Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I had Robins park across the street from the gates of that bloody Mill, the brick monolith of a building smudged against the smog-heavy London sky like a scar. The factory loomed like some crouched creature from a gothic dream, all soot-dark bricks and screaming metal, spewing smoke into a sky already gray with despair. Its narrow windows blinked with dim, orange light, blinking like tired eyes behind goggles. The air tasted of iron, acrid oil, and sweat; it curled against the back of my throat and clung to the inside of my nostrils even from this distance. From inside the car, the low hum of machines reached me—a dull, constant throb like the slow pulse of something alive and diseased. Robins didn’t speak. He knew better than to break the silence I held around myself like a shroud. I tapped my fingers slowly against the leather seat as we waited.

The factory shift bell let out its shrill screech—a sound like metal tearing through bone. A moment later, the great doors groaned open, and the workers poured out like ants disturbed from their nest. Tired faces. Hands wrapped in filthy cloth. Coal-smudged cheeks and hollow eyes. Their feet moved in rhythm, heavy and lifeless, like parts of the very machines they serviced. Machines that demanded silence and sweat, and in return, gave them a wage barely enough to keep breath in their bodies.

And there he was.

The boy.

I spotted him easily; I had spent nearly two hours this morning watching him. He emerged not with the others, not truly. He kept a distance from them, as if there were some invisible barrier around him—a space none dared to cross. There was no mistaking the shape of his face—mine. The jawline. The set of the mouth. But the eyes—those were hers. Not in color, perhaps, but in something deeper. A look that saw too much. A look that judged.

He was tall for his age, though thin—almost fragile-looking. Like her. She used to be very thin too. His hair was darker than mine. It was her hair colour. The boy was not only me. I could see her in him too. The similarities were quite subdued, and I tried hard to find those, but they were there, and that is what mattered. His coat was patched in more places than it wasn’t, and his boots looked ready to fall apart. No Riddle should be going around like this, came the thought to my mind. He is no Riddle, I reminded myself. He is a Gaunt like his mother.

His hands were shoved into his pockets, his gait neither hurried nor slow. Intentional. Measured. Like a man already too used to solitude. He didn’t speak to anyone. No one walked beside him. A solitary creature, apart from the rest.

He walked with purpose, chin tilted down, avoiding gazes without cowering from them. He crossed the street without hesitation, vanishing into the warren of alleys that made up the industrial district.

“He always walks,” Robins had told me.

“From the mill to the orphanage. Rain or shine. Refuses any ride.”

There was a silence in the car. I didn’t trust my voice, so I simply nodded. Watched until he turned a corner and vanished from view. My hand tightened around the edge of the seat. That peculiar cocktail of dread and awe swelled again in my chest. The ghost of something ancestral stirred in my blood.

“Follow him,” I told Robins.

“But keep your distance.”

And so we did. Each day.

---

Earlier That Day

Factories always repulsed me. The stink of oil and human sweat, the overwhelming cacophony of grinding gears and clattering looms, the cloying humidity. But this one—this one disturbed me more than usual. Perhaps it was the knowledge of who was inside.

I had avoided visiting mills most of my adult life. In my youth, I had found them grotesquely fascinating monuments to human ambition. But now, they felt like prisons. They reminded me of how thin the veil of civilization truly was.

We entered through a side door, the director, whose name I did not care to remember, already prattling on about output and quotas. I let the words wash over me. I was focused on the smells, the sounds, the heat. It was suffocating.

The director—a squat man with thinning hair and an eagerness that grated on my nerves—led us to an elevated platform at the edge of the main hall. From here, the entire factory spread out before us.

Rows of machines hummed and screamed, their metallic limbs twisting and pulsing like beasts in heat. The air was thick with fibber dust, visible in every shaft of light that pierced through the grimy windows. Workers—most of them teenagers, some even younger—moved like ants, darting in and out of the mechanisms, their faces grey with exhaustion.

It hit me harder than expected—that tide of humanity, the sheer brutality of the work we made them do. And I say "we" not as the director did, meaning he and his overseers, but as a Riddle. A descendant of men who built their fortune on this misery. Once, I took pride in it. In our industry.

Now?

I don’t know.

“Your... the boy works there,” the director said, pointing to a particular section of the floor.

“Gear maintenance. He keeps the belts slick and the floor clear of debris. Dangerous job, really.”

I barely heard him. Or rather, I didn’t care. I was half-excited, half-terrified. There was a part of me that longed not only to see the boy—but to meet him. To speak. To know.

And there was another part—louder, colder—that wanted to turn away and never come back.

Inside, I was split open. But outside, I wore the only face I knew: composed. Sharp. Arrogant, some would say. In control.

I had learned long ago to wear it like armor. My father wore it. His father before him. We did not blink. We did not bend. We showed softness only within the family. For the world outside we need to keep our faces straight.

The director kept talking—something about numbers, growth projections, labor stability. God, how this man annoys me as if I care about this shitty place and his work. I came here with only one interest and business was it not.

I cut him in half sentence.

“And the boy?

Robins gestured to a section just a few meters ahead. I followed his eyes.

A small figure was crawling out from beneath one of the machines—half-swallowed by the metal beast, grease on his hands, a streak of oil black across one cheek. He stood, adjusted something, then crawled under again.

I glanced at Robins. He nodded once.

There he was.

The child.

I dismissed the others. They both had better things to do than watch factory boys work.

And I...

I couldn’t risk them seeing my face.

---

I watched him for nearly two hours.

He moved with strange grace—careful, deliberate. Too old for his age in every gesture. He didn’t complain. Didn’t pause to rest. Just worked. Like a shadow. Like a machine.

He was not entirely me. Nor entirely her. A strange alloy of both. His frame was hers—slight, with a certain haunting sharpness to his limbs. But the energy, the focus—that was mine. Or perhaps my father’s. There was something cruel about how efficiently he moved.

The director had said the other workers avoided him. Said he gave them "the shivers."

I could see why.

But I couldn’t look away.

And that disturbed me.

---

The sounds of the mill blended into something else in my mind. A memory. A sunny autumn afternoon. Merope standing in the garden, barefoot, smiling strangely as she whispered to her swelling belly.

“He will be perfect. “ she had said.

Even now, the memory of her touch on my chest made my skin crawl. She had ruined me. Ruined everything.

And yet—

And yet, she had created this boy. This boy who looked like me. Who worked in silence and survived in a world colder than any I had known.

Was that what she had wanted? For him to be alone? 

---

The drive back to the townhouse—my usual place whenever I was in London—was quiet, save for the soft rattle of the car wheels over cobblestones. I stared out the window, watching the city blur past, but my mind wasn’t on the streets or the fog or anything else outside.

It was on him.

