Adrian didn't tell Greaves what he'd seen in the fog. Not yet.If he said the words out loud, it would make the memory too real — the stillness of her figure, the weight of her unseen gaze, the faint impression of a smile beneath the veil.
They walked in silence until they reached Greaves's office in the old quarter police station. The place was a relic — cracked plaster, filing cabinets that looked ready to collapse, the smell of stale tobacco clinging to every surface.
Greaves poured whiskey without asking, handing a glass across the desk."You've got that look," Greaves said, watching him. "The one you had before we went over the top at Veyridge."
Adrian took a long drink. "I saw her."
Greaves's eyes narrowed. "You're sure?"
"White veil. Still as stone. Watching." He set the glass down. "Then she was gone."
Greaves leaned back, the chair creaking. "I told myself I'd never believe in that story. But every man who saw her in the old cases… ended up dead. Or wished they were."
Adrian studied the map spread across the desk — a tangle of streets and alleys. The three murders formed a crooked triangle, each one a few blocks from the next.
"Dockside," Adrian murmured. "She's circling something."
Greaves hesitated, then pulled open a drawer. He set down a small, blackened object — a brass button, warped as if scorched from within.
"Found this in the Wren place. Don't match his clothes."
Adrian turned it in his fingers. The metal was etched with a strange mark — a circle crossed by jagged lines, almost like a crude map.
Before he could speak, the door banged open. A tall, gaunt man with ink stains on his cuffs stepped in, carrying a rolled parchment under one arm. His eyes darted between them.
"This your man?" he asked Greaves.
"Adrian Blackthorn," Greaves said. "Silas Dorne — historian, cartographer, and the only fool I know who'll dig through Brackensport's past without charging a fortune."
Silas dropped the parchment on the desk and unrolled it. The paper was yellowed and brittle, covered in hand-drawn lines.
"These," Silas said, tapping with a long finger, "are the old tunnels. Built before the plague of '72. Half of them aren't on any official record. And here—" he pointed at the center of the crooked triangle "—is where they all meet."
Adrian stared at the spot. An abandoned chapel, if he remembered right.
"What's there now?"
Silas's mouth twisted. "Nothing you want to see."
Before Adrian could press him, a shout echoed up from the street outside. Boots pounded on cobblestone. A constable burst in, face pale.
"Another one," he gasped. "It just happened — and the fog's thick as soup."
Adrian and Greaves were already moving. As they pushed out into the night, the wind carried a sound down the alley — a slow, almost melodic hum.
It was the same lullaby Mrs. Calder had described.