Sunset ^beta

Chapter Text

After over two months on the run, it had apparently taken Nell Jackson and her companion only a week to find Sofia and her brother.

As if that was not humiliating enough, Jackson had not even made use of her unnatural abilities in her scramble with Sofia – who knew she should have been grateful, because if Jackson had thrown her dozens of feet, the landing just might have killed her, especially in her weakened state. Nevertheless, the wound Jackson’s mercy left upon Sofia’s self-esteem would still be bleeding long after her bruise and split lip healed.

Of course, it seemed only natural that Nell Jackson would have such an easy time. How could she have otherwise survived being hunted for two months without either divine intervention or else unparallelled luck?

Sofia did not feel she owed her survival to anyone or anything except for her own stubborn will to live. If God had played any part, He clearly had less of a distaste for witchcraft than she had been led to believe.

It sickened her to see her salvation take the form of the woman whose blood she had spent months lusting after.

Even more shameful was how little it had taken for Sofia to acquiesce and surrender to them: it had taken no more than the offer of medical aid for Thomas and a piece of dried meat that Jackson held in front of her nose – because the Queen's hero was no better than a bully teasing a starving stray.

Ultimately, Sofia had put up no fight when Charles scooped their weapons up off the ground and put them with his and Jackson’s own belongings. In that moment, it felt like a worthwhile trade.

While Thomas had complained that he was in too much pain to eat, Sofia had eaten the meat and bread offered with such haste that it seemed to burn inside her stomach. The ride in the back of the shaking cart did nothing to ease that discomfort, and she had to will herself to keep the meal down. It was a task that left her quiet for most of the trip towards civilisation.

Their two captors – or rescuers, as they no doubt believed themselves to be – talked about stupid, idle topics, acting as if Sofia and Thomas weren’t there. Normally, it bothered Sofia when people spoke as if she was not present, no matter how accustomed to it she had been; this time, it was strangely comforting to listen to chatter that wasn’t centred around hunger, pain, or vengeance.

By the time they reached the village, she could not have recounted what the two had discussed. Sofia’s brow ached from glaring at the back of Jackson's head.

Jackson pulled the cart over to the side of the road and stood up. Without warning, she abruptly took off her hat and flung it at Sofia. Before Sofia could ask why she had done it, Jackson had begun to shrug off her jacket; in a moment, that too was dumped in Sofia’s arms.

‘Right. I’ll find someone willing to help this idiot,’ she said, of course referring to Thomas. ‘You put those on and stay here. Try not to draw attention to yourselves.’

It was not much of a disguise, but it was another layer against the cold.

Despite Jackson’s instructions, Sofia left her brother with Charles and followed her as far as the fence that marked the edge of someone’s property; the overgrown grass that Nell walked through on one side of the fence differed little from the wild grass that rustled against Sofia’s skirts on the other side. At one point, Jackson turned back and saw Sofia standing there, but only shook her head before continuing onwards.

Sofia felt a longing all the way down to her bones at the sight of chimney smoke. In the last two months, there had been times when she wondered if she would survive long enough to experience again the comforts of being indoors; of having a bath or wearing clean clothes.

For the first time in weeks, she allowed herself to take in her own appearance as best she could without a mirror, starting with her hands: they were as black as if she had crushed charcoal between them; there was dirt under every fingernail, with the addition of dried blood on her right hand from where she had – in a moment of wild, hate-filled passion – begun to claw at Jackson’s face. Her mouth twitched into a brief smile at the memory.

As for the rest of her body, her dress concealed her, despite its many tears. It hung loosely in places it should have been tight. The way she had needed to tighten her stays just a little more each passing week had made it impossible for her to ignore the outward effects of starvation. She indignantly balled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms.

Twenty minutes later, Jackson came back into view; Sofia spent that time seething.