I didn’t mean to. I’d told myself—firmly, repeatedly—that thinking about him was pointless. But there he was, slipping in anyway, like mist through the cracks. No matter how many times I tried to shut the door on the thought, it crept back in. I shifted in my seat, annoyed with myself more than anything.

When we arrived, I didn’t go inside right away. I lingered by the door, staring down the street like I was waiting for something. Robins stood nearby, dutifully silent, hands behind his back like always. I could feel his gaze flicker toward me.

Finally, I cleared my throat.

“That orphanage,” I began, trying to sound casual, but my voice cracked halfway through. I coughed to cover it.

“The one he’s in… Make some inquiries, would you?”

Robins gave a slight bow. “Of course, sir. May I ask—what would you like me to find out?”

I rubbed the back of my neck, hesitating.

“Why he’s there. And, ah… what happened to his mother.”

I glanced away, as if the bricks of the townhouse suddenly demanded my full attention.

“That sort of thing.”

There was a pause. Then Robins asked, gently, “Is that all you wish to know, sir?”

I almost said no. The words were right there. I wanted to know more—what kind of boy he was, what he liked. But it was too much, too revealing. Too obvious.

I exhaled sharply and shook my head.

“Yes. That’s all.”

But it wasn’t. Not even close.

I went inside, but it didn’t feel like coming home. The townhouse was neat, warm, well-kept—exactly as it always was. Not a cushion out of place, not a single coat hook empty. And yet it all felt… off. Like I was a guest in someone else’s life.

I peeled off my gloves and hat with more force than necessary, tossing them onto the table by the door. My coat followed. Someone moved to hang it properly.

“Will you be wanting supper, sir?” the servant asked.

“No,” I muttered. Then, after a beat: “Maybe later.”

I stood in the middle of the sitting room like I’d forgotten why I came in. The fire was already lit. Armchairs positioned perfectly. Everything inviting. And I couldn’t sit still.

“I mean—” I turned around suddenly, halfway startling the poor man, “when you speak to the matron, don’t go barging in, obviously. Keep it... subtle.”

“Of course,” Robins said, his voice as neutral as ever. “I’ll be discreet.”

“And don’t let on that I’m asking. Just say it’s for—something routine. A… patronage report. Or whatever sounds believable.”

He nodded. “Naturally, sir.”

I sat down heavily, elbows on knees, head in my hands. For a second I forgot Robins was even there. Then I felt his presence still lingering by the door, polite but steady.

“You think I’m a fool,” I said suddenly, not looking up.

“I think,” Robins replied after a pause, “that everyone has their reasons for caring.”

That brought my head up. We looked at each other—really looked—and for once, I didn’t have anything clever to say.

I just sighed.

“Find out what you can,” I said, voice quieter now.

Robins gave the barest nod. “Very good, sir.”

And then he left me there, in that too-perfect room, with the fire crackling and my thoughts roaring louder still.

---

Each evening, the ritual repeated itself. The boy emerged from the factory like a solitary wraith, untouched by the tides of workers that surrounded him. I watched him from behind darkened windows, half hidden by city soot, separated by glass and leather, yet pierced through by a strange guilt I could not define.

He never strayed from his route. Past the rail line. Across the old bridge. Through the crumbling alley behind the bakery. Once, a dog barked at him from behind a fence and he did not flinch—just turned and stared at the animal until it backed away, tail between its legs.

It unsettled me.

There was something in that boy’s silence, in the rigid grace of his posture, that stirred old instincts in me—something I had buried ten years ago when I fled her, when I locked that chapter of my life in a box marked delusion.

But here he was. Flesh and blood. Moving like a shadow through the city.

“He reminds me of you,” Robins said one evening as we followed the boy at a distance.

I didn’t reply. Because he was wrong.

He reminded me of something worse.

Of her.

---

Robins entered the study after breakfast.

“She died in childbirth,” he said bluntly. “Merope Gaunt. Gave birth at the orphanage. No one knows where she came from. She arrived weak, penniless.”

“That bitch died almost ten years ago…”

I laughed. Loud and sudden. The sound of it shocked even me.

Robins gave me a look—one of those subtle, sidelong glances that told me he wasn’t entirely sure I was still sane.

“So that’s it then,” I said. “She’s dead. And he’s all that’s left.”

“Mrs. Cole, the matron, called him… disturbing,” Robins added, hesitating.

“Disturbing?” I echoed.

“He’s... sharp. Keeps to himself. No friends. The other children avoid him. Staff say he unnerves them. Some think he talks to himself. Others believe he hurts animals. No proof. Just rumours.”

I looked at him. “Do you believe them?”

Robins hesitated. “I believe he's... different.”

I didn't respond at first. Just stared out the window.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle. That’s what she named him.”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” I said, testing the sound of it.

I looked over, smirking bitterly.

Robins glanced at me. “A strange mix of names.”

“Tom. After me. Marvolo. After her father.”

“If your father ever heard that…”

“Oh, he'd have a stroke,” I said, dryly.

But something had shifted inside me. I wasn’t laughing anymore.

We didn’t speak for a while.

“Will you speak with him?” Robins asked eventually.

“No,” I said. “Not yet.”

---

That evening, a card awaited me at the townhouse. Delivered by hand, sealed in navy wax.
Ellerby House. “A modest supper among friends. Your presence is expected.”
No signature, but the weight of my father’s expectations pressed through every word.
I considered declining. But of course, I didn’t.

I went.

Ellerby House stood just off Grosvenor Square, its tall windows shuttered against the spring fog. The drawing room smelled faintly of polish, brandy, and old coin. Everything in the house seemed chosen to say: we were here before you and we’ll still be here when you’re gone.

There were perhaps two dozen men, all told—no wives, no press, just the familiar kind of company that moved warships and railway lines with a nod. Most were older than him. A few had shared lecture halls at Oxford. The rest simply knew the name Riddle and weighed it accordingly.

He was greeted with the usual: firm handshakes, glances like ledgers being balanced.

“Riddle,” said Hugh Henley, pressing a drink into his hand. “Look at you—clean-cut and unsupervised. Should we be worried?”

“She’s home. Tom replied. “Holding court.”

“Terrible shame,” said another, pouring the wine, “she always kept the table so elegant.”

That earned a few quiet laughs. The kind men made when they’d all survived the same war, or the same tax scandal.

They clustered around the hearth with drinks in hand, voices low, refined. The conversation slid from American steel prices to whispers about German naval expansion. Someone muttered about tariffs. Another swore the King would abdicate before Christmas.

Tom sipped his brandy and let the noise wash over him.

Dinner was called around eight. One long table, silver polished to a mirror shine, candles flickering above in low chandeliers. A butler carved the duck with silent, studied precision.

