind the closed door of the shop, shouting about "impossible pressure" and "needing space." Elara played her part, her voice breaking with tears she did not have to fake, for the fear was very real. She fled to the basement, sobbing.
Mrs. Dobbs was beside herself with distress. "Doctor, you must go to her! Apologize! The poor girl is beside herself!"
Alistair, his face a mask of weary frustration, shook his head. "She does not understand the pressure I am under, Mrs. Dobbs. With Clara... with everything... I need time to think. Alone."
It was then that he suggested the trip. A brilliant stroke. "The sea air would do Clara a world of good. And it would give us... give me... some time to clear my head. Please. Take her. I will cover all expenses."
Mrs. Dobbs, eager to solve the crisis and help her dear Clara, agreed with flustered haste. Within a day, she and Clara were on a coach headed for the coast, Clara confused but excited, Mrs. Dobbs casting one last, worried look at the apothecary before the coach pulled away.
The silence they left behind was deafening.
The house was now empty save for the two of them. The stage was set.
The night before she was to leave, they did not sleep. They sat together on the floor of the basement, their backs against the stone slab, their fingers intertwined.
"Are you afraid?" he asked her.
"Yes," she answered honestly. "But not of him. I am afraid of failing. Of not being strong enough."
"You are the strongest person I have ever known," he said, and the raw conviction in his voice banished the last of her doubts.
He reached into his boot and withdrew a small, slender object. A scalpel. Its blade caught the faint light, wickedly sharp.
"Take this," he said, pressing the cool handle into her palm. "Hide it in your sleeve. If anything goes wrong, if I am delayed for even a second, you fight. You go for his eyes, his throat. You do not hesitate."
The weight of the instrument in her hand was a sobering reminder of what they were about to do. She looked at the blade, then at the man who had given it to her. The doctor, the scientist, was arming her for battle.
She nodded, closing her fingers around the handle. It felt both alien and familiar. A tool of death, now a tool of survival.
He leaned forward and kissed her, a slow, deep kiss that tasted of desperation and a promise.
"Tomorrow," he whispered against her lips, "we take back our lives."
As the first grey light of dawn touched the high window, Elara picked up the small valise. She wore a drab, grey dress she had found in a trunk, her hair pulled back in a simple, severe style. She looked nothing like the woman who had been living in the basement. She looked like a servant girl, down on her luck.
Alistair stood by the door, his face a grim mask. He looked at her as if memorizing her, imprinting this image of her on his soul.
"Remember," he said, his voice thick. "The boarding house on Fetter Lane. I will be watching. Always."
She gave him one last, long look, pouring all her love, all her trust, into that single glance.
Then she turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the chilly morning air, alone.
The game had begun.