There comes a time in everyone's life where they'll do anything to survive a misery.

That time is the time I operate.

I've seen countless men down on their luck, children who can't find a safe haven, people who had it all except something I have.

Saving them is a lot more profitable than leaving them to die, despite the satisfaction their demise would bring me.

With Maybelle Willis, it's different.

I'm the one who needed her.

And she needed nothing from me. There was nothing I could latch on and ruin for her. Nothing that I can use to lure her in. She left me in this eternal vortex of not understanding what I was going through. I never loved anyone. I am not capable of such a petty thing as love. I do not bend to those who smile at me. I do not serve those who had helped me. No, it's the other way around.

But she was the exception to all this, and more.

Not even time clarified what I want to do. She's my enemy, perhaps even before she refused to stand beside me. She hated me ever since she saw me, and wanted to kill me for everything I've done with her. And that meant my plan was working—get that walking headache out of the way so I could have my revenge without her interference.

But as I dug deep into her life and her upbringing, I realized I fell for the worst person I could ever fall for, and yet, the best match I could possibly find.

And now, I stand here, waiting for her, hoping her curiosity will lure her to me. Nameless, timeless, and independent. I'm waiting for her blood, yet wanting to be as close to her as possible.

The doorknob twists, the antique, large door creaks as it opens. A young woman takes two careful steps into the hallway. Peers at the parlour, feels a pang of nostalgia when she spots the blue wallpaper, then a pang of fear as she realizes no one is home.

I don't see all this, I hear it, I guess it. People are predictable. People are nothing but a pattern to discern.

Yet the visitor is one person I couldn't fully analyse.

Like what is it that makes me feel that way towards her.

She walks into the kitchen and sniffs the recent smell of turtle soup. Don't worry, my dear, no one's home. The Morvells listen to me. That's why they randomly found you lying in an obscure alleyway. They will repay me over and over again after I saved their daughter from brain damage. Of course, they didn't know I was the one who sent that driver towards Tara and her rider.

But it doesn't matter what I've done. The man I'm hunting had done worse.

"Hello?!" She calls, wanting a presence she'll regret. She'll probably creep upstairs and gawk at Jennie's gallery. Maybe take a look at her old room. Which has been occupied by another fellow the Morvells took in.

She reaches the third storey and hurries to Jennie's gallery. Compared to her, I am as quiet as a panther. But that's because of Jacob's forced teachings. He said if my toes didn't ache like they were burned by the time I'm done with the day's training, I'm not doing it right. He's a prick, but he did have a point.

May moves around in Jennie's gallery. I enter after her, and watch her soundlessly as she views the last few paintings Jennie had done. Still drying against the wall. Then she notices the one on the easel and moves closer to it. The faint sketch, done by charcoal on the tight canvas, looks at her with ghostly, unfilled eyes. A woman with medium-length hair. On the ground, beside the easel, are two finished paintings, almost identical to each other. One of them has her face, but with long red hair pasted on, the other is her clone with green eyes and a pale casual dress. It's sad, to think that she'll never know what the third painting looks like.

I wonder what sort of impression she left on Jennie. Was that girl that eager for a friend?

I inch forward, arms on the ready. I feel like the grey fox on the wall is watching me, damn thing. I stop just behind May. The room smells like dry paint and oil, but I could smell her. Her hair smells like coal and her clothes smell like cocoa, apple juice, and mixed spices. Despite the mix being unwanted and odd, I find it soothing. No, control yourself. You can't lose focus. You need to do what you have to do.

May traces a finger along the outlines of the charcoal eyes staring at her, I watch the slender digit. One I'll probably cut later to prove a point.

The spot where she shot me is still pounding occasionally. She deserves this. She chose this. I narrow my eyes and hook the bend of my arm around her neck. She yelps and kicks her feet. The easel falls sideways. This won't hurt you. I'm not like the unwitting Jacob, subjecting you to chloroform that could kill you. She tries to pry my arm off, but it's too tight around her neck. My darling whimpers and claws at my neck. I swallow and stare at the curtains. She closes her eyes and goes limp. That's it. It's over. Good girl.