The first half of the meal passed in ritual—complaints about the pound, concern over a rumour in the Times, what the Italians were doing in Abyssinia

It was halfway through the main course when it began.

“Tom,” said Fairbourne, cutting his venison, ““you ever hear from Wilton these days?” Tom raised an eyebrow. “Not since university, no.”

“Oh, God,” Trenholm laughed. “Riddle’s great vanishing act.”

A few chuckles circled the table. Someone raised a glass in mock salute.

“One day he was writing essays on Roman law, next thing he’s nowhere. Tutors didn’t know if they were supposed to fail him or mourn him.” added Henley.

Tom’s fork paused mid-air.

“Illness, wasn’t it?” said March, eyebrow raised.

“That’s what they said,” someone replied. “But there were rumours, of course.”

Tom’s knife paused for half a second. Not enough for most men to notice.

“I heard you ran off with someone,” Henley said, grinning. “A girl from your village. Whole thing sounded like a bloody romance book.”

“Someone said you ran off and married her.” said another.

Tom’s jaw tightened.

“I did,” he said.

A brief silence.

“But weren’t you already—”

“Yes,” Tom said. “I was engaged. To Cecilia.”

Another pause. This one colder.

“Well,” March said at last, attempting to soften the tension, “nothing like youthful folly to get us all through our twenties.”

“And it all ended, didn’t it?” said someone near the foot of the table

“At least you weren’t dragged to court over it. These things tend to turn litigious.” said someone at the far end.

“She died,” Tom said flatly. “Before it could become fashionable gossip.”

Must’ve been a hell of a year,” Henley offered, less mockingly now.

“It was,” Tom replied. “Well,” said March, raising his glass, “thank God for Cecilia. She’s a marvel.”

The others echoed the sentiment, toasting her with murmured warmth and half-meant smiles. Relief passed through them like a breeze through linen—they could laugh again. The scandal had been acknowledged. Contained. Filed away.

He stayed through coffee.

And left before the brandy.

---

I began to dread the evenings. I hated how I anticipated them, how I watched the clock, waiting for the bell to toll at the Mill. I hated how my heart beat faster when the workers poured out, how my eyes searched for that lone, familiar figure. I told myself it was curiosity. I told myself it was duty.

But the truth was darker.

I was obsessed.

I had to see him again. Every day. Just to prove to myself he was real.

Because every time I turned away, I half-expected him to vanish, to dissipate like the dream.

“He will be perfect,” she had said desperately.

“He will be nothing,” I had spat back.

And yet here he was. Not nothing. Not perfect. But real.

---

Sometimes I would stay in the car long after he was gone, staring at the corner where he disappeared, wondering what the hell I was doing in this city. Wondering what I thought I would find.

Answers? Redemption?

I didn’t believe in either.

But still I returned. Every single day.

One morning, I asked Robins if he ever saw anything strange about the boy.

He glanced at me in the mirror.

“Strange?”

“Yes. Odd. Unnatural.”

Robins hesitated. “Sometimes he doesn’t blink. For minutes. He just... watches.”

“Watches what?”

“Everything.”

I fell silent.

The next day, when the boy passed the bakery, he paused. Looked at the window. Not at the loaves, but at the reflection. I think—no, I know he saw me.

But he didn’t stop. Didn’t quicken his pace. Just kept walking, like I wasn’t there.

And yet something in that moment chilled me.

The way he looked into the glass. Not startled. Not afraid.

Knowing.

Like he had always known.

---

I stayed by the fire for a while, just staring at the flames. The logs hissed quietly, shifting now and then with the soft pop of burning sap. I’d always found that sound calming—used to, anyway. Tonight it felt more like a clock ticking. Like something waiting to run out.

I stood up, paced once around the room, then grabbed the decanter from the sideboard. Poured myself a drink I didn’t really want, just for the motion of it. Something to do with my hands.

I leaned against the mantelpiece and took a sip. It burned, but not enough to matter.

The boy's face kept rising up in my mind. Not even clear, just flashes. Dark hair. Pale skin. That guarded look in his eyes—like he was used to keeping things to himself. I hated how familiar that felt.

Why was he so familiar?

I told myself it was just guilt. That I only kept thinking about him because I’d seen the place he lived in, seen how bloody cold it was. I’d walked through that drafty corridor, heard the silence in the halls. A silence so heavy it felt like it had weight.

But I knew better. Guilt had a sharpness to it. This—this was different. This was curiosity with teeth. Something tugging at the edges of things I didn’t want to examine too closely.

I should’ve left it alone. I meant to. I really did.

I downed the rest of the drink in one go, set the glass aside, and crossed the room. Picked up a book. Set it down. Sat. Stood again. Paced. I was circling like a man trapped in a cage he built himself.

It was ridiculous. I didn’t even know him. And yet—

I stopped, hands gripping the back of the armchair like it might anchor me. Like it might hold me in place long enough to make the thoughts stop.

But they didn’t. They only got louder.

I didn’t want to care.

I didn’t mean to care.

---

By the end of the week, I no longer trusted the car to be enough.

I got out.

I followed on foot.

I told Robins to stay back, and I trailed the boy through the fog-stained streets of London, my coat drawn tight, my shoes too clean for the puddles they stepped through.

He never looked back.

But once, he stopped beneath a broken gaslight, and I stood behind a brick wall, watching.

He sat on the curb, arms wrapped around his knees, head bowed.

And for the first time, he looked like a child.

A tired, lonely child.

And in that moment, I wanted to call out to him. I wanted to say something—anything—but I couldn’t. The words turned to ash in my throat. I stood in silence, gripped by some invisible chain, and then, as if the world had exhaled, he rose and continued on.

And I followed.

---

The townhouse was dark when I returned. Too dark. The kind of quiet that settles not from peace, but from something left unsaid. I didn’t light the lamps. Just dropped my coat on the armchair and stood for a while, staring at the fire that had nearly gone out.

I should’ve gone to bed.

I didn’t.

Instead, I sent word for Robins.

He came just before two in the morning, shoulders damp from the rain, collar uneven, hair pushed back hastily as though I’d woken him—which I had.

He didn’t complain. Just stepped inside with that steady sort of quiet that always made me wonder what he might’ve been, had he not spent his life putting out other people’s fires.

“Sit,” I said.

He did.

I poured two drinks. Pushed one across the table. He didn’t touch it.

The silence between us wasn’t awkward. It had shape. Weight. Like something you could put your hand through and feel resistance.

Then:

“He’s ten.”

Robins didn’t flinch. “Yes.”

“And they’ve got him crawling under machinery.”

A beat.

“Yes.”

I let the scotch burn down my throat before speaking again.

“Is that common?”

