They didn’t speak on the way home. Blythe, too anxious to keep still, fidgeted with her hair. She pulled out the pins of her elaborate up-do, letting it tumble around her shoulders. She rearranged it several times during the ride, pointedly ignoring the way Tarn watched her from the corner of his eye.
The carriage rattled to a halt, its iron wheels crunching on the cobblestones in front of 14 Crane Street. Tarn, ever the picture of composed elegance, moved swiftly out of the carriage, his tailored coat swirling. He didn’t speak, only offered her a hand, his eyes grimly intense.
Blythe, clutching her hairpins in her right hand, took his offered hand with her left. She thanked the royal carriage driver (a weary man who had clearly seen too much) and followed Tarn inside, the silence between them growing heavier with each step.
They moved through the foyer of Tarn’s townhouse, the bright midday light sharply contrasting with their dark moods. The thick carpets swallowed the echoes of their footsteps, creating an almost unnerving quiet. Tarn led the way, his hand careful of the incriminating box he held, a tension in his shoulders that mirrored her own unease.
Up the first flight, and then the second, the silence thickening with each step. Blythe’s gaze flickered to the ornate wallpaper, the framed portraits of the few relatives Tarn still tolerated—his younger sister, a paragon of normalcy in a family of prideful old bloods—and the patrons who had, during his brief and highly entertaining excommunication from polite society, encouraged his…unconventional pursuits.
The air in Tarn’s cluttered workshop hung thick with the cloying sweetness of vanilla and fading cinnamon, mixed with the musk of old tomes and aged wood. Blythe, her eyes wide, stared at the object he’d extracted from the box. It was an infuser, a delicate bronze filigree cage enclosing a vial of viscous, pale green liquid. The glass within was cracked but not broken, and the infuser was sealed with intricate spellwork to prevent the fumes from escaping.
The scent was a cruel echo, heavy and suffocating, like the depths of the ocean. Even trapped within the glass and spellwork, the memory of the scent felt like being lost, adrift in an endless, watery void.
“It has this scent,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. Her fingers, cool and unnaturally smooth from her ethereal connection to her ivory body, trembled. “Like…being underwater. It reminds me of that world between—so easy to get lost in how vast it is.”
Tarn, leaning against a bookshelf overflowing with arcane texts, watched her with an unreadable expression. He had recognized parts of the mixture. He had, after all, created its progenitor—a formula meant to induce a deep, restful slumber, not a trip to the abyss. He was intimately familiar with the telltale notes of bitter-sweet poppy. But the suffocating smokiness and salt, the undertone of drowning, was new, a perversion of his creation. It was, he theorized, a scent of deliberate, malevolent intent. And the way Blythe reacted to it, a visceral, almost painful recognition, disturbed him more than he cared to admit.
He started to speak, his voice low, “Blythe, you don’t have to—”
She cut him off, tying her hair back with the ribbon he’d discarded earlier, still faintly scented with an earthy, woody oil. “No. I need to know who did this.” She reached out, her fingers hovering over the infuser, and closed her eyes. A faint, shimmering aura, like moonlight on mist, began to emanate as she channelled energy into the infuser, making the air around her seem to subtly shift.
“I can feel the residue,” she said, her brow furrowed. “The person who delivered it…a woman—a laundress—I think. Her hands are worn—nervous. She was afraid.”
Tarn straightened, his sharp teal eyes narrowing. “Afraid of what?”
“Of being caught,” she replied, her voice strained. “She needed the money to pay off debts. But…there’s something else. Something blocking me.”
She moved her hand, tracing an invisible line around the infuser. “It’s like…like a veil. An intentional obscuring. Someone else, someone with…influence over aura.”
“Another spiritualist?” Tarn asked.
“Likely,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Or someone who knows how to mimic the sensation. They’ve muddied the aura, made it impossible to see the true source.”
She opened her eyes, her gaze meeting his. “They don’t want me to see who created this.”
A flicker of anger, cold and sharp, ignited within Tarn. Blythe knew that look. This was his work, and someone had stolen it, twisted it, and used it to attempt murder. Tarn rarely judged anyone for how they used magic—his greatest passion was discovery, after all, not moralizing—but this wasn’t an act of free creation, it was a deliberate act of malice.
Tarn stepped closer and picked up the infuser. “We’ll find them. We’ll unravel this veil, no matter how thick they’ve woven it.”
His sharp sea-blue eyes searched hers, his expression a carefully constructed mask. She knew he had unspoken questions, concerns about why the scent of sea and salt haunted her. But Tarn, for all his arcane brilliance and the effortless charm he displayed for the rest of the world, was a master of the unspoken when it came to her. Unless a query had a result he could quantify, he held back—a frustratingly familiar pattern.
