The only tears shed for Isabelle were the raindrops at her funeral a week later. Owensby’s custom leather shoes squished anxiously in the mud. Isabelle’s parents were a squat, balding man and a woman who had been beautiful before age. Mrs. Wroll stood by them even though not a word passed before, during, or after the proceedings. Viktor’s thumb tapped a tuneless rhythm on his umbrella handle, his eyes wandering.

Thomas appeared, dressed in a worn, black coat and bowler. Viktor offered his umbrella, at least saving half of Thomas’s body from the rain. “Thanks, mate,” he murmured. “Sorry I haven’t been around. I figured it was better I wasn’t there. She seemed like a sweet girl. Owensby filled me in. I just…I’m not proud of…I was young, and I thought they were older. I never wanted to do that with children…”

His words trailed off. Viktor had nothing to say. He just held his umbrella over the two of them. Jaq had her own.

“But I guess all of us were right as nude to that girl. Owensby with a child... Not an evil bloke but can’t imagine him as a father.”

Then, Viktor did have something to say. “When I was younger, my parents thought my friends were imaginary. It didn’t unsettle them, it was common enough for children to have imaginations…until my friends took the names of deceased neighbors, pets, and I realized they thought I was talking to empty air. Whatever I was seeing, no one else saw. I failed to understand what was real. I receded into myself, introverted and antisocial. I became obsessed with the papers, combing the recorded deaths so I would know who was real and who was imaginary.”

Thomas exhaled a ragged breath. “That’s heavy, mate. I understand why Mrs. Wroll insisted on you, now.”

Viktor’s chin bobbed in a nod. “My parents died when I was thirteen, but I had never heard of a posthumous exam before. The idea that someone could look inside a body and see their entire life as well as their death recorded right there…it was real, so I threw myself into my studies. After a while, I thought whatever my ailment was had finally vanished, until I met someone who commissioned me to examine a body. They told me things and I found the evidence in the body that no one else could find…because the man who spoke to me and the man I was examining were one and the same. I was knighted because a dead man’s soul wanted redemption. Not because of any personal brilliance.”

Jaq was quiet beside him but Thomas hummed deeply under his breath. His eyes roamed over the gravestones. “Cemeteries must be your living nightmare...so to speak.”

Viktor’s eyes flicked to an old man carefully leaning down over a stone effigy. “It comes and goes,” he said. Jaq’s eyes followed his and she leaned in, only touching her shoulder to his.

“I see him,” she murmured. He looked down at her and clenched his jaw, briefly nodding.

There was silence between them until Viktor uttered, “Ives had children?”

Jaq glanced between his stunned perplexity and Thomas’s intrigue as she smiled. “One.” She glanced at him and saw the disbelief on his face. “We’re all young once.”

Viktor’s eyebrows lifted. “He never said a word. He worked for my family for over thirty years.”

“He had her young, and my mother was already a rebellious woman when he became a butler,” Jaq explained. “She ran off, which he wasn’t proud of, and he was even less proud when he learned about me.”

Jaq did not have to look to see Viktor and Thomas’s curious expressions. “My mother shot my father because he raped her.” A bitter huff of air exhaled from her. “She could have done it before I was old enough to remember, though.”

Thomas visibly reacted, “Fuck.”

But Viktor’s eyes steadily gazed at her. “That doesn’t make you a monster.”

Jaq smiled but it did not reach her eyes. “When you’re raised knowing you’re the product of rape, you grow up a little demented.”

Viktor was mildly surprised. “You always struck me as extraordinarily sane.”

“It’s an effort,” she promised.

“But you have a step-father,” he prompted. “A botanist and biochemist. That’s remarkable.”

Her smile was more genuine this time. “Not if you know him, or I guess I’m just used to his mind. The man was a godsend to my mother. He raised me along with four others with my mother and by all accounts, is my father. He’s a brilliant and good man. I would have thought my real father was a dream if my mother had not discovered moonshine.”

She peeked at him to see if the word rang a bell. He shook his head slightly. “It’s similar to what Saara gave you to drink. My mother is an unpredictable drunk. Similar to you, I thought he was only a part of my imagination; a dream that would fade like all the rest.”

She checked her small, gold pocket watch. “Owensby will be wanting to get along soon.”

On cue, the man sloshed his way over to them. “Well, now that we have put our greatest asset into the ground, we must push on. And escape this wretched rain. I am very surprised you found nothing out of the ordinary during her autopsy, Sir Teagan.”

Viktor was as well. After Isabelle’s inflamed speech, he expected her to rise from the table like Mr. Wroll had done, chest cavity open and all. Instead, she was simply a young girl whose heart had stopped.

Sir Owensby continued in a hushed tone, “Vanessa has affairs to attend to and she is sensitive to this matter. That is why the four of us are going to explore that map Isabelle provided us without her.”

“Is that wise?” Thomas wondered.

Owensby shrugged. “Perhaps not, but she is not being entirely honest with us, so I feel no moral quandary over doing the same to her. Nine o’clock.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, squishing and sloshing to his carriage.

Thomas nodded his head. “Thanks for sharing,” he told Viktor, ducking under the umbrella and striding through the rain.

As Viktor readied for nine o’clock, he dressed for work since Owensby did not specify attire. Standing in his underwear, he tossed a shirt onto the bed, selected trousers, and…heard a distinct clicking noise.

Slowly turning around, his eyes surveyed the room. The place had just been refurbished, what could possibly happen now—

“JAQ!” he yelled, jumping on the bed. A beetle the size of his face was on the wall by the window.

The door whooshed open. Her eyes found him and then widened at the sight of the beetle. For a moment she merely gaped. “Um,” she stuttered, and then ran from the room.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” he demanded.

She reappeared with the washbasin and the pole used to light the chandeliers, like a shield and lance. From a distance, she poked the beetle.

It could fly. The clicking Viktor heard were its wings.

Viktor and Jaq ducked down, yelling and screaming. Jaq used the washbasin as a helmet, taking cover at the foot of the bed while Viktor grabbed pillows for shields. The clicking stopped and they immediately searched for it. It was on the floor. Jaq sprang up and brought the basin down over it with a crunch.

Lifting the white basin, the beetle was just a flattened pile of black pieces and yellowish, stringy goo. Viktor and Jaq warily looked at each other.

“I’m not an entomologist,” he gulped.

They shared bewildered, rattled expressions, before a goofy smile formed on her face. “Neither am I.”

She left to get something to sweep the dead creature off the floor and Viktor breathlessly pulled on his shirt. By the time she came back, he’d had enough time to realize what he was wearing. “Th-These are my undergarments!” he exclaimed.

Jaq glanced at him and his underwear. “I know. I iron them.”

She quickly swept up and wiped the goo off the rug as Viktor hastily yanked up his trousers. When she left the room, he noticed that her hair had gotten loose.

When Owensby and Thomas joined them the former spread Viktor’s map across his study table. “Alright,” he began, examining the map of the city, “This is our location.”

“A theatre?” Viktor inquired. His eyes locked onto Jaq fixing her hair.

“This one is abandoned,” he explained. “We are going to see why.”

“Do you have any idea why?” Viktor focused.

Owensby shrugged. “It closed midseason. Business was fine from what I recall. Jaq, bring your carpentry tools. We may have quite the task of getting in.”