While the lodge was being prepared, I spent time at the manor with my siblings. I had even narrowed the distance between Elora and myself; I hadn't expected her to stay upset with me for so long. Laurence's piano practice went in one ear and out the other. To my right, Jasper had taken his usual spot, tightening the screws of some device I couldn't quite identify. Elora, meanwhile, was spending time in the front garden and wasn't present in this setting. For a while, my gaze lingered on the way Laurence's bony fingers shaped the notes. My mind, however, was in turmoil.
There were many things I couldn't make sense of but what had kept me from seeing what was right in front of me all this time? Was I deliberately trying to make mistakes? Or was I underestimating everyone except myself? Lady MacLeod was serious about wanting Godfrey dead; I was as certain of that as I was of myself. Was that why she was after me? If that was the reason, then why me? She could have found someone else to kill him. I believed she herself was a killer, and she hadn't denied it. When she said she couldn't do it herself, was it because the methods of killing didn't suit her or because she truly couldn't? What had stopped her? Why ask a serial killer to kill someone, instead of just any killer?
Everyone died sooner or later; ending someone's life early stemmed from not wanting them to live any longer. She didn't want Godfrey's death to be left to fate she wanted him to be killed by a serial killer because… a work of art? Did she want him to be my work of art? But why? From my perspective, as long as I was the one creating the art, everyone else was a blank canvas. The dead were insignificant; the method of dying was what held value. But what did this mean to Lady MacLeod? What did death mean to you, my work of art?
The flawless stitch, the inability to distinguish love from obsession, the poem she loved, the poem she wanted me to hear… what was its final line? I will love you more after death.
Love more after death… after death… hmm. Could that be her aim? To love Godfrey more after death? But then wouldn't she have to love him actively right now? She feared him, and Godfrey loved or was obsessed with Jane, at least that's what I had heard. How did Godfrey choose those he loved? Perhaps that was the real question I should be focusing on. If Godfrey truly didn't love Lady MacLeod, or if this wasn't obsession, then I would think her desire for his death stemmed from loving the detective. Just a chain of assumptions, I couldn't make decisions based on a single line of poetry. But she had read it because she wanted me to hear it; that couldn't be without reason. Everything Lady MacLeod did, every word she spoke, had a reason beneath it and I would find that reason. The only point I couldn't rationalize was having slept with me. Lust? Desire? She hadn't seemed to enjoy it very much.
"Brother, I stopped playing the piano five minutes ago, but you're still staring at it."
Still looking at the piano, I said, "I'm neither seeing nor hearing anything right now, Laurence. I'm just thinking." Then, when I turned my gaze to Jasper, the air in the room was already tense as usual; I kept my voice deliberately calm any slight change in tone in this house could be interpreted in the wrong way.
"I want the key to the MacLeods' house."
Jasper's shoulders visibly tensed. My brother usually relaxed, even careless slipped into an instinctive defensive posture the moment he heard the request. His brows drew together slightly; his hands began fiddling with the cuffs of his jacket without him realizing it.
"Are you going to do something?" he asked anxiously.
There was a nameless unease inside him.
I deliberately prodded at it. Without taking my eyes off him, I asked with a thin layer of mockery in my voice,
"Why? Has Lady MacLeod caught your attention? What do you like most about her?"
Jasper's reaction was immediate. He looked away, as if meeting my gaze would turn the answer into a heavier confession.
"Her eyes…" he said quietly. "Because they're pitch-black, everything she looks at seems brighter."
I studied him from beneath my lashes, trying to catch the expression on his face.
"Hm," I said thoughtfully. "I'd never noticed. At her core, she's just a woman, Jasper. Don't get carried away."
"It's fine, I don't really care that much. It's just… you know… that woman is striking."
"I know."
The door suddenly opened. Elora stepped inside; her cheeks were slightly flushed from the cold, her steps firm.
"Brother," she said, staring straight ahead. "The city is crowded because of Hogmanay. I want to buy ribbons, come with me."
Laurence stood up immediately and took a step toward her.
"Of course, Elora. Are you ready?"
"No. Not you."
She pulled her gaze away from him and turned it to me.
"Brother Adrian, I want to go with you."
A brief silence followed. All three of us were surprised; Elora taking such a direct step toward me was unusual. Without saying anything, I took my coat. I had no intention of letting my decision be questioned. Besides, there was a name and a back alley I had been meaning to see for some time and at last, I was planning to give Godfrey the murder he wanted.
We went down into the city together. In the middle of winter, Edinburgh was more crowded than ever; the streets were filled with voices, laughter, and music drifting in from afar.
The servants were following behind us, but in this crush I thought they would only be a hindrance; with a small gesture I sent them back. From then on, it was just the two of us.
Elora didn't speak at all along the way. She moved silently through the crowd; her eyes drifted over shop windows, over fabrics and ribbons in every color. That silence reminded me that the old tension between us had still not been fully resolved.
When we stopped in front of a shop, I turned to her.
"What kind of ribbon are you looking for?"
"A ribbon that will make me stand out at Hogmanay."
I was surprised; softening my voice, I asked,
"Stand out? That's the first time I've heard that from you. You usually don't care much for being social."
