A woman huddles in the corner of a jail cell, skirts puddled around her, shivering. She plays with a loose bit of thread and looks up when a male voice barks "visitor" through the barred window of the cell door.
The man's face appears through the bars. His eyes are dark.
"Hello, love," says the woman. She stretches onto her back but keeps her face turned towards his. "I heard you fixed me up in these lodgings. How very considerate of you."
"I told you that you deserved pain," he growls.
She touches the back of her left arm and winces as her fingers find raw flesh. "I do believe you've already caused enough of that, dear. Why didn't you just kill me then and there, in the bakehouse?"
"There are things worse than death, Mrs. Lovett. I desired to give you a taste of your own medicine."
"Well, yours a rather unusual punishment, I've got to say. You realize they're pretty skeptical of your accusations, don't you? They don't really think I bewitched you into killing the customers for my pies. They'll let me out any day now, I think."
"My deceptive little vixen," he says with a smile and she shivers more. "You are lying again. That is not at all what they told me."
"Maybe they're lying to you," she says, continuing to shiver.
The smile stretches. "I'm afraid not, pet."
She sits up and presses her arms to her sides. "So what's the 'thing worse than death' in store for me, hmm? For me to just languish in this cell for all time until I rot?"
"Oh no, Mrs. Lovett. There are things worse than death, certainly, but that doesn't mean I don't eventually desire to see you burn."
She winds the string around her finger. The blood rushes from her skin and turns it white.
"You will languish for several months only – three, at the most. Enough time for the Londoners to hear of your necromancy and revile you for your actions, and enough time for you to begin to doubt your sanity. Then you will burn at the stake – as is the fate of all witches."
"Bastard," says the woman. She rises to her feet and strides to him, the string still bound to her forefinger. "You're as much to blame as me. I never forced you into killing those men, and I certainly never forced you into killing Lucy – "
His hand shoots through the bars and his fingers grapple at empty air. She stares at his hand, inches from her face.
"It's your fault," he says, breathing labored. "I never would have if I'd known who she was – if you hadn't lied."
Her upper lip curls. "Shouldn't you know what your own wife looks like?"
His arm jerks forward again, straining in her direction. She looks at it and does not flinch.
"You're a vile little she-devil," he says, "and you deserve this. You deserve having all of London hate you as they once hated me, hurl rotten food and angry words at you as you burn at the stake – "
"Go to hell, Mr. Todd," she says.
He smiles and her hands tighten into fists. "Not without taking you with me."