Without her hat, the woman’s hair was even easier to recognise at a distance; it seemed startlingly red in the evening sunlight; she ran a hand over it to smooth it down as she walked towards Sofia, looking back and forth at her surroundings, almost as if expecting an ambush.

When she reached the fence upon which Sofia was leaning, she rested upon it from the opposite side. Neither of them looked directly at one another, even when Jackson began to speak.

‘So, I found someone, and even though he ain’t a proper surgeon –’ She held up a hand to keep Sofia from interrupting, still without looking at her. ‘– he’s the best we’ll find in miles, it sounds like.’

Sofia shook her head bitterly at the thought of her dying brother’s life being in the hands of some novice herbalist, but she knew not to complain.

‘Y’know, it’s funny – he was all aghast over this little bruise and the scratches you gave me, and I was all, “But you should see the other fella!”’ Nell gave a pleased laugh. ‘And it’s great, because he will see you, right? But he won’t know it.’

‘Did you even talk to him about Thomas?’

‘‘Course I did. Keep your hat on.’ Nell cocked her head at Sofia and needlessly clarified, ‘By which I mean my hat.’

Sofia rolled her eyes, which made her head ache even more. ‘And you’re sure he can help my brother?’

‘Better than anyone else in miles. Didn’t I say that?’

‘Forgive me. I forgot at some point while you were rambling.’

Jackson gave her an insincere smile.

‘So, are we wheeling him in on the cart or can he walk?’

‘He’ll walk,’ Sofia told her. ‘Let’s not draw attention to ourselves.’

‘Ah, right. Speaking of which...’ Her eyes lit up in amusement. Giving the hat on Sofia’s head a nod, she said, ‘I’ll find you a comb for your hair. You’ll scare the children if you keep it like that for any longer.’

‘Good,’ Sofia said drily. ‘Because apparently I’ve been eating little girls and boys everywhere from here to Leeds, and not starving in a forest like I had thought.’

‘Ah, save your confessions for a priest,’ Jackson said, straightening up from the fence.

‘Will he provide food?’

‘Nah. From the sounds of it, his girls moved out and married years ago. Though I suppose that means that they’re far too old for you to find appetising.’

Sofia did not laugh. In fact, she slowly, pointedly blinked to quash any expectations from Jackson that she would laugh at her jokes. Jackson made up for it by leaning forward and giving a loud, exaggerated laugh. When she was done, she scowled right back at Sofia.

‘Anyway, he’s letting us stay in their old room. He’ll probably even let you wash up, if you ask nicely. You can ask nicely, can’t ya? I’ve certainly never seen it.’

Sofia had stopped listening to her after she mentioned the chance for her to wash herself. Jackson had turned west to watch the last sliver of sunset slip away.

‘It’s probably dark enough. We’ll get yous two inside quick, before anyone can look too close.’

After another minute, the sun had finally disappeared into the far western fields, and Jackson began to walk back towards where they had left the cart. Without even checking to see if she was being followed, she whistled at Sofia like she was a dog and gave a little, ‘C’mere.’

It would have been so nice, Sofia thought, if one of her attempts to kill Jackson had been a success.

The plan to get the Blancheford siblings inside was executed under the cover of dusk. Both the healer and his wife had readily believed that the two siblings – injured and dirty as they were – had been the victims of a highway robbery, rather than the perpetrators of several. They did not question that Nell Jackson and Sir Charles Devereux had saved them after having fortuitously crossed paths. Best of all: they did not press for details, although Charles would have been more-than-happy to spin a whole story.

The healer had taken one look at Thomas and immediately led them to a tiny room that smelt strongly of herbs; it had a shelf beside the narrow bed that was filled with bottles of various shapes and sizes, all of which looked as if they held samples of the flames of the fireplace that they reflected.

Nell stood in the doorway, watching up until the point Thomas’s chest was bared again; she turned away and found Sofia just behind, looking anxiously past her at Thomas.

‘There’s the man's wife,’ Nell whispered to her. ‘She’ll take you upstairs to our room.’