She lifted her head, and for a brief moment our eyes met.
"People change, brother."
I smiled. Her words were simple, yet there was determination behind them.
"You're right," I said. "I suppose I haven't quite gotten used to you growing up."
When we entered the ribbon shop together, the winter light seeping in through the narrow display window cast a dull sheen over the fabrics on the shelves. Reels lined the walls from end to end, gathering all the colors of Edinburgh in one place: sooty blacks, wine reds, misty greens, bone whites… The silk slid beneath one's fingertips; the velvets sank inward when touched. The place smelled of old wood.
Inside, a tall blond man stood as if he didn't belong there. His shoulders were too broad, his posture too relaxed an air of confidence that didn't suit Edinburgh's narrow little shops as he wandered between the shelves. The moment I noticed him, I knew who he was.
"What business do you have here, Mr. Godfrey?"
At the sound of my voice, he lifted his head from the ribbons; his gaze shifted first to me, then to Elora. That two-second moment of appraisal revealed how his mind worked: inquisitive, suspicious.
"I'd like to buy a ribbon as a gift for a lady, but I'm told I'm not particularly talented at choosing."
I smiled; the movement of my lips didn't match what my eyes were saying. I doubted that ribbons were his true reason for being here he was most likely inspecting every place, every corner, as usual.
"So even a man like you has trouble with women, is that it?"
He let his shoulders drop wearily and took a deep breath. It felt less like a confession and more like a performance. The unfortunate thing about Mr. Godfrey was that every movement of his looked like an act, so the line between what was real and what was false all but vanished.
"What can I say? You can't live with them, but you can't live without them either."
As I let out a feigned chuckle, my gaze slid past the shop window to the street outside. The crowded road had taken on its usual chaos as Hogmanay approached; people flowed over one another, faces blending together. Just then, a familiar silhouette peeled away from the crowd. Miss MacLeod. Beside her was a man whose death I had already decided upon long ago: Edgar Hume. As the two of them turned into a narrow side street together, the hunter's instinct inside me was triggered involuntarily; for a moment, my mind detached itself from the shop, the ribbons, from Godfrey.
Elora stepped forward with a smile. That smile was different from before bolder, more deliberate.
"Perhaps I can help you. I understand ribbons."
Godfrey cast Elora a sideways glance. It was brief, but it said enough; I realized he no longer saw Elora as a child, but as a variable and that was deeply unsettling.
"Oh… hmm… if Mr. Adrian approves, that is…"
But my priority at that moment was my curiosity about what was happening outside, not Elora's happiness.
"Of course," I said, pushing my thoughts to the back of my mind along with that shadow in the street. "I have some business to attend to. Mr. Godfrey, I'll leave my sister in your care for a while. Will that be a problem?"
I knew what I was doing was wrong, Godfrey was hardly trustworthy. Still, I would rather she stay in a ribbon shop with Godfrey than be left alone with Miss MacLeod. And I didn't believe he had the nerve to harm my sister; on the contrary, the show of trust I was putting on now would distance me, at least a little, from the role of suspect.
"Not at all. You can be sure I'll take very good care of your sister. Do you find that acceptable, my lady?"
"There's no problem, Mr. Godfrey. Please, let's continue choosing the gift."
When I left them in the shop and turned back, two figures were separating from the crowd: Miss MacLeod and Edgar Hume walking beside her, already nothing more than a body sealed as a victim in my mind. He was the owner of the death I had chosen for Hogmanay night. I had even decided where I would kill him: one of the narrow passages opening onto Mary King's Close. Its stone walls were damp, its echoes plentiful old enough to swallow screams whole...
My steps slowed. It was a mental calculation time, distance, probabilities. The street they had turned into was the one that led to the place I had chosen. Dangerously close to the ribbon shop, yet still detached from the main road. There were people, yes; the city was boiling with life ahead of Hogmanay, but in this street the crowd thinned, footsteps quickened, eyes dropped to the ground. And above all, one question lodged itself into my mind: what exactly was Miss MacLeod doing here with that man?
I entered the street quietly and slowly. Puddles between the stones fractured the light, and a cold, damp smell rose from the walls. At first I heard their conversation in fragments not words, but tones. The man's voice was close, confident, far too relaxed. The woman's was restrained, knotted in her throat.
Then the words became clear.
"Let me go! Don't touch me!"
Along with those words came the sound of fabric scraping; a frantic movement, an arm being pulled, a shoe slipping on stone. The man's reply was lower, but heavier.
"You want this too, otherwise why would you lead me into this street?"
I listened to Miss MacLeod's struggle for a while. This wasn't the panic of a misunderstanding; it was the desperation of a body trying to escape. Her breathing quickened, her words became uneven. In that moment I realized that the murder I had planned had lost its cold, flawless order in my mind. Because the scene before me was far more primal, far dirtier than a calculated game between hunter and prey. And there I stood, in the darkness, at the very place I had chosen for death, in the middle of an unexpected act of witnessing.