Instead, he simply met her gaze, his own unwavering. “We’ll find them,” he repeated, his voice firm. “And when we do, they’ll regret ever crossing us.”
His words were a vow, delivered with an uncommon intensity. Too often, he was flippant, almost afraid to be serious. But this was different. It was more than just an assassination attempt, more than just a challenge. It was…personal.
He was, after all, a gentleman, and a gentleman never let a lady’s near-death experience go unavenged.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
Blythe left Tarn to dissect the infuser. She had her own dissection to turn to—the memory of the night she died was a hard thing to forget.
She returned to her room and gently shut the door. It was small and simple, similar to the dormitory room she’d shared with her sister Beatrice at at academy.
An ornate wardrobe stood against one wall, spelled to contain more than it appeared it could. Inside, a collection of dresses, skirts, and blouses, some gifted by Tarn—part of her wages, he would say when she tried to refuse—and some saved and tailored from the collection she’d left with her parents. A stack of old candles, their wax softened and misshapen from countless hours of burning, rested on the bedside table.
She untied the ribbon from her hair and fell back on the small bed, letting her hair fall about in a golden halo. She closed her eyes, unable to stop thinking about that night.
She hadn’t suspected anything when she entered her patron’s rented rooms. The air in the hall was murky, a suffocating blanket of stale incense and the saccharine decay of lilies. Blythe had felt a prickle of unease the moment she’d reached that final door in the dark hall.
The séance room, panelled in black oak, wasn’t merely dim; it seemed to swallow the three flames of the cast-iron candelabra she carried, leaving only a sickly, subterranean glow. Disturbed by her entry, dust motes writhed like spectral insects in the stagnant air.
A heavy, unadorned oak table dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by chairs that looked as if they’d been hewn from the same oppressive wood. Blythe, her heart a nervous drum against her ribs, made herself enter the unwelcoming space. She set the candelabra on the table and circled the table with salt, a coarse, grey variety she’d brought herself.
Lord Maxen Morcant’s commission had seemed straightforward: contact a recently deceased cousin. A simple evocation, a chance to impress a man with ties to the old bloodlines, a potential gateway to the inner social circles. This was far from his first seance, but she was used to being the entertainment of a small group of nobles or wealthy patrons. This was her first private contract.
Lord Morcant slipped through the doorway, a wraith in threadbare tweed. He was a man ravaged by time and dwindling fortunes. The once-fine fabric of his coat was threadbare, the subtle repairs a visible reminder of his declining status. His sandy hair, thinning and grey, did little to soften the deep, almost brutal lines etched into his brow. His eyes burned with an unsettling, feverish intensity. His fingers, gnarled and pale as bone, toyed with a tarnished coin, the motion a nervous, almost frantic dance.
“Are you ready, Miss Blythe?” His voice was a rasping whisper.
Blythe swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “I am ready, Lord Morcant.”
He closed the door with a soft, ominous click. He settled into the chair opposite her, the heavy oak groaning under his weight, a sound that seemed to echo the weariness in his bones. “This coin,” he said, placing it beside the flickering candelabra, “belonged to the one I wish to speak with tonight.”
The dull silver coin was worn smooth. Seeing it gave her an odd feeling—like she ought to forget it was there. The candle flames seemed to cower, their light dimming and wavering as if repelled. It was a warning she’d later regret ignoring.
Blythe sat down across from Lord Morcant. She called to the four directions and arranged the four candles, their flickering flames casting long, dancing shadows that distorted the room’s simple shapes. Finally, she touched the coin. It was like grasping a shard of ice. The frigid weight leached the warmth from her palm, sending a shiver up her arm.
“I call upon the owner of this coin,” she began, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hand. “I am here with your cousin, Lord Morcant, who seeks communication. Departed soul, you are welcome.”
The words hung in the air, swallowed by the silence. Yet, the air itself thickened, creating a subtle shift in pressure, a prickling awareness that crawled beneath her skin. The coin, once frigid, began to thrum with a faint, unsettling warmth, like a caged beast stirring in its sleep.
The warmth intensified, quickly becoming a searing heat that bit into her palm. She dropped the coin with a sharp cry. It landed on the oak table with a dull thud, and a tremor, like a subterranean shudder, rippled through the wood. A high-pitched whistling began to build, a sound that resonated deep within her bones, threatening to shatter her teeth.
Then, the stench of brine and ashes filled the air, an odour that made her gag. The coin began to glow, a seething ember in the dim light, radiating a heat that warped the air around it. The oak beneath it smoked, creating a thin tendril of grey curling upwards, leaving a dark, spreading stain.
A crushing weight settled on her shoulders. It was a suffocating presence that pressed down, stealing her breath, and draining the warmth from her body. The candlelight flickered wildly, casting skeletal shadows that danced on the walls.