“In summer, yes. The orphanage sends boys—twelve, sometimes younger. They call it ‘light work.’ Floor sweeping. Greasing gears. Anything that doesn’t show up in reports.”

“And we allow that?”

“We don’t ask.”

I laughed. Bitter. Short.

“No. Of course we don’t.”

I turned to the window. The rain had begun again. Gentle. Relentless. Somewhere out there, the boy was asleep. Or pretending to be. Or lying awake, counting the spaces between thunder and silence.

I didn’t want to speak the next words.

But I did.

“The boy —make sure he’s moved.”

Robins looked up.

“Moved?”

“Off that job. Off the machines. Something safer. Indoors. Sorting, if nothing else.”
A pause.

“And don’t put his name down anywhere. Not in ledgers. Not in logs. Nothing.”

Robins gave a small nod. “Understood.”

I poured another drink and didn’t touch it.

He stood to leave. But at the door, he paused.

“I’ll take care of it.”

I didn’t thank him. I couldn’t.

He turned the knob, then looked back once.

“Sir,” he said. “I know you don’t want to be seen. But that boy already sees you. You understand?”

I didn’t respond.

I just stared into the fire and listened to the sound of the door closing softly behind him.

---

That night, the dream came again.

Merope, pale and sickly, her eyes like hollows in a skull, reaching for me through a sea of gray. Her mouth moved, but no sound came. Her hair floated like seaweed. I tried to run. I couldn’t. I tried to scream. Nothing. Then her hands were on my face, pulling me into the dark.

I woke gasping, drenched in sweat. The sheets clung to me like a second skin. My heart wouldn’t stop racing. My throat was dry.

I drank half a bottle of brandy just to calm down.

---

The next day, I made the mistake of accepting an invitation to lunch at my club.

It was one of those places built on quiet rules and older money. The kind of club where the curtains were always drawn halfway, the fireplaces always burning just enough to give the illusion of warmth, and the portraits on the wall stared down with expressions of mild, permanent disapproval. Every corner smelled faintly of cigars, cologne, and ancient books no one read anymore.

I shouldn’t have come.

But the invitation had been extended by Lord Barrington himself—a man who made it a habit of remembering who refused him—and I had grown tired of Robins’ side-eye glances whenever I spent too many hours pacing the townhouse like a ghost. So I told myself a change of scene would do me good. That I could play the part again. Pretend, just for an hour, that I still fit here.

The dining room was as I remembered it. Polished mahogany, heavy silverware, white-gloved waiters who moved like wraiths between the tables. Sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows in fractured jewel tones, casting noble reds and melancholic blues across the tablecloth. A quartet of men, all of them in waistcoats far too bright for the season, greeted me with loud, familiar voices and that particular brand of laughter reserved for those whose fortunes had never truly wavered.

I took my seat. Accepted the glass of claret. Tried to smile when the conversation turned, inevitably, to dividends and silk tariffs. I heard someone mention the name of a shipping magnate whose daughter had run off with a composer. Another talked about rising steel costs in Birmingham. None of it meant anything to me.

My mind kept drifting. Drifting back to the soot-stained street. The boy’s face beneath that broken gaslight. The cold detachment in his eyes.

“Riddle,” one of them said suddenly, cutting through the haze of my thoughts. “You look ghastly.”

I blinked, and the room snapped back into focus. The speaker was John Catten—a portly man with the complexion of damp pastry and the social subtlety of a cannon blast. He was stirring his consommé with idle disapproval.

“Business woes?” he added, smirking.

I forced a smile. “Family business,” I replied.

There was a pause—just enough for the men at the table to exchange a look, for one of them to raise an eyebrow in amusement—and then the laughter resumed, light and unkind.

“Isn’t it always,” someone said, and another clinked his glass in agreement.

I stared down at my untouched plate. A delicately arranged cut of pheasant, surrounded by perfectly sliced root vegetables. It looked like a painting. Lifeless.
I thought of the boy’s hands in the orphanage yard —raw, dirt-crusted—wrapped around a piece of dry bread, the kind you wouldn’t feed a dog in Mayfair.

The room was too loud. Too clean. Too false.

I placed my napkin on the table and stood up.

“Gentlemen,” I said quietly.

Someone protested. Another made a joke about early exits and weak stomachs. I ignored them.
I left before dessert.

I couldn’t bear it.

Outside, the air was cold and sharp, filled with the sting of coal smoke and river fog. It hit me like a slap, but at least it was real. At least it didn’t pretend to be anything else.

I walked for a long time before I called for the car.

And I didn’t go back to the townhouse.

---

Eventually, I returned. Late. Unsettled.

The townhouse was quiet when I returned.

Too quiet.

I peeled off my gloves. Poured a drink I didn’t want. The invitation from Ellerby still sat on the table, mocking me in navy wax.

I reached for a cigarette. And felt the edge of something else instead.

The photograph was small. Folded neatly behind a worn note in his wallet. He hadn’t looked at it in years—not really. But tonight, when he reached for the cigarette case, his fingers brushed the edge of it first.

Cecilia.

Rome. The spring after they married. She stood with one hand on a stone railing, hair gently lifted by the breeze. The photograph had been carefully posed—but something in her eyes made it look like a moment stolen from time.

He stared at the image, thumb brushing the faintly creased corners. untouched for years, like a life he'd sealed off.

She had forgiven worse. More than once. Quietly. Without ever asking him to say the words aloud.
And yet… this felt different. Too fragile. Too close to the bone.

What would she say, if she knew?

About the boy. About all of it. Merope. The truth.

She wouldn’t cry. Cecilia didn’t cry. She wouldn’t shout either. Cecilia didn’t raise her voice. She would listen. Patiently. She might ask a question or two, always measured. Then she would go quiet.

And that was what terrified him.

Not her leaving.

But her staying—and seeing him differently.

That moment when she’d stop looking at him quite the same. She wouldn’t accuse. She would simply shift. Become a little more distant. A little more formal. The warmth in her voice cooled, just slightly.

She would still set his tea down in the mornings. Still stand beside him at parties. Still offer him her hand at the garden gate.

But her smile wouldn’t quite reach her eyes.

And he would know.

He folded the photo gently and slipped it back into the wallet.

Then lit a cigarette.

The match hissed. The first drag burned.

He remembered Berlin.

The folded letter in her travel case. The doctor’s handwriting slanted and foreign, each word trying not to sound like blame. Tobacco use, he’d written, might interfere. Might. As if the ink itself didn’t want to commit. Cecilia never said it outright. She only asked if he would stop. And he had. Of course he had.

Not because he believed it would make a difference.

Because she did.

He stared at the smoke curling toward the ceiling now, thin as regret.

They both knew the truth long before the letter.