My entire body flooded with a nameless wave of cold and heat. My blood was either draining away or boiling; it was too sudden and too intense to tell which. My breath caught in my chest, my fingertips went numb yet my mind was startlingly clear. I didn't hesitate. I wouldn't allow my work of art to be defiled so early, and in such a despicable way.
My steps echoed on the stone ground; the alley was narrow and damp, the roar of the Hogmanay crowd left only a few steps behind. Here, only stifled breaths and whispers circulated. The man's back was turned to me. I grabbed him by the collar, poured everything that had built up inside me into my arm, and hurled him to the ground. The sound as he fell was the dull, unpleasant echo of flesh striking stone.
I climbed on top of him. My fists came down, once, twice… I didn't count. I didn't want to. My vision narrowed; his face was nothing but a shadow, merely a shape that needed to be broken apart. A hot metallic taste rose between my teeth; I couldn't remember the last time I had been this angry. It was as if it wasn't my body moving at all, but instinct alone.
Miss MacLeod's words rang in my ears.
"Please stop, you're going to kill him."
Her voice was like a cold drop falling into the center of my blurred mind. My movement halted halfway. My fist, suspended in the air, slowly withdrew. The man's groan, the smell of blood smeared across the stones… everything snapped back into place at once.
I stood up.
"So what if I kill him? A soldier kills a man in war and it's not a problem, God takes our lives and it's not a problem, yet when I kill him, suddenly it is? Or do I simply need to be a politician?"
It wasn't a defense; it could hardly be called a confession either. It was merely the logic of the order inside me.
I stopped in front of Miss Jane, who was standing with her back against the wall. Her chest rose and fell rapidly; her face was pale, her eyes wide, her trembling body as if it couldn't quite believe what had just happened. She was standing. That detail struck my mind and stuck there. Her ankle… the bandage… Godfrey's fingerprints…
What was she doing here?
Why was she here with this man?
Why had she sought me out at the faculty?
What was her purpose in searching for a serial killer?
The questions tangled together in my head each sharp, each unanswered. But for the first time, my lips betrayed me. Only one of my questions escaped.
"Are you okay?"
The moment I said it, I realized how insufficient it was, how small a question it sounded. Yet it was the only thing I could manage to say in that moment.
Her eyes were still fixed on the man lying on the ground. Her gaze was frozen; what had just happened was echoing again and again in one corner of her mind, while her body hadn't yet caught up. I took her by the chin, noticing how cold her skin felt beneath my fingers. With my strength, I turned her face toward me.
"I'm the one asking the question. You should be looking at me."
When she lifted her head, I truly saw her for the first time. Her eyes… just as Jasper had described them. Pitch-black, deep, the kind that swallowed light. They gleamed; whether from fear, shock, or simply because she was looking at me, I couldn't tell. The moment she focused on me, her trembling intensified as if she wasn't seeing the man before her, but the thing inside him.
At that moment, I heard the man's hoarse coughing from the ground. He was stirring on the stone floor, trying to get up. The anger rising inside me was almost reflexive.
"Stay where you are!"
"She, cough, cough! She dragged me here, I swear to you!"
I didn't even turn my head.
"Shut your mouth, unless you want to find out what it's like to be missing a jawbone in your skull."
I turned back to Miss Jane. She was frozen where she stood, leaning harder against the wall, her breathing uneven.
"You seem to have grasped the difference between knowing about my dark side and actually seeing it."
She didn't avert her eyes. On the contrary, her voice was trembling but sincere.
"No. I'm just truly very glad you came here early. Truly."
Gratitude… Hearing that from her mouth was strange. An incomprehensible knot formed in my stomach. When my hand moved toward her arm, trembling, I noticed the sounds rising behind us and pulled back. The crowd was growing whispers, footsteps, curious glances. Only now did I properly register how close we were to the ribbon shop.
When I turned my head, I saw Godfrey and Elora at the front. Both were looking at us. Fear and shock were intertwined on Elora's face. Miss MacLeod hurried past me and went straight to Godfrey's side. As she told him what had just happened that the man had tried to attack her, her voice was still shaking. Another oddity… she walked like a horse, steady and proper.
Godfrey bent down to look at her.
"Are you alright?"
She nodded yes to the question he asked, the one he hadn't spoken to me, this "emotional dancer." Funny.
Then Godfrey straightened and turned directly toward me. He looked at the blood on my hands; my fingers were still warm. For a moment, I thought he would pounce on me with suspicion. But the expression on his face was something entirely different.
"Are you injured?" he asked anxiously.
That question caught me more off guard than I expected. My mind went blank for a moment. Too many strange scenarios were finding me today.
"Uh… I'm fine."
He nodded, as if relieved. Oh, fuck off, relieved? He must have been mocking me. I had never seen him look this genuinely relieved upon hearing that Miss MacLeod was fine.
"Good. You—" he said, turning to the man on the ground, "you're coming with me."
I looked at Miss MacLeod. She was looking at us. She was looking at me. And in that moment, I realized something: her gaze was, for the first time, truly… worth noticing.
I approached him, one hand clenched in front of me, the other in my pocket. Standing before him, I leaned toward him slightly but noticeably and whispered.
"I won't kill Godfrey. I don't intend to make you happy."