I carry her in my arms and exit the gallery.

The building smells like the dozen beggars the Morvells adopted. Like stale urine and damp clothing. The steps are work-out and dirty. No number of maids can clean up this sort of mess. I reach the ground floor and cross the parlour, the threshold, the point of no return. I stop in the hallway, watch the bland, focused eyes of the Morvell family watch me from a framed picture. I'm not hesitating, I'm just uneasy with the thought of imprisoning May like I did so many others before her.

I inhale and exit to the carriage that just arrived.


Maybelle looks like another person when she's out. No condescending comments, no cross gazes, no infinite scowl between two thick brows. I don't know what I like best—the challenge of taming a tiger, or the ease of embracing a kitten.

I wish it wasn't this way. Our lives, I mean. I wish I met her in another life. Perhaps a life where I'm a simpleton tending to a dry farm, and she's a naïve young woman who still wears her hair in double braids and likes to watch sunrises. No, what am I saying? This is not us, and will never be us. Because if that was us, I wouldn't want her, and perhaps I would never even meet her.

The hardship of being part of something underground is the element that defines us. The link that binds us. The pain that separates us.

May opens her eyes, light blue even in the darkness of this cellar. She looks around, either ignoring me or not spotting me for a good while. I'm right in front of her, slouching in a tall chair, arm draped over the back of it. She finally sees me, and blinks away the madness of her abyssal dreams. Her face shows no emotion. Just two narrowed eyes that glare at me, burning like the glowing end of a cigarette.

She lets her eyelids drop, "I should've seen this coming."

I play along, "Yes, I thought you'd be smarter," I rise and pace around, "You seemed to be quite resourceful when you were on your Templar killing spree."

"Are you mad that I killed your friends?" She asks, opening her eyes. The line between her lips practically curves upwards.

I scoff, "They're not my friends, if you haven't concluded."

"Then who is?" She asks, smiling at me as if special intelligence was needed to from this question.

"No one, no one is a friend. Everyone is someone you should fear," I said, then decide to admit my ordeal, "Just look at you. I tried to have you closer to me than anyone has gotten, and you pushed all that away."

"I pushed it away because you're a-"

"Madman?" I finished for her, then roll my eyes, "You've called me that many times now, more in your head, I'm sure. Don't you think it's time for another insult?"

She searches the ground, "Then you're a megalomaniac," she spits.

"That's more like it."

I take my time moving to the chemistry table—a makeshift laboratory, supplied by some gear salvaged from the train's storage room, and others bought not too long ago from a friend of mine. Chloroform, Cyanide, Arsenic, Sulphuric acid, Ether, Godfrey's Cordial, and Morphine. Things one needs to torture a person, or to silence him for a time or forever.

She tries to watch me, having trouble in locating me every few seconds. I pick up a full glass of water from the table. The water, fetched from a nearby well, is poisonous enough without adding anything to it. But she seems to be content in drinking this deadly swill.

I bring it in front of her, she looks down, at the water's surface.

"I would bring you beer, but…"

She turns her head away, "I don't want a drink."

"You do seem to be parched."

She refuses to answer.

I sigh and place the glass next to her chair. Then I lower myself into mine. I cross my legs.

"You know, your friend is pretty fond of beer." I say.

I relish in the brief flash of wide eyes she shows, then buries, "Who are you talking about?"

"Not Jacob. I really wish it was, but no."

A crease appears between her brows as she thinks, "I don't know what you mean."

I make a tiny, unimpressed groan, "We drank together, he listens to his boss when he tells him to down a mug of beer. Even when he doesn't consider him his boss no more, good lad."

She tries—and fails—to supress a shaking that overtakes her tied hands.

"What's the matter? Are you worried about your little mole?"

She says nothing, instead, she tries to hide her visible unease.

"Well, you don't have to worry anymore. He ingested a lick of arsenic, just the tip of the teaspoon dissolved in his beer. More than enough. Funny what grocers sell, eh?"

