Til Death Duke Us Part (Alchemy of Desire)

Chapter 1

IT’S RAINING MEN

Deep graves were lovely until bodies filled them. Cool earth on all sides, the rich scent of soil. Persephone could close her eyes, rest her aching limbs, and imagine death.

It would be quiet, peaceful, and somehow, not so lonely.

She sighed, six feet under, weight leaning against her shovel, and opened her eyes in just enough time to see the man fall into the grave she was digging.

He landed on his belly with an “oof” and laid there groaning.

She kicked him. And in such a narrow space, she didn’t have to swing her leg far. “Don’t think this one’s reserved for you. Unless you’re early.”

The man rolled over, shoulder hitting one long side of the grave, and he slowly brushed the soil from his face and chest. “Did you fall in, too?”

“No. Dug my way down here.” She heaved her shovel onto her shoulder. “What are you doing in the Alchemist Graveyard past midnight?”

He sat up, and in the dim light of the fairy orb glowing near her shoulder, he gave her a look. Ha. She knew that expression. He was the kind of man unused to being questioned.

“I could ask you the same,” he said.

“I’m the grave digger.”

“I doubt that.”

“Why else would I be down here with a shovel?” You great lumbering nodcock.

Narrow eyes but no answer. He stood, dusting off his knees.

“You do not have a shovel,” she said, “so you have no reason to be here.” She wished he wasn’t here.

He was interrupting her work, but also, there was no room in a grave for two.

The tight space she loved to be alone in felt much too crowded now.

He wasn’t a small man, and the large outline of him was almost all she could make out, even with her little bobbing light.

Taller than the grave, shoulders wide, hair bright in the dark.

He was dressed plainly but fully from his cravat to his greatcoat.

Probably had a pocket watch tucked away in a waistcoat pocket.

And that pocket was well-stretched over his muscled chest. “I’d need a wide hole. ”

“Pardon me?” He swung around, eyes wide, lips rolled back to shape the tone of distaste that had dripped across those two words. “What in the devil are you talking about? A… wide hole?”

Persephone waved her arms at the grave. “What you’re standing in. You don’t fit very well. If I were digging your grave, it would have to be wider. To accommodate your shoulders.”

He blinked like he was trying to knock her over with his unfairly thick and dark lashes, then he straightened and brushed off his trousers. “Ah. Yes. That hole.” He turned his attention to the sky, to the shelf of ground at his eye level. “How do I get out?”

She kicked at a nearby bucket. “Use that.”

“Makes sense. You being so small.”

No reason to bristle. She was short. She came up only to this man’s shoulders.

“Why are you digging at night?” he asked, kicking the bucket upside down and into place for a quick escape.

“It’s cooler. And it doesn’t bother the daytime visitors.” And she didn’t have to hear the wailing of the newly bereaved. Or the innocent chatter of a child talking to the air, pretending it was their mother or father so recently lost.

He grunted. “Good to know.” Then he placed one foot on the overturned bottom of the bucket, pressed his palms into the ground, and launched himself up. A few competent movements, and he was out, brushing his hands on his trousers.

She whistled. He probably didn’t even need the bucket.

He leaned over and looked down at her. The light from her orb shone up at him, illuminating his face. She wanted to whistle again. A fine-looking man with arrogant cheekbones. Full lips and thick, dark brows. His nose was crooked, like he’d broken it once.

“Well, then… Good evening.” He gave her a little wave and walked off.

She pocketed her orb and scurried up after him. Using the bucket, of course. “Wait!”

He did not. He walked with long, confident strides into the maw of the darkness. Not even the huge yellow moon, heavy in the sky, could follow him there.

“Wait!”

The wind picked up, whistling through the trees spindly tree limbs as if to chase the stranger away. The stranger picked up his pace, too.

Oh no. Bad sign, that. It wasn’t the wind’s howling that chased him from the cemetery. She didn’t believe that for a moment. This man trotted because he didn’t want to be caught.

That meant she needed to catch him. Damn it. A lone man skulking about the cemetery at night meant one thing usually—a grave robber either after jewels to sell in pawn shops or body parts to sell to medical students.

He couldn’t have them! Not on her watch.

“Stop!” she cried, then rolled her eyes. Oh yes, Sephy, he’s sure to bide by your wishes. Stop indeed.