‘I’m not –’

Nell hushed her, nodding at the woman waiting by the stairs. Sofia glanced over at the woman, visibly frustrated with being told what to do. Clearly, she judged that the woman was too near to avoid being overheard, so she gave Nell one last sour look.

‘Tell me everything he says.’

Sofia took the stairs behind the healer’s wife, stopping abruptly when Thomas gasped loudly in pain. Her eyes met Nell’s one last time before she disappeared.

The first thing the healer did was give Thomas something for the pain: he uncorked a black bottle and put a few drops of reddish-brown liquid into a glass of water. The injured man quieted down very soon, prompting Charles to ask if he could have some of what the man had given him – he was ignored.

It all seemed rather mundane and familiar to Nell, even if it had been over a year since she had watched soldiers being tended. There had been George, of course, but she had been braver and whinged far less than any man Nell had ever seen being operated on.

After Thomas had been drugged, cleaned, and tended, the verdict was much the same as when Dr Tuplow had examined George: only time would tell. All they could do was wait, and Nell would rather pass the time in bed rather than at Thomas Blancheford’s bedside.

The stairs were dark, so she took them slowly; the upstairs they led to was even blacker, with the only hint of light peeking from under a closed door. Without giving much thought to privacy – or that it could have been the married couple’s room – Nell reached out and opened the door. She hoped Sofia would already be asleep, so she wouldn’t have to deal with her.

‘How is he?’

Nell nearly jumped out of her skin. It was as if she had conjured the woman from the shadows with just a thought – which was truly one of the last powers Nell would ever want to possess.

‘Really? Of all places you could be, you just had to stand by the bloody door?’ Nell said, closing it behind her. ‘You couldn’t have just stood somewhere visible? You had to lurk in the darkness, like some kinda –’

‘I am a fugitive,’ she whispered harshly. ‘I’m just being careful.’

Nell waved her hand in a shooing gesture; Sofia backed away slowly, looking at her hand through narrowed eyes.

‘Here I thought you’d jump at the chance to lie down in an actual – well, it’s a small bed, but it’s a bed, no? Oh. I got something for ya.’

Nell reached into her pocket and found a wooden comb. She thought she had lost the handy thing somewhere around Watford, but upon reaching into her pack just before entering the house, she had felt what seemed like something trying to nip at her – and combs did technically have teeth, didn’t they?

She held the comb up and gave it a little shake to get Sofia’s attention, but gave her only a second to prepare before she tossed it at her. Nell watched it bounce off Sofia’s chest and fall into her open hands – hands which had evidently been scrubbed, along with her face, to remove as much of the filth as possible in a single sitting.

‘Tell me how he is,’ Sofia prompted, clearly not even considering thanking her for the comb. Nell was slightly disappointed by her lack of indignation over it being thrown at her.

‘It’s too soon to tell.’

‘Has he given a prognosis?’

‘What did I just say?’

The glare Sofia levelled at her was a nice little reminder that Nell was going to have a terrible, sleepless night ahead of her.

‘This bed’s mine,’ Nell informed her, plopping herself down upon the one closest to the door. She set to work untying the handkerchief she had around her neck. ‘You’ll be taking that one across the room.’

‘You mean, the only other bed in the room? Thank you for clarifying.’

If Sofia had rolled her eyes, Nell had missed it, because she had been busy doing the same.

‘Ah, so it is,’ she said with a shrug, which extended into a long stretch; she grunted a little and her muscles quivered as she reached its peak. ‘Either way, I don’t see why you’d have any complaints.’

‘If you’re taking that bed because you think I’m going to try to run in the night...’

‘Yeah? Or maybe I just want this fucking bed.’ Nell gave the blanket next to her a little slap. ‘What, are you really gonna fight me on this?’

‘Why can’t I just share a room with Thomas? The thought of sharing one with you makes me sick.’