I watch as her flushed face expectedly turns into a pale white. I look away.

Panic, I used to love watching it in people's eyes, their carefully crafted plans of escaping losing credibility with one sentence. But I don't like seeing it on her. She made my heart softer than a pig's belly. I force myself to look at her. She's chewing her lip, staring at nothing, tears already leaking out her eyes.

"I'm sorry, but you have to do better than that."

"Jacob will come back and kill you, he'll come back for you!"

She utters the prick's name as if he's a noble saviour—exactly what he thinks he is. What people think he is. He saved hundreds of orphans by shoving them into a Rooks outfit, he did what his ancestors did, and forced a boy to fight for him. That boy was hungry. That boy had no one.

There comes a time in everyone's life where they'll do anything to survive a misery.

"You sent Jacob to Buckinghamshire, don't you remember?" I ask.

"He'll know what happened and come for you!"

"What makes you so sure he'll succeed? Or better yet, what makes you think he cares about you? About anyone he promises to protect?"

Her lips quiver, her words come out choppy, "I trust him."

"Why? Because he betrayed you? Because he's a formidable foe and an incredible ally?" I say, "He's nothing but a worm. And he won't find you. He might not even be back. Rosalie and her Banshees are a scapegoat, but they might put him down for good."

"You're sacrificing her?!" She shouts, trying to leap out of the ropes.

"I thought you hated your cousin."

"She trusted you! And you're sacrificing her?!"

Of course I am. Where else will I get thousands of pounds? A woman who has fallen for my ploy of a lovesick gentlemen, whose deeply in love with her and is promising her power unimaginable. She'd do anything for me. It couldn't get easier.

"If you haven't noticed, my dear, there's a pattern that had formed long ago. You shouldn't be surprised."

"No, I shouldn't. You manipulating pint of piss!" She says, "And you expected me to join you?!" She allows herself a bitter laugh, "How can anyone trust you?! You're the devil himself!"

Devil. Madman. Monster. Lunatic. Dangerous. Unhinged. Unpredictable.

I've heard all these, and more. Especially when I try to be someone I'm not.

I was once known as Jean Bollen, the obedient son that worked at his father's needle factory.

And as Oswald Grant. The orphan who carries food and medicine to his five sick sisters every day.

And as Rohan Davidson. The hero who saved a child from drowning in a well in Suffolk.

And as Shawn Herman. A man travelling to Edinburgh on a 'business errand'.

All men are seen for a short while, and never seen again.

So many identities, so many names. Becoming that many people—having so much info and names and places stuffed into your head—it becomes confusing and irritating.

It once felt good to become them. To be someone that is not me. To lie about reality. To trick someone so thoroughly that they believe your every false word.

Jacob made me these words.

He made me a hundred men I'm not.

Until I lost who I truly am.

I fill the wrong shoes so fully, so completely, now. But at what price?

Maybelle Willis is the only person who reminded me who I was.

Phillip Winters.

A baby boy, two months old, that was abandoned by the door of a flat. With nothing but the flimsy cloth wrapped around him. No name. No identity. No money. Nothing.

The woman inside that flat took me in. Her name was Iris Fitzwater. She was the second person I truly loved. And she died of yellow fever.

May is still glaring at me, she's resisting to blink.

"Yes, I'm the devil." I say, shaking my head and snorting, "But not with you, you became the exception to everything."

"No."

"I loved you, you know. Before you chose that cult leader over me."

"Love?" She chuckles, "You know not of love. You know of cruelty and trickery and betrayal."

"But I knew love for you."

"Shut up! I'll never believe a word you say!" She says, "You're an immoral, murderous, conniving villain. If you have a code to follow, it's jumbled beyond recognition and neither white nor black. But its own colour. Your mere existence is a danger. No one knows who you are! You switch identities like a parasite switching bodies! You're a criminal. You… you just…!" Her anger runs out of steam. And she whimpers instead, staring at me like something she once wanted. It was painful, seeing that look, crushed hope and a vengeful rage forced into an impossible union.

