𝑪𝑶𝑺𝑰𝑴𝑨 | 𝐓.𝐒 |

𝒗𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈

ℑ𝔣 𝔶𝔬𝔲, 𝔦𝔣 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔲𝔯𝔫
𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔦𝔱 𝔟𝔲𝔯𝔫, 𝔡𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔦𝔱 𝔣𝔞𝔡𝔢
ℑ'𝔪 𝔰𝔲𝔯𝔢, ℑ'𝔪 𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔟𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔯𝔲𝔡𝔢
𝔅𝔲𝔱 𝔦𝔱'𝔰 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔦𝔱𝔲𝔡𝔢
ℑ𝔱'𝔰 𝔱𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔪𝔢 𝔞𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱
ℑ𝔰 𝔯𝔲𝔦𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔤

Cosima Blackshaw never had many friends—if you could even call them that. The word itself felt hollow, like a term meant for people who could offer something that didn't feel so heavy. She was surrounded by people in Small Heath, sure, but they weren't friends, not really. They were just faces that came to her in need of her strange, sacred services. People who needed to bury their dead, or needed someone to speak for them once they'd passed. She was their last resort. She was their mortician. But that was all.

Loneliness had followed her like a second shadow. Children steered clear of the girl who smelled faintly of smoke and myrrh, whose father dressed the dead. They didn't understand how a girl so close to death could laugh, could weep, could ever want to be like them. And so, eventually, she stopped trying. She found her solace in silence, in the measured routine of embalming fluid and ledgers, in her father's soft voice in the parlor, long before he, too, vanished into the grave.

Except Ada Shelby. Ada, the wild gypsy with a spirit too free for Small Heath, was different. She would approach Cosima in the schoolyard, an outsider just like her. They didn't talk much-no deep friendship, no confessions—but there was an understanding between them. Two girls, two souls tethered to lives too heavy for anyone else to truly understand. They shared a bond of quiet solidarity. And Cosima, with her heart bruised from too many years of rejection, found a flicker of solace in that shared space.

The idea of marriage, of having a family, had always baffled her. The whole idea seemed like a strange kind of prison. She could never imagine herself in that world—the one where women were expected to be mothers, wives, silent figures in a family. Her world was different. It had always been different. The weight of the dead pressed on her shoulders like an invisible cloak. It was hard to form bonds with people who didn't share her life. So she stopped trying. She had no need for friends.

But now, this time, she didn't have to try at all. Someone was already doing it for her, someone who wasn't scared of her, or of the ghosts that lingered like shadows in the corners of her world. Thomas Shelby had stepped into her life, uninvited, with a quiet persistence. He was no fool and he wasn't deterred by the darkness that clung to her, or the way her home smelled of wax, embalming fluid, and death. He seemed drawn to it, to her, and it unsettled her in ways she didn't know how to navigate. But still, here he was, with that same hardened expression, that same command in his every movement.

Cosima watched him step into the threshold of her home. The air shifted and she could feel the heaviness of his presence. But this time, something was different, something had changed in her, something that made her stand taller, firmer. Her voice, when it came, was low, controlled, a quiet command in the stillness of the room.