‘Can’t always get what you want, now, can ya?’ Nell said, lifting up her foot to tug off a boot. Before she had even finished with the first boot, she reached up to take her hat off. She sat there, staring at the window for several seconds. ‘Look, if you –’

‘What is that on your cheek?’

Nell reached up to see what she was talking about. She winced when her fingers made contact with the scratch wound; some of the sticky and fragrant ointment clung to her fingers when she pulled her hand away.

‘Same ointment he gave your brother.’

Sofia narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and pursed her split lip.

‘Did he say what it is made from?’

‘Do you always ask so many questions?’ Nell didn’t give her a chance to respond before saying, ‘Look, I’d tell you to ask the man himself, but it’s late. Thomas was given something for the pain and it put him right to sleep. Try to do the same, won’t ya?’

‘Charles is with him?’ Even though Nell turned her head towards her, to ensure Sofia could see her eyes rolling, she still asked another question: ‘You’ve told him to come let me know if anything happens?’

Nell shook her head and groaned in disbelief. ‘You don’t talk in your sleep, I hope?’

‘I might,’ she said a little too quickly. ‘So, let me stay with my brother, if that would bother you.’

‘Nice try. Not gonna happen.’

The woman pulled the exact sour face Nell usually envisioned whenever she thought of Sofia Wilmot. After a moment, Sofia sat down on the bed she had been assigned; she had removed her petticoat, so at least she wasn’t getting dirt all over the clean blankets. She turned the comb over in her fingers while Nell worked on taking her boots off again, having only just remembered she had never finished the task before.

When she looked back at her, Sofia was still studying the comb.

‘So, the way you use one of those – oh, and they’re called combs, by the way – is by putting its teeth to your hair and –’

‘Stop mocking me,’ she quietly warned. After casting a moody look at Nell, Sofia drew a lock of tangled hair in front of her face to examine it; half her hair moved to follow, so interwoven it all was. There was a real danger that the comb would not survive the task that lay ahead of it. She turned her face away from Nell and finally set to work on taming her hair.

‘Should’ve kept it in a plait,’ Nell tutted. ‘‘Course, you could just shear it off. That would be a lot simpler.’

‘Never,’ she hissed – probably due to pain, judging by the way the comb had caught immediately.

Nell was sure she could make a small fortune if she sold it, once it was returned to its naturally sleek state. It was the sort of hair that was usually the product of a life of luxury, one of only spending time outdoors for leisure; the sort of hair that could never survive the hard work most women spent their days doing. It was an object of pride for women of Sofia’s status; and she was not an exemption, judging by the way she turned her body further away from Nell, as if to hide her face as she continued fighting with the same knot with which she had started.

It was clearly going to hold her full attention for a while. Nell took the opportunity to slip her pistol underneath her pillow while she wasn’t looking. Loaded or not, it seemed safer to have it at the ready, in case Sofia decided to show her lack of gratitude by choking her in her sleep.

In fact, because that was such a realistic worry, Nell was committed to not falling asleep until after Sofia did. Even when she crawled under the blankets, having stripped down as much as she was comfortable with, she kept herself sitting up a little too straight to be comfortable, so as to not risk falling asleep.

There wasn’t much else to look at in the room, so with glazed-over eyes, Nell spent the next hour watching Sofia’s jerky motions and listening to her soft noises of pain.

‘Not used to doing that yourself, I bet.’

Either Sofia had reached an especially stubborn tangle or Nell’s voice had startled her, given the way she jolted. When she turned to glare at Nell, the soft lighting of the room was reflected in her watering eyes. Nell grimaced at the sight, running a hand over the top of her own hair, then pulling her plait over her shoulder to give it a look; it had gotten loose, but she didn’t feel like redoing it just then, since it was far more entertaining to watch Sofia struggle.

‘Does it make you feel better about yourself, that you’ve had to do your own hair?’

