Evie sat atop a clock tower and fancied that even from here, a decent block away, she could feel a glimmer of the searing heat of Starrick's warehouse warming her cheeks. She let one leg dangle over the edge of the clocktower, the other bent and bracing her arms as she watched the product of her efforts blaze, turning the night sky into a hazy, ominous thing. She was a woman of her word, after all.

Below people gathered like moths, too curious for their own good, too distracted by the flames to realize it likely wasn't safe to watch so closely. The fire brigade rushed to and fro, but Evie noticed them only distantly. Like the hum of cicadas in the summer back in Crawley, mindless and easy to tune out. There was nothing they could do to save that building, she had seen to that herself.

"Was this what it felt like, Jacob?" She mused. Had anyone who knew her been there, they might have noted the odd note of her voice, the strangely numb tinge to it. "Was this what you had been trying to show me? Why you did everything you did?"

Now that she had lost him, she could admit that it felt… good. More than good, actually. Watching Starrick's property burn soothed an ache she had not realized had been throbbing so viciously. Like a war drum in her breast, so deafening, shaking her with every pulse. Her father had taught her that there was a right and a wrong way to do things. That just because something was unjust did not mean that they, as assassins, could then fix it in a reflectively unjust manner. Death, after all, was not revenge. It was a job, a clean and simple one, to balance an ecosystem rather than any scales of justice. But this…

This was revenge, and despite everything that her father told her, she could not deny how just it felt in her heart at that moment to watch those flames licking at the night sky. She could almost picture Jacob sitting beside her, both legs dangling off the side of the clocktower with nearly childish abandon as he grinned and gestured animatedly with his hands – no doubt singing some stupid pub chanty about fire and capitalism and just deserts.

She found herself humming one herself, actually, before she could quite stop herself. A song that had been rather fleeting among the pubs, but stuck around in her head all the same. The words had faded, but the tune remained. Something about… laughter? No, it was crueler than that. Cruel and almost familiar.

Jokes, jokes, jokes.

Maybe it went something like that. It was all a joke, wasn't it? The song felt suddenly fitting. What was the purpose of law and order, of right and wrong, when the good were held disproportionately accountable by comparison to the bad? Her brother was gone and what had Starrick paid in return for his crimes? Nothing. Whatever nefarious plan he had for Jacob, he was doing it without any repercussions.

And who's fault is that, Evie? She thought, if you could just outsmart the bloody bastard and find him, this would all be over.

Even this building, as much harm as it might do to the man in the interim, was just a drop in the bucket of Starrick's existence. More akin to a child lashing out than any proper punishment. But when she had been walking down the street after another fruitless night of interrogations and chasing leads, she had seen the building – large, empty and innocent looking this late at night despite its notorious reputation for child labor – and heard Jacob's voice in her head so clearly it was almost as though she had been there with him.

'It'd burn a marvelous shade this time of night, wouldn't it? Burn so bright it might wake that bloody wanker out of his perfect sleep. Think of it, Eves. Maybe the sheer sight of it would give him a heart attack. How dare they, he'd think, and then boom – we did our job cleaner than any assassin before us. Doesn't that sound grand, Eves?'

And she just… did it. Did it, because the whim had been there and because that's what Jacob might have done, would have wanted. And what good had all her planning and her cautiousness ever truly done them anyway? Her planning hadn't given her even an inkling of an idea of what the Shroud was truly capable of. It hadn't protected Jacob. Hadn't prevented the Piece of Eden from falling into the wrong hands. Her planning, in the end, had been quite nearly useless. All it had done was put Jacob right in Roth's hands.

"Jokes, jokes, jokes," she sang, the rest of the song eluding her beyond the tune and those three words. But they felt fitting. Jacob would know the song, she thought as frustration curled distantly in the absence of the rest of the words. If only he were here, he'd set her straight. He'd sing it purposefully off-tune, but he'd know every word.

Her shoulder ached where the knife had made a home of her flesh – puffy and stitched up, thanks to Greenie, and no doubt in need of new bandages. It ached enough that she could almost blame the suffocating pressure in her chest on the wound instead of the truth.

Jacob had been missing for days now.

Detective Aberline said that most abducted children that weren't found in 48 hours tended to stay that way or worse. Words he had come to regret when she had explained who, precisely, the child was. Well, nearly who. She had called the boy a cousin, rather than Jacob. Sanity among common society outside of the Creed did have its limits, after all, and the last thing she or Jacob needed was someone carting Evie away to an asylum.

Not that it mattered what Aberline thought. Nothing mattered. Their purpose had been a ruse all this time, a stupid make-believe game of two country side babes in over their heads.

Starrick's warehouse burned, but it felt distant now as the worst of the flames began to abate. She had been sitting out there for some time then, she realized, glancing out at the horizon as the sky began to lighten. Her skin felt chill.

But the rage blazed away long after the fire below was finally brought to heel, searing her from the inside out like smoke until there was nothing left – no more plans, no more options.

Just one truth: Jacob had been right. You can't plan for everything, but almost anything and everything can be destroyed.

And if Starrick had truly gone into deep hiding, a few factories and warehouses wouldn't catch his eye… but she sure as hell knew what might. After all, even the rich had only so many homes. Not just buildings or factories, but homes. Places that mattered, that they stored their memories in, where they lived their lives.

"Make'em laugh until they choke, Evie-ol'-girl," she muttered to herself, and almost thought she could hear Jacob chuckle as she pulled herself up from the clocktower, weary yet dangerous – like a starved animal.

She wondered if it was even worth discussing her plans with Greenie. Plans; the word felt sour in her mouth. Suddenly she thought perhaps she had an inkling of what it was like to be Jacob. Greenie would look at her with horror, no doubt, if he knew. As though she had gone mad or suddenly become untrustworthy. Who wanted to see that face? It was enough to know the inevitable conclusion, no need to drag out any arguments. She'd skip the train, there was nothing there that could help right now anyways. She had her blade, her armor, her cane. And even without any of those things, she had Jacob burning in her heart.

And if history was anything to go by, that wildness was enough to burn most things.

[a/n] it was brought to my attention that Chapter 6 had been corrupted or improperly uploaded, so I've gone ahead and replaced it.