But still, they tried.

He’d started again quietly. In London. Where she couldn’t see him.

There was no reason not to anymore. The effort had become routine — a kind of ritual, like evening tea or garden walks.

And now, even that was gone.

He hadn’t even spoken to the boy yet, and already the consequences were bleeding into the edges of his life.

He turned toward the desk.

The telephone sat there—silent, polished, perfectly placed.

He stared at it. Then stepped closer. One hand lifted, hovered just over the receiver.

Just to hear her voice. Just for a moment. Something soft. Something safe.

But if she answered…

If she said his name in that gentle way of hers, if she asked how he was—he might tell her.

He didn’t want to lie.

But the truth? The truth would ruin something. Maybe not loudly. But permanently.

He lowered his hand. Slowly.

Took another drag.

Then stubbed the cigarette out and lit another right after.

---

The next morning, I put on the mask again. Three-piece charcoal suit, pressed and perfect. Shaved. Cuff links sharp. Hair combed with military precision. The Riddle heir returned to form.

I arrived at our company’s London headquarters—a grand, red-brick building near Bishopsgate—with the deliberate gait of a man who had nothing to hide and no ghosts clinging to his coattails. Inside, polished floors reflected the gleam of brass railings. A portrait of my grandfather hung at the far end of the main corridor; his eyes forever narrowed in judgment.

Robins was already waiting in the lobby with a leather folder tucked beneath his arm.
“The meeting with the armament division begins at eleven,” he said.

I nodded, gave him my coat, and stepped into the elevator. A girl I didn’t recognize smiled at me as I passed—new secretary, perhaps. I returned the smile with practiced ease. Perfect. Controlled. Tom Riddle, respectable and composed.

The boardroom was stifling as always—high ceilings, but no air. Twelve men sat around a long mahogany table, murmuring about numbers and projections, the way some men murmur prayers. I took my seat at the head, beneath another painting—this one of my father in his prime, looking as though he’d invented wealth itself.

They talked of overseas contracts. Of Polish steel. Of rising tension on the Continent and the quiet, lucrative whisper of rearmament. I nodded in the right places. Signed what I was expected to sign. Asked questions I didn’t care about. Pretended the figures in the ledgers mattered more than the image of a thin boy crawling under a machine with oil-streaked cheeks.

At some point, the head of operations handed me a report. I glanced at the cover page. Cotton output in Leeds and Manchester was down. Something to do with union rumblings.

“How’s the mill near Southwark?” I asked, before I could stop myself.

Several heads turned.

There was a beat of silence. Then a manager cleared his throat.

“Old building. Needs upgrades. But production is steady. Labor’s cheap.”

I tapped a finger on the table.

“What’s the age requirement for gear maintenance?”

Another silence. Then a muttered reply: “Twelve. Officially.”

“Officially?” I repeated. The word felt poisonous in my mouth.

The manager hesitated.

“Some of the boys come in for summer shifts. Light labor, mostly. Cleaning. Oil work. It's… it’s been that way for years.”

I leaned back in my chair, just enough to make them uneasy.

“There’s a boy down there. Ten, maybe. I saw him myself. Covered in grease. Crawling under active machinery.”

A few exchanged glances. One of them shifted in his seat.

I didn’t blink.

“That’s not light labor. That’s hazard work. And we’re not a charity disguised as a sweatshop.”

No one spoke.

“Send an inspector by. Quietly. And pull the youngest workers off that floor until we sort out what we’re actually paying for.”

Still, no one answered.

I looked up slowly.

“Does anyone here have children?”

A few nods. Uneasy.

“Good. Then imagine them crawling into machinery while you skim the dividend reports.”

No one met my eyes after that.

They moved on. I didn’t.

---

The rest of the meeting passed like fog. Numbers, markets, names—just shapes and sound. My fingers tapped restlessly against the lacquered wood.

My thoughts drifted again.

It wasn’t just that the boy was there—it was that he had been born at all. That he existed, breathing, watching, surviving. He should’ve vanished with her, into myth. Instead, he had clawed his way into reality, right here, right under my feet in the city I had claimed as my clean slate.

Cecilia had helped rebuild my life after that nightmare year. A woman with perfect posture and perfect breeding. We hosted dinners. Appeared in Tatler. We vacationed on the Riviera. Her laughter, light and contained, still echoed in my head from our last evening before my parting for London.

She gave me back the name I’d lost. Let me become something again. And yet—

And yet.

If she ever found out. If anyone ever found out—

The boy is dangerous, I thought. Not because of what he is now, but because of what he represents. A thread pulled, and everything could unravel. Everything I had stitched so carefully back together.

But then I remembered him sitting beneath that broken lamp.

Thin arms wrapped around his knees. Eyes cast downward. Alone.

Rotting in that place.

And I couldn’t bring myself to look away.

---

The telephone rang just once before she answered. She always picked up quickly when I was away.

“Tom,” she said warmly, the smile in her voice unmistakable. “I was just thinking of you.”

I exhaled slowly, tension leaving my shoulders in small degrees. Her voice had always done that — ever since I returned broken and shivering from the South, long before she became my wife.

“Celia,” I said, softer than I meant to.

“You sound tired.”

“I am.”

There was a pause. I could hear faint birdsong from the open windows at the house — the quiet kind that only really existed in the countryside, where things stayed the same. Safe. Predictable.

“You promised you’d rest this week.”

“I’ve been trying. Business caught up to me.”

“It always does,” she said gently. “But you don’t have to do it all alone.”

Another pause.

“Are you still at the townhouse?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, I hope you're not just staring into the fire again.”

I let out a small huff of breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Only sometimes.”

I heard the sound of china — a cup placed gently on a saucer.

“Tom, I know this time of year is... difficult for you. But I do wish you'd let me come to London. I could join you. Even for just a few days.”

“I know,” I said quickly. “I just needed space to think.”

“To think, or to disappear?”

That silenced me for a moment.

Then, more softly, she added, “You start to drift when you're in the city too long. And every time you do, I wonder how far away you're going to float.”

“I’m still here,” I said. “With you.”

“I know,” she said. “But you feel so far, sometimes.”

A deeper silence passed between us. Not awkward — familiar. We had walked this tightrope for years.

“We received an invitation this morning,” she said, brightening her voice slightly. “Lady Carnarvon’s garden party. You know the one. Half of London will be there. And the other half will be pretending they weren’t snubbed.”

I smiled. “Do I have to go?”

“Of course. We’re expected. The Worthingtons, the Letbridges, even the Peverells will be there. And you know how your father gets when we miss a major social event.”

“I’d rather walk into traffic.”

“I know. But wear your good cravat and I’ll make it worth your while.”

“You’re bribing me now?”