“Is it working?” Lord Morcant’s voice was a hoarse whisper. His wide, feverish eyes were fixed on the glowing coin. “Do you hear anything?”
“Is it…responding?” Lord Morcant’s voice was a dry rasp. His eyes, wide and feverish, were fixed on the tarnished silver coin. “Tell me, Blythe, what do you hear?”
A tremor seized Blythe’s body. Her lips parted, but the words that emerged were not hers. A guttural growl, a sound that seemed to emanate from the very bedrock beneath the manor, filled the room: “A worm dares to call me from the deep.”
“I dare, old one,” Lord Morcant hissed, his aristocratic veneer cracking to reveal a raw, desperate hunger. “You promised my lineage power, and you have betrayed me. You abandoned your vow. I demand what is rightfully mine.”
The temperature plummeted, a glacial chill that penetrated bone and marrow. The oak panels of the walls groaned under an unseen pressure as if the very house itself were straining against an immense force. The weight on Blythe’s chest intensified, now a crushing, suffocating presence. A viscous, brackish fluid welled up in her throat, choking her. It wasn’t blood, but something colder, older, imbued with the taste of salt and rot. Then, it slithered into her mind—a consciousness vast, ancient, and malevolent. It pulsed with a cold, triumphant laughter that echoed in the hollow spaces of her skull.
“Your bloodline is stagnant, your ambition a festering wound,” the entity rasped, its voice a symphony of drowned whispers. “You offer nothing of value. You are a husk. But I…I am owed.”
A torrent of images flooded Blythe’s mind: a ship, its mast splintered, tossed like a toy in a tempestuous sea; the screams of men swallowed by the churning waves; the stench of brine and decaying flesh, so potent it made her gag. Her hand, no longer hers, moved with a terrifying autonomy, reaching for the heavy iron candlestick.
“You lie, you cursed thing!” Lord Morcant roared, his fist slamming against the oak table, sending the glowing coin skittering. “I have sacrificed everything! You will grant me the power I deserve.”
With a brutal, inhuman swiftness, Blythe’s arm swung, the candlestick connecting with Lord Morcant’s temple with a sickening thud. A sharp, animalistic cry ripped through the room, followed by the dull clang of the iron striking the floor. The candle flame died, plunging the room into near darkness, only the faint glow of the coin remaining.
Lord Morcant, his face a mask of rage and pain, lunged at Blythe, his fingers digging into her scalp, tearing at her hair. A hairpin, dislodged, scratched a bloody line across her temple. The raw, searing pain, the offering of her own blood, momentarily severed the entity’s hold.
“Spirit, you are not welcome here,” Blythe gasped, her voice a trembling whisper against the roaring storm within her mind. She felt the entity’s icy grip, its rage a tempest within her body. “I am owed,” it hissed, a promise and a threat.
Blythe, though trembling with fear, found a core of defiant resolve. If this dark spirit were as deep and endless as the ocean, she would be as immovable as the sea floor. She wouldn’t be a puppet, not even for a being of such ancient power. Her reputation, her very existence, depended on her control. “You are not welcome in my body, and I will not be your vessel.”
“Alcott! Claudio!” Lord Morcant bellowed, his voice deep with fury and fear.
The heavy oak doors burst open, revealing two figures silhouetted against the dim hallway. The first was a tall, gaunt man, his face obscured by the deep cowl of a dark cloak. The second was a hulking brute, his pockmarked face scowling.
“I am close to banishing it, Lord Morcant,” Blythe pleaded, her voice hoarse, her vision blurring between the dimly lit room and the endless, dark ocean. “Just a moment…”
“There are more…direct methods,” Lord Morcant snarled, his eyes glittering with cold calculation. “Your reputation was exaggerated. I had hoped you could bind it. How disappointing.” He nodded to the brute, who stepped forward.
Before Blythe could react, a crushing blow landed on her temple. A blinding white fractured her vision, dissolving into a numbing, absolute absence. The crushing weight, the icy tendrils, the suffocating presence vanished, leaving only a hollow echo where her self should have been. The connection to her body was broken.
She was adrift, a wisp in the ethereal void between worlds. It was an endless dark expanse with sparks of fragmented sensations: the ochre orbs of fear, the pale blue of tears shed, and the rosy glow of a child’s laughter. These weren’t memories, but the residue of life energy, clinging like dust motes in a forgotten attic. Light, if it could be called that, flickered on the edges of objects—a candlestick, a discarded glove—just enough to reveal their ghostly outlines in the void.
Her body, her anchor, was gone. Without it, she was a raw nerve exposed to the world’s spiritual undercurrent. She felt the sweat of the craftsman who’d shaped the oak table, the bone-deep weariness of the servant who’d polished the silver, and the cold, venomous disappointment of the cloaked man who’d hauled her corpse away. Each sensation threatened to tear her apart, a thousand voices whispering at once.