I snorted, ruffling my hair and sweeping it away from my forehead, "And what are you, then? Haven't you accompanied criminals since the day you were born? Haven't you reluctantly served the Templars, and willingly served the Assassins? What does this make you? Barring your title of sterling boot-licker, you're also a criminal. Like everyone in this war. Like me."

She shakes her head, refusing to swallow my words, "There's a rift between us that will never be crossed. I am not you, and you are not me, and we will never be one and the same."

"But that's where you're wrong, our goals might not be the same, but we have the same passion when we chase after them. You wanted that gauntlet so badly, you sacrificed everything to get it. And you didn't even know if it was just a legend. You have heart, like me. We are each other, my darling. We are each other."

"No, no… We're infinitely different."

"I'm just as selfish as you are! You left your old life behind, you betrayed the Templars, you forgave the killing of your friends only to work with their murderer. You killed countless men that served Hayward's servants. Men who had families and children and lives of their own, men who would be deemed as innocent as you would be-wide-eyed minions of demons that only wanted to go home. I do whatever I have to do for the sake of my goals, and I know that you do the same."

She closed her eyes at the mention of Blake's men.

"At least, when I killed them, I felt something. Something much different than what you feel when you torment others. Remorse."

I smirk at the word. Remorse. If I knew I was going to regret killing someone, why kill them? "You still killed someone. There's no running from that."

She looks away, pursing her lips. She already knows what I'm telling her.

"What are you going to do to me?" She asks, dread in her voice, eyes still staring at the cracked wall of the cellar.

"What am I going to do to you?" I ask myself, then sigh, "When people are tied to this very chair, they usually end up dead and disposed of."

She looks at me and presses her lips together, "And what about me?"

That, I have no answer for. I look at her for a good minute, trying to fight the melding emotions that appear when I see her eyes. Do I love her? Not anymore. Did I love her? I said so, but did I? Perhaps not, but I wanted to.

I wanted to.

"I'm sorry to say, but I brought you here for a reason."

She faces the masked inevitability with grace, she doesn't wail, she doesn't yell, but fidgets a bit against the tight ropes. Instead of fear or desperation, she looks irritated. Teeth clenched, scowling. Someone beat her at a game she thought she was going to win.

"When?" She asks.

I want to look at her a little longer.

"In a bit."

She says nothing, wriggles her wrists to see if the ropes are loose. They're not. Her hands are bluish, I don't think she'll keep them even if I loosen the ropes.

She looks at me like a lady who's been forced to sit through a play she already watched. Then she yawns, as if to bolster the effect.

"I want to kill you so bad." She says in a childlike voice, pouting. Like a little psychopath.

"How so? I remember you told me you'd never have the heart to kill me."

"Because I thought you hadn't the heart to betray me."

"What a mistake, that is." And terribly common, and very disappointing. Someone like me needs an intelligent foe to be stimulated, and I haven't met him, so far. Jacob is nothing but a rotten nuisance who has crooks worshiping him, and obviously, protecting him. The Templars are even more laughable.

Maybelle's delicate hardness is the only thing that challenged me for a good while, and that doesn't count.

Her exhaustion is contagious. I haven't slept for two days, and the day before I only slept for three hours. It's very hard to sleep when there's many people vying to put your head on a platter. Besides, I need to plan my next move, and I like to do it in private, even if the intruding person is on death row.

I check the ropes again, they are restricting her breathing. I climb out of the cellar and let her make her peace with god and herself.


I slept dreamlessly for a good hour at my desk until something woke me up.

I'm not sure what. A noise? I look out the heavy curtains, Devil's Acre was itself. A crowded cesspool of poverty and sickness that keeps floundering in its own misery through the night. I could've chosen somewhere more abandoned, but the Creed's second tenet was 'Hide in plain sight', and old habits die slow, despite my wanting them to die fast.

Plus, who wants to risk catching Typhoid and walk into this place?

It could be any of my wonderful neighbours who decided to have a forced orgy with a handful of prostitutes who probably won't be paid. Or thieves robbing thieves of their latest take. But no, my mind is still foggy, but I'm sure whatever woke me did it from inside the house.