“I’m being practical,” she said lightly. “Also, I’ll be wearing the blue dress.”

I leaned my head against the wall. “The one from Rome?”

“Mmm.”

“Fine. I’ll come.”

“That’s the spirit,” she said, and then after a beat, “Tom?”

“Yes?”

There was a long pause on her end.

“I know what this month means. I know it still haunts you.” Her voice had grown smaller. “I see how you try to forget it. But some things… some things never leave us.

I swallowed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “Not even if you do drift.”

“I know.” I said, voice hoarse now.

“I just wish we had something to show for it,” she whispered, and I knew what she meant.

Eight years. Doctors. Clinics. Tears behind closed doors. Nights spent in separate rooms when the grief was too sharp to hold together.

“I know,” I said again, because what else could I say?

There was silence again, then the sound of her clearing her throat.

“I’ll expect you back by Thursday evening. And please — for the love of God — try not to look like you’re attending your own funeral.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Good. I love you, Tom.”

“I love you too, Celia.”

She waited a moment before hanging up, like she wanted to say more — but didn’t.

And then the line went dead.

---

I shouldn’t have gone back.

Not after that call. Not after her voice—steady, familiar, warm—cut through the haze like a lifeline.

But I did.

It was late. Later than usual. The factory had long since emptied. The streetlamps were lit, casting golden halos into the ever-present London fog. Somewhere, a dog barked once, then fell silent. Coal smoke and evening damp clung to the air like an old wound.

I stood across the street from the orphanage, the collar of my coat turned up, a cigarette burning low between my fingers. I hadn’t smoked in years. Cecilia had made me quit. Said it reminded her of the worst days. But tonight, I needed the smoke. Or the heat. Or the burn. I wasn’t sure which.

I watched the gate.

No movement. No voices.

But I knew the boy was in there.

He had walked the same path again tonight—grey coat, broken boots, that unshakable stillness in his steps. He had passed me on the bridge without glancing sideways. And somehow that had made it worse.

“He’s used to being unseen,” Robins had once said.

But that wasn’t true. The boy saw everything.

Now I could feel him through the bricks and iron, like a quiet gravity pulling at my chest.

You start to drift, Cecilia had said.

And wasn’t that the truth? I was always drifting. From memory to memory, from face to face. Cecilia’s touch, warm and constant, had anchored me for years. But the tide still pulled.

And now this boy.

This boy who looked too much like me and not enough like her. This boy who should have been nothing—a shadow of a shameful year—and yet had somehow become real.

I took another drag from the cigarette, exhaled slowly, and tried not to imagine what the boy’s room looked like. Tried not to think of threadbare blankets, of cold stone floors. Of quiet crying in the dark. I tried not to picture himself at twenty-one in that same silence, in a different kind of prison, with a different kind of grief.

I just wish we had something to show for it, Cecilia had said.

He closed his eyes, and in the darkness behind his lids, the boy appeared again kneeling in the mill, sweat on his brow, oil on his cheek, looking far older than he should.

Tom opened his eyes. The orphanage remained still.

He thought of what it would mean to step through that gate. To speak to the matron. To ask for the boy by name Tom Marvolo Riddle.

He could see the headline in The Times already.

“Industrial Heir Claims Bastard Son of Scandalous Marriage.”

He could see his father’s face.

But louder than all of that was the voice he couldn’t shake: Cecilia’s.

You feel so far sometimes.

What would she say, if she knew the truth? If she saw the boy as he was — alone, unwanted, hers and his?

Would she hate him for it? Or worse... pity him?

Or would she say nothing at all — just look at him with that unbearable steadiness of hers?

He stayed by the gate a little longer.

Long enough for the cigarette to burn down to his fingers.

Then he dropped it. Crushed the ember beneath his heel.

And walked away

But not far.

Never far.

---

The fog had thickened again.

London, always a city of ghosts.

Robins sat behind the wheel, cigarette balanced between his fingers, the other hand resting on the rim. The street ahead was narrow and slick, cobbles still glistening from the earlier rain. He kept the lamps off. Better not to draw attention. Better to wait in silence.

He watched Tom disappear around the corner.

Again.

Every night now.

Same hour. Same fog. Same boy.

Robins didn’t follow. Not this time. Tom had told him to stay back. And he had. Because that’s what he did—stayed back. For fifteen years, he’d stood just behind the curtain, just beside the scandal, just outside the door.

But he saw everything.

He saw what this was doing to Tom.

What it was unearthing.

He exhaled smoke slowly, the tip of the cigarette glowing dull orange. In the distance, a factory bell rang faintly—a sound he’d grown up with and never learned to love. There was always a bell ringing, somewhere. For work. For supper. For the dead.

He wiped the glass with his gloved hand, clearing a narrow oval.

Somewhere out there, the boy was walking. Coat too thin. Boots splitting at the seams. Back straight like someone who knew the cost of showing weakness.

He looked like Tom.

But the way he carried himself—it wasn’t pride, not really. It was the stillness of someone who’d already stopped expecting kindness.

That sat wrong with Robins. Deeply wrong.

He remembered the first time Tom had broken like this. It was 1926, high summer. The call had come late—London exchange, clipped voice, no details. Robins had gone without questions. That was the job. That was the trust.

He found Tom in a lodging house off Holborn Viaduct. One of those cheap ones, meant for travelers who didn’t plan to stay. No suitcase. No coat. Just a shivering mess of a man curled into himself in the farthest corner of the room, curtains drawn tight, like the light might burn him.

He hadn’t eaten. Wouldn’t drink anything he hadn’t seen poured. Kept flinching at shadows. Wouldn’t speak for nearly an hour.

It was the first time Robins had ever seen a Riddle truly afraid.

Cecilia didn’t come until much later—weeks, maybe months. When enough dust had settled. When the worst of it could be folded into silence.

Until then, it had just been Robins.

Watching. Waiting. Holding the line.

And now—this boy.

This boy with Tom’s quiet and someone else’s eyes, walking the city like a question no one wanted to answer.

Robins drew on the cigarette again, let the smoke settle in his lungs.

He wasn’t a sentimental man. But something about this felt different.

He flicked the ash into the tray, then leaned back in the seat, gaze steady on the darkening street.

He’d follow orders. Of course he would.

He always had.

But tonight, for the first time in years, he found himself wondering—what if the order never came?

---

We followed him again.

I don’t even pretend it’s about curiosity anymore. I watch the clock until the factory bell tolls, until I see him step out and vanish down the soot-streaked streets like a shadow no one cares to notice.

But this time… this time, I don’t let Robins keep the distance.

“Pull over,” I say. “Let me walk.”

He gives a quiet nod. No questions. He knows now—knows better than to ask what I’m looking for. I’m not even sure I could tell him.