She thought about Roxy, who had always liked that sort of thing more than she did, and was far better at it. Nell knew enough about noblewomen that clothes like theirs and hair like theirs often necessitated a helper; and all Sofia had for two months had been her brother.

Feeling some pity for her, Nell asked, ‘You’re at least starting from the bottom, right? Since it’s so bad.’

‘What do you mean?’

Nell couldn’t help but laugh. She almost felt guilty for not saying it sooner.

‘Less work that way, and less painful.’

Sofia pulled the comb away from her head; knotted strands of black hair clung to the comb’s teeth. Her hand – her entire body – quivered with rage. Sofia drew a shaky breath before saying, ‘You should have told me that when I started an hour ago.’

‘I didn’t think about it ‘til now.’

Sofia looked like she was about to snap the wooden comb. As if realising that it would be of no use to her as splinters, she dropped it on the bed beside her to spare it from her wrath.

‘I’ll do the rest in the morning,’ she muttered.

‘You got half of it done.’ Nell realised she spoke too soon when Sofia turned her head to glare at her. It was a funny sight: the portion she had brushed was several inches longer than the rest and it didn’t look like it even belonged to the same head. Nell corrected herself: ‘Well, a quarter, I should say.’

There was an angry little twitch that had taken control of Sofia’s left eyebrow. 

She stood up abruptly, whipping around to turn her back to Nell. With discomfort, Nell realised that Sofia was preparing to strip down to her shift to sleep in. She watched with a sort of muted horror as she took off one layer, then another, and...

‘Can’t you leave the room?’ Sofia asked, finally looking at her.

‘What?’ Nell asked distractedly.

‘If it were you, I’d give you privacy.’

‘Oh. You know what? Fine. Here.’

The last thing she saw before she covered her eyes with her forearm was Sofia’s relieved, almost-grateful expression turning into a scowl, once she realised Nell had no intention of getting out of bed for her.

The darkness and pressure against her eyes made them ache with tiredness. Nell wanted Sofia to finish so she could finally sleep. For all her misery being stuck in Tottenham, there was something to be said about having a comfortable bed waiting for her at the end of the day.

Once all sounds of movement had ceased, Nell opened her eye a just crack to see if she had finished. The woman had her hands on her lower back as she stretched her spine; Nell caught a soft wince. It seemed likely, now that she thought about it, that Sofia had spent many nights sleeping in her stays – a hellish prospect, in Nell’s opinion.

Sofia stood there, now with her hands on her hips, still not getting into bed. It was difficult to tell, because of her hair being in the way, but she seemed to be looking down at herself.

‘What’s keeping you up now?’ asked Nell impatiently.

‘My shift.’

Nell sat up abruptly. ‘Well, you’re not taking it off!’

‘As if I –’ She paused and Nell could imagine the bitter look on her face. ‘I need a new one. This one is ruined.’

Like her dress, it was a once-fine garment that had experienced far too much distress; the last barrier between Sofia’s body and squalor, and it had sustained lasting damage from both sides over the course of two months, including some blood – a sight which made Nell finally avert her eyes.

‘Don’t tell me I’m being unreasonable,’ Sofia said defensively. ‘You can’t fault me for wanting a replacement.’

Nell’s first thought was that they could steal one easily on their way out of the town, as someone would surely be drying out their linens.

‘Look... I’ll see if his missus is still up. Maybe she’ll let you wash up more, too. I’ll say that it’s urgent – that you’ve fleas or something. Probably not even a lie.’

With a great groan, Nell sat back up in her bed. After grabbing her pistol out from under the pillow, she exited the room, cursing herself for getting into the situation at all.

Over the last several years, Nell had slept through chatter, weeping, the agonised moans of injured and dying soldiers – even through the unending cracks of distant gunfire.

Sharing a room with the woman who had tried to kill her, however, was proving to be more difficult than she could handle.