Jacob isn't in London-my men saw him leaving with a group of his toughest Rooks. Anyone who knows where May went is either dead or feigning ignorance. May's bindings are wrapped tightly and with a complexity no one will be able to decipher. Unless someone trained them in knots. A Lark's head around the wrists and ankles, and many layers of rope around the chest secured by square knots. The square knots are simple, but I doubt she can get to them. She can't chew through the ropes, and can't even cut through them fast enough if I missed a weapon she had on her.

But I need to check, just in case.

I get up, but I freeze halfway to the cellar. Wait…

It can't be.

I zip back to my desk and struggle to seize the gun that keeps slipping out my hand like a mouse. I finally grasp it and hurry to the cellar.

I burst in, sulphuric acid is odourless, but I can see it sizzling on the wooden floor. Along with two chairs, glass splinters from the smashed large bottle of the acid, and ropes, lots of ropes. Still slowly melting, but with the key knots corroded to nothing but fumes.

I just stand there, stiller than a corpse. She's seen it before, acid eating through the floor of the train. She remembered. She remembered.

I feel the air stirring behind me. No one should ever sneak up on an assassin, but my aptitude is lost in the sea of disbelief that's almost drowning me. For the shortest possible moment, I'm proud of her. I made a bittersweet choice. The woman I chose is the woman that outsmarted me. Death might come to you not as the blackest midnight, but as the brightest sun.

I turn and shoot twice. She cries and lunges forward, and stabs a piece of glass deep within my neck. Once, twice, thrice. I shoot again.

We both drop, and crawl away from each other, the acid, and the splinters. We make a bloody path away from each other, a diagonal sweep made by fabric and buttons and flesh. I press my hand to my neck, then raise the gun to shoot her again, but I can barely see her.

I cough out blood. I force myself to stand, my feet slip on bright blood. Arterial blood, not good.

My mind focuses on one goal, outshining everything I ever sought for in my life—getting the hell away from her. It's like a primal instinct stronger than anything I can do to contradict. I drag myself up the stairs and crawl forwards. I don't know where, I don't see where.

How could I let this happen? How could I be so careless? Why did I underestimate her like I did everyone? Why didn't I just kill her the moment I got her here?

I wanted to keep her just a while longer, to thoroughly see those baby blues before they turned white. This is my downfall—my twisted care for her.

My fingers touch the end of a curtain. No one would be interested in saving us, they're busy taking care of their own relatives who are soon-to-depart.

She catches up with me, dragging herself across the splintering wood, groaning with every crawl as if she was dragging a cart. Friction is put at ease by the stream of blood her chest is leaking. The room smells of iron and sweat.

She stops beside me, staring at me with those soulful eyes even as she bleeds out. She has too many holes to cover. I managed to hit her in the chest twice, and in the shoulder once. I'm too disoriented to think about which side.

To speed things up, my darling grasps my wrist with a hand that's barely holding its own weight, and pries off the tight hold I've put on my wounds. Then puts her hand in mine, the sick, twisted freak, my female reflection, my light. I squeeze her hand almost religiously, the fervour coming from death's cold embrace slowly wrapping around me. I want her to die, I want her to die so badly, but I also want to hold her in a conflicting moment that lasts forever.

Now I feel what she feels. When she learned there's no gold to unearth. When all her sorrow, all her pain, all that she endured to get to that point, was for naught. Rather than unearth, I wanted to bury. A shallow grave for a shallow man.

And nothing.

Time doesn't stop or slow down when you're about to die. It gallops by, not giving you a chance to revere the few memories you held onto for a lifetime. It gives me no time except to look at her.

It's a draw, my eyes say.

I know, the subtle parting of her lips says.

I'm sorry, the slight crinkling of my eyes says.

"Why did it have to be you?" She asks in the faintest, weakest of voices.

But I hear. I understand. She hasn't fallen to the Eden abyss like everyone else, she has fallen to her downfall.