The orphanage yard is quiet when I reach the far hedge.

And there he is.

Sitting on the low wall, legs dangling over the edge. Shoulders hunched.

Then I hear them.

Three boys come from behind the building—loud, careless, ugly in that smug way children get when no one’s ever told them to be better.

They see him. Of course they do.

One of them threw something. A rock, maybe. I saw it arc in the air. Heard it strike his head.

He flinched—just barely—and raised a hand to the spot. Didn’t cry out. Didn’t speak.

"What's he doing up there? Trying to hide?" one jeered. "Coward."

He looked down at them with an expression I couldn’t place.

Not fear.

Something quieter. Something older.

Then he closed his eyes again.

Another insult. Another stone. More laughter. One of them—the loudest—mocked him for ignoring them. I saw the other smirking, circling beneath him like a hyena waiting for something to fall.

And then I heard it—his voice.

“Leave me alone.”

Soft. Not pleading. Not angry. Just… tired.

"And why would we do that?" Frank replied, gleeful.

"Oh, I don’t know. Because you found something better to do."

And then—another boy grabs his ankle. Pulls.

The motion was so sudden, so violent, that I barely registered it.

One moment the boy was upright.

The next, he was down—face-first into gravel, limbs tangled beneath him.

Pain flickered across his face. His skin was scraped raw. He tried to rise.

One of them plants a foot on his back, pinning him there like an animal. The others laugh. One crouches down and whispers something I can’t quite hear. I stepped forward before I could stop myself—but kept to the hedge, hands clenched tight in my gloves.

Then he spit on him.

Right on his face.

The boy didn’t move.

Didn’t wipe it away.

He lies there, face in the dirt, shoulders shaking just slightly—though not from tears.

He’s not crying.

He’s holding something in.

I couldn’t breathe.

"You've lost your fire, Riddle."

The name made something twist in my stomach.

A few more words I couldn’t make out. Then laughter. Then—

A voice.

Sharp. Female.

“What is going on out here?”

The matron. Mrs. Cole.

I let out a breath. She had seen. She would stop it.

“What on earth is happening out here?”

All three boys turned to her at once.

“Tom started it, ma’am!” the first said, pointing a grubby finger.

“Tom always does!” the second added quickly, voice full of practiced offense. “He attacked us!”

The third just nodded, trying to look wounded.

Then the boy — my boy — stood.

Slowly.

Unsteadily.

Face streaked with dirt and blood, arms scraped,

“Look at them,” he said, voice rough. “And look at me.”

He took a step forward, trembling.

“I’m the one bleeding.”

“I did nothing. I swear I did nothing.”

Mrs. Cole’s expression tightened.

“Enough, Riddle,” she snapped. “Inside.”

But he didn’t move.

His voice rose—not loud, but clear. The most I had ever heard from him.

“They’ve just beaten me up. They’ve been after me for days and you don’t do anything. You never do.”

“There’s never a punishment for them—only me.”

She crossed the space between them in an instant.

The slap rang out across the yard.

He staggered but didn’t fall.

“Inside,” she hissed, grabbing his arm. “Now.” She hauled him inside, door slamming shut behind them.

---

The door slammed shut.

And the yard was silent again.

But the silence felt wrong. Charged. Like it was waiting for something to explode.

My hands were clenched so tightly around the fence iron that my knuckles had gone pale.

I watched the spot where he’d stood—bloodied, bruised, begging for fairness—and where she had struck him without hesitation.

Not a moment’s doubt. Not a question.

She hit him like she’d done it before.

And he took it like he expected her to.

---

I lit a cigarette with shaking hands once I reached the end of the block.

The match flared, bright and brief in the gloom, then vanished.

The smoke helped. Or pretended to.

I inhaled deeply, watching the glow at the tip pulse with each breath, as if it could burn through the unease rising in my chest.

His voice, again:

“They’ve been after me for days and you never do anything.”

My lungs seized.

He wasn’t talking to her.

Not really.

He was talking to anyone who might have been watching.

To anyone who should have helped.

To me.

---

By the time I lit my second cigarette, my hands were no longer shaking.

They were steady.

Too steady.

The match flared bright. I didn’t wait for the smoke to settle before I exhaled—sharp, fast, bitter.

I didn’t want to think.

But his voice kept rising back to the surface.

“Look at them. Look at me.”

“I’m the one bleeding.”

---

Robins pulled up without a word.

I climbed into the backseat and shut the door with more force than I intended.

He glanced at me in the mirror but said nothing.

He knew better.

The car rolled forward into the London night, and I sat in the back like something carved from stone. Every time I blinked, I saw it again: the slap. The way his head jerked sideways. The sting of his voice when he said, “You never do anything.”

I lit another cigarette halfway through Kensington.

“Home, sir?” Robins asked, voice carefully neutral.

I didn’t answer right away.

Just stared ahead.

At nothing.

---

I should’ve stepped in,” I muttered aloud.

It wasn’t meant for Robins, but he answered anyway.

“No one would’ve stopped you, sir.”

I looked at the back of his head.

“That's the problem.”

---

I kept thinking about the way he didn’t fall.

The way he stood there, bleeding, his voice steady, not begging.

The way she slapped him as if it were reflex. As if it were routine.

And the way he didn’t flinch.

That part bothered me the most.

He didn’t flinch.

Like he’d been waiting for it.

Like he always expected it.

---

The cigarette was nearly to the filter when we reached the townhouse.

I didn’t wait for Robins to open the door.

I threw it shut behind me and stormed inside, peeling off my gloves with short, violent tugs.

The entryway was too warm. Too quiet. Too untouched.

As if nothing had happened.

As if the world hadn’t just failed a boy so completely, so publicly, and then simply moved on.

I tore the coat from my shoulders and flung it onto the chair.

A glass decanter sat on the sideboard. I poured without ceremony. Didn’t wait for it to settle. Didn’t sit. Just stood there, drink in hand, facing the fire like it might answer for something.

 ---

He didn’t cry.

Not once.

Not when they hit him.

Not when she hit him.

Not even when he said they’ve been after me for days.

He didn’t cry—because what would be the point?

---

I was halfway through the glass before I realized I’d cracked it in my grip.

Thin lines along the rim. I set it down carefully.

I didn’t want to be careful.

I wanted to break something.

---

The anger still hadn’t settled when the telephone rang.

It was past nine. The townhouse was silent, save for the soft hiss of the fire and the distant sound of rain tapping against the tall windows.

Tom stared at the receiver for a moment before picking it up, jaw tight.

“Riddle speaking.”

“About bloody time.”

Father’s voice was a blade. Same as always—sharp, cold, surgical.