Her tricorn hat rested upon her face, blotting out all light and trapping the scent of hair against her. She had needed to put her hat there, because before she did, she couldn’t keep herself from looking over at the other woman.

Every time she had begun to slip into dreams, she had felt as if Sofia was suddenly atop her, ready to kill her. So vividly, she would feel the weight of her upon her legs and torso, pinning her down; she’d feel her fingers and nails digging into her neck. Over and over, Nell had jolted awake in her attempts to physically buck her off.

Of course, the other woman wasn’t doing anything of the sort. She had no need to resort to that sort of barbarism, even if it was hard to imagine that Sofia didn't still want to kill her, at least a bit; after all, she certainly had been quick to fight back after Nell had punched her in the face.

Nell thought of how ghastly Sofia had looked when they had met earlier that day: all haggard and with blood on her bared teeth, like the monsters people make up to scare their children into behaving. She really had looked like a witch, just then.

Now, after some washing, with clean clothes, and when set against the background of the cosy room, the woman was different. The Sofia she had seen in the glow of the candles had looked more like a victim – like some battered woman with nowhere safe to sleep, and nowhere to go still when morning came.

Nell knew better than to trust the version of Sofia that had run her hands over the new shift she had been given, as if marvelling over the cleanliness of the simple linen; or the one that had spent several minutes adjusting her pillow, as if she had forgotten how to use it; or the one that had mumbled what could have been a ‘thank you’ a few minutes after they had both gone silent. Nell had ignored her, of course.

It was easier to think of her as the hag she punched in the forest than the woman whose face she had bruised. She was in no mood to feel bad for someone who had given her more than enough incentive to have left her and her monstrous brother to die out there in the cold.

Nell was tired, achingly so. It took effort, but she was able to clear her mind, fill it with some tavern song she had heard hundreds of times. She focused on the comfort of having a bed beneath her, warm blankets weighing upon her, and soon...

Sofia was back at it – pinning her to the bed, gripping her neck, and laughing with all the subtlety of a villain from a play. This time, Nell had one hand free, but it flailed rather uselessly when she tried to reach under her pillow –

‘Will you stop moving?’ Sofia’s sharp, irritated voice came from the other side of the small room.

Nell pulled her hand away from where she had been clutching her own neck. Her breaths came so quick, it was like she really hadn’t been breathing. Abruptly, she sat up – felt the world spin a little – and was eventually able to pick out the other woman’s form in the darkness.

‘Good,’ she breathed. ‘You’re still over there.’

‘Yes,’ Sofia said obviously. ‘I will not leave Thomas.’

‘No, no, I – Oh, never mind,’ Nell said, trying to burrow back into the bed. She rubbed her clammy face against the pillow; the pistol’s mechanisms rattled softly beneath.

‘I thought you were having a kind of fit,’ Sofia admitted.

Nell only grunted.

‘It was... disturbing.’ She lifted a hand to gesture towards Nell’s bed, adding, ‘And loud.’

‘Thanks for your concern,’ Nell said sarcastically. She almost wanted to tell her that she was the cause of the bad dreams, but maybe she would enjoy hearing that – Nell didn’t know her enough.

Sofia’s bed gave a tormented creak. Reluctantly, Nell lifted her head back off her pillow to look over, and she was peeved to see her getting out of the bed.

‘What are you doing?’ Nell asked suspiciously, sitting up fully as the woman came towards her. Sofia did not answer.

When she got too close, Nell put out a hand to stop her. Due to the blackness of the room, she couldn’t see where on Sofia’s body her hand had landed; but wherever she was touching was soft beneath the linen shift. Sofia froze in place. Nell was tempted to try to feel around, to see if she could determine what the hell she was touching.

‘Don’t ever touch me,’ Sofia said, sounding equally bewildered and angry. She did not step away, however, or remove the hand that lay upon her, so Nell herself took it back.

Still, she didn’t like Sofia’s tone.