She tried to follow the man’s aura, a faint, pulsing red. He’d taken her body—but she couldn’t return. Her own lifeless form was a black hole. The harder she tried to force herself into that hole, the more she felt herself unravelling.
The man had stopped. A sudden surge of vibrant, chaotic light flooded her senses—the teeming energy of a crowded neighbourhood. She saw them, the living, gleaming like fireflies in the oppressive gloom. Desperation clawed at her. She reached for the nearest flicker.
She plunged into the warmth of an old and worn body, the linen nightgown rough against her borrowed skin. The cacophony of voices quieted, and the fragments dimmed. Looking down, she saw a trembling, wrinkled hand, the skin mottled and thin—not mine. She recoiled, the borrowed warmth slipping away, leaving her shivering in the spectral void.
Then, a pull, a magnetic force she couldn’t resist. She saw them now—not living lights, but intricate lines etched on a form, sigils bright with an unnatural luminescence. The form was empty and hollow, but it resonated with a strange sense of safety. She drifted towards it, drawn like a moth to a flame, and fell into the waiting shape.
Blythe’s eyes opened. The stark white ceiling was unfamiliar. She lay on a cold surface, and her body—it was wrong. She looked down. It wasn’t flesh and blood, but ivory and whalebone articulated like a puppet, a dressmaker’s mannequin brought to life. Ball-and-socket joints, carved into the semblance of a woman. The only features were the sigils, the dark lines that pulsed with fading light, tattooed into the artificial skin. The world seemed distorted, filtered through the glassy eyes of her new, artificial form.
“What…where…?” Her voice was new. Her voice was a thin, reedy sound. It was unfamiliar, a lilting, unpracticed thing.
“Not quite what I had planned.”
Her head swivelled; the motion was stiff and unnatural. Worn felt slippers, dark trousers, a casual white shirt with rolled sleeves. Tarn stood before her, his dark hair dishevelled, his eyes stormy with startled realization.
The ensuing conversation was a tangled mess of disbelief and desperate explanations. Tarn, attempting a complex binding spell to animate a lifelike automaton, had inadvertently ensnared Blythe’s drifting spirit. Her desperate attempt to find a vessel had led her to his creation.
Blythe, still reeling from the shock of death, confessed everything, too raw to conceal anything. Tarn, driven by the mad fervour of curiosity, agreed to help.
An uneasy alliance formed. At first, Blythe maintained a stiff formality, a weak barrier against the unsettling intimacy of their shared predicament. But the relentless pursuit of answers, the shared nights spent navigating the city’s underbelly, chipped away at her reserve. They were drawn into the shadowy world of clandestine gatherings, where bored aristocrats, hungry for the thrill of the forbidden, whispered secrets in darkened rooms.
Finally, they found her—cold, still, unmistakably dead.
With the hope of reclaiming her body gone, Tarn arranged the grim reunion. Her parents, their faces etched with the raw lines of grief, embraced the uncanny simulacrum of their daughter. Her sister, however, recoiled. Her eyes, usually bright and warm, were now pools of fear, sorrow, and a visceral revulsion. Blythe heard the unspoken accusation: You are not her.
Blythe felt the sting of her sister’s rejection, a raw, burning wound that echoed the hollow ache within her. She hadn’t chosen this—imprisonment in ivory, reliant on an eccentric sorcerer’s charity. Yet, she stoked an ember of defiance to stave off the despair. This is not her end; it was a temporary cage.
Lord Morcant had disappeared. The séance, arranged through a series of intermediaries, left her with no leads. The house, the man who had killed her, and the man who had discarded her body—all spectres, leaving her with nothing but dead ends.
Tarn and Blythe had experimented, their attempts to relocate her spirit ending in horrifying failures. Her brief possession of other artificial forms resulted in rapid decay, even in bodies seemingly similar to the one she currently inhabited. Only this ivory cage, this meticulously crafted prison, held her soul without immediate annihilation. The rounded chin, the doe eyes—a mask, a distorted reflection of her former self. Her mother had presented her with a wig. A macabre and tender gift, woven from the severed strands of her own blonde hair.
“Small miracles,” her mother had said. A lifetime of hardship, of scraping by as the daughter of a struggling herbalist, had taught her to find solace in the smallest of blessings. She’d learned to appreciate the delicate balance of life, to find light in the darkest of corners, and she’d instilled that same resilience in her daughters
It was fragile comfort. But as long as she could think, as long as Blythe could move, she would not surrender to the pull of the void. She would not become a ghost, adrift in the endless darkness. She would find a way to reclaim the life stolen from her.