“I assume you’re still in London,” the old man continued, not waiting for confirmation. “The Times ran a piece on the Worthington mill. You were photographed outside it. You looked tired. And bored. As usual.”

Tom exhaled through his nose. “I was inspecting the Southwark facility.”

“And why?” His father snapped. “That building’s obsolete. We’re moving assets to the north. Or have you forgotten how to read a portfolio?”

Tom didn’t answer.

Didn’t trust himself to.

“Christ,” the voice went on, “I told you this trip was about finalizing the armaments contract. And only that. Not chasing ghosts. Not playing the benevolent heir.”

“I’m handling it,”

“No, you’re not. You’re skulking around old mills like some sentimental tourist.” A pause. This is exactly what I warned you about. London stirs up the worst in you.”

Tom’s grip tightened on the receiver.

The leather of the chair creaked under his free hand.

“I can still pull you back to Hangleton,” the old man said, voice rising. “Tell the board you’ve taken ill. Again. Let Robins clean up after whatever mess you’ve—”

“No.”

The word came low. Flat. Final.

“That won’t be necessary.”

There was a pause.

“Oh, but it might. “You forget how fragile your name still is. What you cost us ten years ago. You didn’t rebuild it—you let Cecilia do that. With her pedigree and our money. You just stood there looking respectable.”

Tom closed his eyes. His jaw ached from clenching. The cigarette in the ashtray was burning down untouched.

“I rebuilt it,” he said. “You watched me do it.”

“You patched it,” came the reply, bitter. “But it’s thin, Tom. Thin as paper. One wrong headline, one poor photograph, and it all goes up again. Like it did the first time.”

Tom didn’t speak.

Because his fingers were shaking.

Because he could still hear his son’s voice in the yard.

“They’ve just beaten me up and there’s no punishment for it.”

His father’s voice came again, low and coiled.

“You remember what that woman did to you. What she made you into. You're lucky she disappeared before she dragged you down further. Now bury it. Whatever it is you've dug up again—bury it. Before it buries you.”

That was it.

That was the line.

Tom’s voice, when it came, was quiet.

Too quiet.

Don’t you dare speak about her to me.”

A beat of silence.

Then his father laughed—once. A dry, sharp bark.

“Well. There he is.”

Tom’s hand whitened around the phone.

“Attend the Carnarvon Garden party with Cecilia. Father said, back to businesslike cruelty. Smile. Shake hands. Make people forget there was ever a stain on the family name.” A pause. “And for God’s sake, stop haunting alleyways.”

Click.

The line went dead.

---

Tom stood there for a long time, receiver still pressed to his ear, the dial tone humming on like some dull, mechanical threat.

He slowly lowered it into the cradle.

His hand lingered there a moment longer than it should have.

Then he turned.

Crossed the room with slow, measured steps, as though walking through a dream he couldn’t wake from.

At the sideboard, he poured a drink. Not because he wanted it—but because not doing something with his hands felt unbearable.

The fire crackled softly behind him. Rain scratched at the windows like something trying to get in.

He didn’t sit.

Didn’t sip.

He just stood there, glass in hand, jaw clenched, his reflection trembling in the windowpane.

---

His father’s words echoed, cold and exacting.

Bury it. Whatever it is you've dug up again—bury it.

And God, part of him wanted to.

Wanted to let the boy vanish back into silence and shadow.

To pretend he'd never gone to the mill, never stood behind that hedge, never heard his son say—

“There’s never a punishment for them—only me.

---

He closed his eyes.

And saw her.

Merope.

Pale and trembling, her voice lilting in that quiet, half-foreign way she used when she thought it made her sound gentle.

“He’ll be perfect,” she’d whispered once, her hand on her stomach, smiling like it meant something.

And Tom—Tom had laughed. Cruel. Thoughtless. Young.

He hadn’t believed her. Not then.

And now?

Now he wished he hadn’t looked away so quickly.

Because the boy had come out of her.

Because she had been the one who stayed. Who carried him. Gave birth to him. Died with him in her arms.

He hated her for that.

And hated himself more.

---

He tried to breathe.

But all he heard was the slap.

---

His fingers curled around the edge of the table.

He’s yours, something whispered.

No. Not just that.

He’s hers.

And that was the part he couldn’t stand.

Because every inch of that boy’s silence, his restraint, his precision—he had thought it came from him.

But now he saw the other side of it.

The deflection. The isolation. The loneliness so thick it coated the walls around him.

That was her.

---

He remembered her eyes, hollow and distant, always asking for love like it was a currency he’d never been taught to spend.

He’d thought walking away had ended it.

But it hadn’t.

It had only passed the debt to someone smaller. Quieter.

Someone who now stood bloodied in a yard, asking for justice—and getting slapped for it.

---

He set the drink down.

Hard.

Too hard.

The liquid sloshed up the sides.

What happens to him if you do nothing?

Cecilia’s voice.

Gentle. Steady. Far away.

He pictured her face if she ever found out.

He pictured her silence.

His father’s contempt.

The papers. The shame.

Everything he’d built—every inch of stability, of safety— would fall apart.

And still—

He couldn’t unsee that boy’s face.

He couldn’t unhear the words.

He couldn’t look away this time.

---

And yet…

What was it worth, if he walked away?

What would he become, if he let that boy stay buried?

---

His throat tightened. His chest burned.

He pressed his forehead to the edge of his hand, like a man on the verge of prayer—but no words came.

No one had taught him how to pray.

Only how to pretend.

---

He stayed there, unmoving, until the fire sank into embers.

The room growing colder.

His heart, somehow, colder still.

Not because he didn’t care.

But because he did.

And that terrified him most of all.

---

He closed his eyes again.

And there she was.

Merope.

Smiling.

As if she’d known this moment would come all along.

“He’ll be perfect.”

---

I tried to write letters that evening. One to Cecilia. One to the Board. One to my father.

I left them all unfinished.

What could I say?

There is a boy who might be mine, and he lives in filth.

There is a boy who does not cry when hit.

There is a boy who bears my name, and I do not know what to do with him.

I drank more. Tried to sleep.

I don’t know if I did. Maybe I drifted. Maybe I just lay there, staring into the dark, waiting for the weight to pass.

It didn’t.

The fire had burned low. The room felt colder than before.

I stood. Slowly. My coat hung by the door. My gloves rested on the table.

I didn’t think.

I just moved.

Down the hallway. Past the tick of the clock. Past the mirror I couldn’t look into. Past the silence I’d built around myself.

And then I opened the door.

The street outside was calm. Elegant. Empty.

It was warm for July, but the air still felt wrong. Off.

Like even this part of the city knew something was coming.

I stepped outside.

I didn’t know where I was going.

Only that I couldn’t stay.

------