‘Oh, sorry...’ Nell mocked. ‘I forgot you’ve never been touched by a peasant before.’

A small, haughty scoff in the darkness was all it took to fire Nell up, after the day she had and the nightmares she had been giving her.

Nell reached for her again, this time finding the sleeve of Sofia’s borrowed shift. She shook it about and twisted it – just enough to leave it dishevelled, and its wearer flustered, but not damaged. She would have done something to Sofia’s hair, instead, if she had been able to reach.

Sofia slapped at Nell’s forearm until she finally let go, then stepped beyond her reach. Nell could hear Sofia’s heavy breathing alongside her own; she could feel those cold eyes glaring at her through the darkness. She couldn’t help but grin a little at having known she had just taken her by surprise.

‘What was you coming over here for, anyway? Didn’t we agree that this was my side of the room? I ain’t swapping with ya.’

Nell watched as the shadowed figure suddenly stooped down. She sat up further to look over the side of the bed, to see what in the world she was doing. Nell reached under her pillow, finding the grip of her pistol. Silently, she drew it and pointed it at the space where Nell figured that Sofia’s head would be when she reappeared.

When Sofia saw the pistol, she froze. It seemed like she was waiting for Nell to shoot her; and Nell was waiting for her to give her a reason. When neither of those things happened, Nell tossed the pistol down into her lap; it sank into the hollow between her ajar thighs, nestled in the blanket, very near to her crotch. Nell hadn’t intended to put it there, but she wasn’t exactly going to reach down and adjust it. She just hoped Sofia hadn’t seen.

Returning her gaze to Sofia, she found her view of her interrupted by something large, which was being held out to her. Nell tried to hide her confusion as she reached for it. The stiff felt and weight of it was immediately familiar to her.

‘Oh, I didn’t know it fell,’ Nell said as she ducked her head, tipping the hat onto it. Tilting it in a show of gratitude, she reluctantly added, ‘Well, thanks for coming over and fetching it for me.’

‘I didn’t. I would never have come over for that,’ she said, reaching for the door handle. Nell blinked against the light that flooded into the room, however dim. Sofia stepped into the light, but her face was turned in such a way that it was still left in shadow.

‘It was in my way.’

The door clicked shut behind Sofia.

‘Well,’ Nell replied, despite her lack of company, ‘I guess it’s lucky you didn’t blow it up, like everything else in your way.’

For at least a minute after shutting the door, Sofia waited, trying to fix the sleeve that Jackson had ruffled. Sofia expected she would come after her, either to stop her from seeing Thomas or because she didn’t trust her to go alone. Sofia listened to Jackson’s shifting on the bed; she could hear that she was mumbling to herself.

When the noises ceased, Sofia made her way to the stairs. It felt strange to be barefoot; strange to not be freezing, despite wearing only a shift. She tried to ignore how bare she felt without all the layers she had been stuck in for two months. As she went down the stairs, she trailed her hand along the wall next to her, ready to lean upon it if she became breathless from the exertion; even her little scuffle with Jackson moments before had tired her out.

The knowledge that she’d be going back into that room – that she was expected to sleep with her so near – left Sofia scowling by the time she made it to the open door of the room where her brother rested.

He appeared to be asleep, as did Charles – his gaoler. Her bare feet aided her in silently moving across the room to reach her brother.

Thomas looked so small to her in that narrow bed, boyish and fragile. He was covered by what appeared to be several blankets, despite the impressive heat coming from the little fireplace. It was the first time in at least a week that he was not shivering from both cold and fever.

She looked around the room in search of something to sit upon, and her eyes fell upon a short stool; she carried it to his bedside, setting it down gently so as to not disturb the sleeping men. She settled onto the stool and studied her brother’s peaceful face.

After an indeterminate amount of time – in which she had nearly fallen asleep, and had only caught herself because of the sensation of falling – she saw Thomas’s lashes flutter, then part to reveal his blue eyes; his pupils were tiny and his eyelids seemingly couldn’t open more than halfway.

