Page 41 of Til Death Duke Us Part
“I chose it. Had I shown up on my parents’ doorstep, they would have thrown my mistakes in my face, but they would have taken me back, knowing well they could marry me off again, make an alliance. But I chose ‘the squalor’ as you put it, because I deserve it. I dig to have coin for food, yes. But also... I dig to atone. I failed Percy in life. My actions caused his death. He had nothing to take with him into his grave.”
“So you throw yourself into the dirt with him? That’s madness, Persephone.”
“It’s my truth.”
“It’s your excuse.”
“You’re a hypocrite.” She turned on him, walked away.
He caught her arm before she got too far. “Me? A hypocrite?”
“Yes!” She snatched her arm away. “You act as if this is your only option, but I showed you an option at the library. But that looks a little too much like work, doesn’t it, your grace. And while you’ll lower yourself to rob the graves of hard-working men, you won’t lower yourself enough to work as hard as they did.”
His jaw was too tight to say a damn thing.
When he didn’t answer, her head bobbed, slow steady little dips of her chin to her chest as she backed away from him. “I thought I could do it—keep you in line, teach you to behave, to care. But I can’t. I can’t help you rob the dead, either. It dishonors them. It dishonors Percy. It dishonors me. I do not possess much, but I have that.”
“Honor?” The word bitter on his tongue.
She nodded. “It’s too expensive for a man like you. It costs comfort. It requires risk and sacrifice. One must pay an entire soul for it.” She backed away farther. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, but I will not help you take it.”
He let her slip into the darkness though every inch of him screamed to run after her. They’d spent three whole days together, and she’d been right by his side, making him laugh, making him burn with desire, making him think. It had been a long time since he’d felt so light, so free from despair, and now it all crashed back onto him.
And she was on the streets. At night. Alone.
He ran after her, but when he got to the gate, he stopped, one foot outside of the cemetery. He couldn’t go after her. He had work to do.
But he couldn’t do it without her. No alchemist to open the vaults.
“Fuck,” he hissed, storming back inside the cemetery. “Fuck.”
He made his way toward the back corners. That’s where the alchemists’ vaults had been in London. And there they were—glowing white marble in the moonlight. What good were they to him now? Still he entered.
And wished he hadn’t. From down the long, fairy-lit corridor, a ghostly humming echoed. A door was open on the right side, and he approached it carefully. He paused just before it and peeked around the frame.
An old woman sat near the sarcophagus, singing, eyes closed. Her lined face soft and gentle, and gray hair poked out here and there from her bonnet. She patted the sarcophagus as she sang, as if she were patting a baby to sleep.
He watched her sing when he should have been stealing silently into the room. When he should have been approaching the sarcophagus on tiptoe, he remained where he was, studying the almost joyful lines of her face. When he should have been snatching up with quick fingers the device at the head end of the sarcophagus, he was pressing his eyes closed to keep the heat behind his eyelids from spilling over. And when he should have been stealing away, back into the night, he slumped against the wall.
Her song might live in him forever, damn it.
“Well hello there,” a voice like a bell said. “Who are you?”
Victor opened his eyes. The woman’s eyes were open now too, and she smiled at him.
“I’m… Victor.”
“Who are you visiting, Victor?”
He shook his head.
“Was that you I heard arguing in the cemetery with your sweetheart?”
He stood straighter, stepped into the doorframe, and scratched the back of his neck. His sweetheart. Persephone?
The rusty chain squeezed his heart.
“I suppose so, yes,” he said.
