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After, Lizzie climbs into the sea.
Her dress clings to her hands. The ends bustle into the foam. Paula is a few feet behind her, watching.
“I am terrible,” she says.
-
Mother follows Ciel the year she turns seventeen. She has four new prospects. All good men, Father charges.
Lizzie polishes her blades instead. The season starts again in weeks.
“This would amuse him,” Edward says. It's abrupt enough for the manor drawing room.
“Of course,” she murmurs. The shine cuts into her gloves. She keeps her hair at the nape of her neck now. “As most things would,” she answers.
“Doesn’t that worry you?” he asks.
She blinks.
Her brother is taller still. He stands at her chair.
“What?” she asks into a pause.
“That we still speak of him like this.” Edward’s fingers touch her knuckles. Underneath the fabric of her gloves, they are blue. “Like the Earl Phantomhive is still very much alive."
Lizzie’s mouth is wet and warm. The blades are light to touch.
No, she doesn’t say.
Seasons and seventeen.
-
The city is gray. Her eyes watch the skyline; it paints itself into buildings, the sharp contrast of steel and iron. Perhaps, she thinks, she was meant to catch up this way.
“Lady Elizabeth?”
She stands too close to the window. Her head turns. There is a party behind her. The silk and lace is lost under the humming of music and laughter. She feels the ribbons at her neck tighten.
“I just spoke with your father,” the guest says, and her mouth opens and turns, humorless all the while. She knows how this goes. I spoke with your father. The decision is yours. Were you really engaged to the late Earl? He is new. A fifth, she supposes.
“And I assume,” she murmurs, “here is where your business begins with me?”
The guest blushes. “My lady, your decision –”
“Has long since been made,” comes the interruption. It is low and taunt. A hand cups her elbow; her mouth slides into a frown. She smells the jasmine.
She does not address him. A girl would say ciel and her heart would be tight in her throat, pulling at the roof of her mouth. She would feel dry and unsteady. It feels lazy to be unmoved. But this is not the first time.
She does remembers the first time. She remembers months, really, after he was presumed to be dead. The demon end, they all said. Pity for the Midford girl. She is better without that name and its ghosts. She remembers sobbing until she could cry no more. And then she could cry no more.
The memory though. A boy and his hands. Oh Lizzie, sad Lizzie. His knuckles to her tears, as if to say you cannot and following him would be following into a dark that swallowed without remorse. It was Mother who told her, quite calmly, that her duties would always wait for her. She did not hate him then. She does not now.
Trust is a very different issue together.
“Have you been watching?” she murmurs.
A smile presses to her cheek. “Four more prospects,” Ciel chuckles. “It’s as if the board is setting itself up again.”
She bites the inside of her cheek. Then she swallows.
“And yet here you are,” she says.
The guest has not moved. It’s then that Lizzie stares at him. His eyes are larger. The breeze picks at her gown, pulling at her legs. He is frazzled and flushed. Ciel’s hand cups her hip. Sebastian, she thinks, cannot be that far away.
She turns her hand into Ciel’s chest. Her fingers pluck at his jacket. The buttons are stationed and gold.
“Perhaps,” she says gently to the man, “you should leave us.”
“My lady –”
“Your lady is gracious and kind.” Ciel keeps his voice even. She recognizes the cruelty. His thumb moves against the back of her neck now, tracing over her curls. She tries to swallow, but he speaks up again. “Perhaps,” he mocks her. “You should allow her this much space.”
There is a flash of red. Scandal teases her when Ciel and his mouth catch at the pulse of her jaw.
Something spooks the other man. He gives her a long bow, fast and foots himself back into the party. He leaves the doors open and wide. She catches traces of gowns, a friend or two spinning into the arms of old suitors.
“You’re a cad,” she murmurs.
“And that was half-hearted, Lizzie.” Her gaze meets his. “Shall we go?” he asks.
“Go?” she repeats.
His mouth curls. This is not a smile.
“You were always better-suited to this life.”
She tilts her head. Her curls flank her chin and tumble over her shoulder. She’s regulated her mask – yes, this was a masquerade, she remembers. She is wearing red, an unintentional tribute to her Aunt, and the feathers of her mask, black and stuck to an armchair, is made of too fine feathers.
“I need your blades, Elizabeth.”
There is no room to say no. The thought is jarring enough.
-
Edward breaks a glass when he finds out.
Lizzie takes him to spar.
She hits. He misses.
Paula bandages their blood.
-
The Queen’s Watchdog is still the Queen’s Watchdog. This much is true.
Sebastian greets her in the city.
“My lady,” he bows. There is the turn of his mouth.
And true to her part, she smiles.
-
She isn’t sure of the motive. She isn’t sure if she wants to know.
London is very much the dry city at night, but the alley she waits in is wet and thin. Her hands hike up her skirts, but them she remembers that her skirts are not there – Sebastian had brought her some of Ciel’s clothes, less of the finery and more of the practicality. Her boots are laced and still very much her own, buttoned to her knee.
She fingers the hilt of her blade.
“Sebastian?” she calls out.