‘Sofia.’

She smiled at his sleepy voice. Had his hand not been tucked beneath the blanket, she would have taken it. Instead, she leant closer to him and reached out to rest her palm against his cheek.

‘Sofia,’ he repeated. She nodded, waiting for him to say something else.

‘Poynton,’ was what he said next, causing her to recoil.

Sofia frowned and cast a look at Charles, who appeared to still be asleep.

‘Poynton is dead. He died two months ago. I killed him.’

‘Are spirits the dead?’

It took her a moment to try to figure out what he was asking. For clarification, she asked, ‘What do you mean by that, Thomas?’

‘Can you control them?’

Sofia cast another look towards the man she had passed when she came through the door.

‘I have communicated with – I think – spirits, but I don’t know anything about them.’

‘They’re people –?’ It sounded like it could be a question, but she wasn’t certain.

‘I don’t know, Thomas.’

‘You... should.’

It was disturbing to hear him speaking like a child. She reached over and lifted the tiny bottle she found by his bedside, which she assumed was one type of medicine he was being treated with. She couldn’t make out much of the stained label besides that it began with the letter L. She set it back down carefully.

‘Are you in very much pain right now?’

He shook his head and smiled at her, but the tip of his tongue seemed to have caught between his teeth, making him look silly. He was drunk. Whatever he was given clearly had alcohol as one of its ingredients – a fact which made her stomach drop.

‘Good,’ she said, forcing a smile and leaning close to place a kiss on his clammy forehead. ‘Your recovery is all that matters to me.’

‘Sofia, you should know.’

‘Know what, Thomas?’ she asked, keeping her voice gentle.

‘The spirits.’

She shut her eyes. She was now understanding why Jackson had been so annoyed with her earlier for the sheer volume of questions she had asked.

‘You should find out. Otherwise... use you.’

‘Have you slept?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘Then go to sleep. We’ll talk when you’re not –’ She paused, thinking about how to phrase it in a way that did not sound like she was unnerved by him. ‘We’ll speak when you’re feeling better.’

‘What if don’t?’ he slurred as she carefully rolled him onto his side. If he was as drunk as he sounded, she did not want to risk him vomiting in his sleep and suffocating.

‘Sorry if I haunt you.’

‘Thomas, be quiet,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want to hear this. You’re being treated now and you will recover.’

Her hand passed over his hair, not lingering long enough to catch its oiliness on her fingers; she had spent too long scrubbing them clean to take the risk. His whiskers were even more overgrown than his hair; his beard had grown in uneven, scragged patches upon his jaw and cheeks.

Once more, she lifted up the bottle with the mottled label that started with an L. She squinted through the dim lighting and tried to make out more letters, but could only decipher that it ended with an M.

Mildly frustrated by the mystery, she set the bottle down with a frown. To her relief, she saw that her brother’s eyes had shut; his slack jaw and deepening breathing brought a small smile to her face. She was tempted to pat his cheek to praise him for listening, but she didn’t dare.

Very slowly, she got up from the stool, trying not to let it creak or scrape against the floor; she put it back exactly where she had found it, then looked to make sure she had set the bottle down in the same place it had been before she lifted it. For whatever reason, she felt as if she needed to leave no signs that she had been there.

As she turned to look back into the room one last time, she saw Charles’ eyes snap shut. It didn’t surprise her. It was not as if she was expecting privacy, after the way Jackson had refused to let her undress in peace.

She hated the situation, but she knew that if the two had not found them, or had not chosen to help – decided against ‘being the hero’, as Jackson had phrased it – Thomas would not have survived. Even if he did not survive now with their help, she still recognised that it was by their mercy that he was given a chance.

Sofia despised Nell Jackson, but she was determined not to forget this act of compassion, even if it started with a red cheek and a bleeding lip.