“He is near, my lady,” the reply comes. There is a laugh at her ear and she huffs.
“Tell him to hurry up,” she mutters.
The boy is a Monster, Mother sneers in her head. She comes and goes too. Mostly, it's lessons. Lizzie reaches up and pulls at her curls underneath the cap, leaning into the wall. That boy, she thinks, was your nephew. She leans the rapier against the wall.
There are footsteps then, slow and languish. Her mouth calms. Her eyes become alert. Four new suitors, she thinks.
“Oh, Lizzie.”
She sighs. “Honestly,” she says. “I thought you needed my blades.”
“Bored, Lizzie-dear?” and from the shadows, Ciel appears, colored in black and pulling at his cuffs. His eyes are sharp; there is one blue, one red.
“I could very well go home.”
“You could,” he says, eyeing her. “But then, isn’t this how you wanted to see me?”
Her face flushes. She brings a hand to her cheek, turning her gaze. Girlish indiscretions, she thinks, and almost hatefully.
“You’re terrible,” she murmurs.
“And yet – “ his drawl is still unkind “ – isn’t this how you prefer me?”
She sees the glint before she knows her response, ducking as he comes to her. Her hand wraps around the hilt, her boots pushing her off into a defensive charge. There is a scrap. A shout hits in the distance.
Parries. And then to thrust. Her fingers slide down the blade. The cap she wears pushes back over her head as her hair comes undone.
“Lizzie,” he murmurs. “Elizabeth.”
She does not allow herself to see his blade. She will imagine it to be beautiful, as most things he collects are. Her instincts are fueling; she is no longer a child with a mask anymore.
He thrusts forward. She blocks with her hand and swings herself underneath. Her foot hits out and kicks at his knees. He chuckles breathlessly.
“This is a terrible point to prove,” she comments.
“I would have enjoyed you when we were children.”
Her eyes roll. He lunges again and the blade catches her cheek. Her skin breaks and there is a curl of blood, kicking over the curve of her face.
“You would not.”
His laugh is low and she blocks his next hit.
“No,” he concedes. “I would not.”
It becomes a scene this way. She blocks and escapes; he challenges to thrust. He is testing her. He never hides this. She never forgets.
But then he hits too hard. An elbow to her cheek. Her vision shakes. There is blood building in her mouth. Sebastian is at his side, watching and adjusting his Master's gloves. She is unsteady on her knees. The ground cools when she finally sinks into it, the rapier resting at her legs.
"Lady Elizabeth?" Sebastian.
"Lizzy?" Ciel. His footsteps clap against the ground. She hears the rustle of his coat. Then he is kneeling over her. His fingers brush her hair. "Lizzy," he says again.
She breathes.
And jams the hilt of her rapier into his face.
-
"I am," she says to him the first time. "I am simply faster."
Ciel's gaze warms into calculating.
"And I am never far," he promises.
-
Lizzie does not need a number. She kills a man in the name of the Queen with a blade; Ciel feasts and she craves out the rest with a second, if only for a wise lesson and a bit of sporting practice.
Sebastian leaves their room before she dresses.
There is too much blood on Ciel's jacket. Lizzie wears a fair amount on her trousers and studies him as he joins her at the window.
He takes her hand. "I enjoy watching you."
"I am not a show," she murmurs, sighing as he licks the blood from her knuckles. She trembles. It's slight.
"I am still the Earl Phantomhive," he teases.
"Dead, of course," she says dryly. Demon is a strange taste in her mouth.
"Of course," he agrees.
"Ed is expecting me."
He scoffs at her brother's name. She doesn't press. She studies him and his hands come to frame her face. His nails curl at her skin. It doesn't break and she swears there is jasmine in her throat.
His mouth brushes hers. There are no polite memories. Her lips parts and he chuckles, biting. She lets her hands flatten against his chest and for a strange moment, she is willing to let the child go. There is no joy in this.
So she kisses him fiercely, as she fiercely as she stood in front of him, murdering dolls after dolls, willing to take on hell itself for the little lord. She kisses him knowing that there are eyes watching and that she is marked, framed in the circle of pawns that Ciel remains unwilling to let go. She thinks no further of the others.
"Elizabeth," he breathes into her mouth, and she feels his hand curl around one of hers. His fingers cue and then she feels metal stick and slide over her own finger, pulling back to see.
It's silver and sapphire, all in the Phantomhive name.
"You are no pawn," he tells her.
She is quiet. Sugar and spice, her head sings.
"I am no queen," she replies, pulling her hand back.
Ciel smiles. His fingers pull at the fabric at her throat. She feels unsteady.
"You belong on a different board," is all he says.
And this is a promise.
There will be a sixth prospect and perhaps a seventh, after that. She will watch and polish her blades. Mother's lessons. The soles of her boots. It all stays on.
Lizzie does not stay in London long.
The circles gossip about her ring. Another abrupt appearance, they grin.
-
Aunt Rachel holds her hand loosely.
The sea gathers at their feet. Little Lizzie's curls are loose and Red is calling them back from the shore, hand shielding her eyes with worry.
She will never forget.
"You will endure," Rachel says.