He did not stop, naturally. In fact, he picked up his pace, a dark shadow slipping through the darker night like water through fingers.

She ran after him.

And a wall sprouted out of the ground in front of her.

She yelped, slowing but not soon enough. She slammed into the brick.

No. She didn’t. She slipped right through it then rocked back several steps to study it.

The wall seemed real—red brick rising several feet above her head and stretching out on either side as far as she could see.

But there’d never been a brick wall here before.

And she’d never known one to grow out of the ground like a damn tree.

And…

She stuck her hand through it.

It was an illusion, a glamour.

“Bloody hell. He’s a toff.” What was one of the transcendent ton doing in a graveyard at night?

He should be in a huge fancy house in West London, lying in a huge fancy bed, surrounded by at least three courtesans.

More if he possessed a title higher than an earl.

But he wasn’t. He was in an alchemist graveyard on the east side of London and—

A scream in the distance, followed by a thud.

Likely in another grave, too.

She ran through the fake wall and toward the sound of his scream. She stopped at the short end of a grave she’d dug earlier in the evening and removed the orb from her pocket, set it loose into the air above the hole.

She’d found him, alright, face down and groaning.

Again. And when he rolled over, he spit dirt into the air and swiped it from his eyes.

Levering himself upright, he bent a knee and draped an arm across it, shaking his head.

He glared at her beneath the fairy light, a knife-sharp thing that likely quelled most everyone.

Persephone smirked. “Need help?”

“Go away.”

“Afraid I cannot. If you’re here to disturb the rest of these souls, I’m not going to let you.” After her husband’s death, she’d taken over his job, digging graves a form of penance. She’d fail herself, fail Percy, if she let a thief destroy the dead’s eternal peace.

He snorted and stood, stretching his back.

“Are you hurt?” It would be easier to catch him and bring him to the night watchman if he was.

“Good God, woman. Go dig a hole somewhere else and leave me alone.”

“Can’t. You’re a suspicious character.”

“And you’re… what? Cerberus guarding the gates of Hell?”

“Something like that.”

He gave one loud sniff, and it was all she needed to imagine him in a ballroom, sneering down his nose through a quizzing glass at everyone around him. “You’re hardly a terrifyingly famed figure of mythology. You dig holes, madame.”

“Said as if I’m supposed to be ashamed of it.”

He didn’t have to say Well, yes, you should be ashamed because the wicked twist of his lips said it all.

“Tell me why you’re here,” she said, “and I won’t tell the constable. Unless you’re here for nefarious reasons. Then—” She shrugged.

“How’d a woman get to be a grave digger?”

“My husband was one. Then I had to dig a hole for him, and I just kept at it. How’d a transcendent get to be in an alchemist graveyard at night?”

“Someone dies”—he smirked, ignoring her question—“and you get the job?”

“And who had to die for you to get your position?” Transcendent titles and magic were passed down from eldest son to eldest son, only one man from every family of the peerage for every generation claiming all that power, and only after his father’s death.

He lifted a single brow. “Touché.” He stood, shook his head, and reached up for the ground to pull himself to freedom.

She’d been right. He didn’t need a bucket.

When he was free, she whipped out the knife she always kept at her hip and brandished it in his face.

“Tell me why you’re here or I’ll call the constable.

The choice is yours.” She would never allow these souls to be disturbed.

He disrespected them with his running and falling and shrieking and likely stealing.

No more.

“What will it be?” she demanded.

With a world-weary sigh, he shifted his weight to one leg. “You’re a very tiresome woman. I may do as I wish.” He flicked his hand—the slightest of movements—and the light from her fairy orb dimmed. And a thick fog rolled across the graveyard.

Another glamour. This one blinding. Not even the remaining light of her dimmed orb could cut through the thick fog.

She did not see the hand wrap around her wrist. But she felt it—large and warm. No glove. Muscle flexed around her wrist, almost crushing it.

“Release the knife, little one.” The toff’s voice was like silk, and it curled around her like the fog.

“No.” She clawed at his hand where it held her with an unforgiving grip.

He didn’t even flinch. But he did tighten his hold. “Release…” Tighter. “The knife.” Tighter.

She yelped, whined, animal sounds caught in her throat.

“Please…” Her hand seemed to open on its own, and the knife fell into the fog.

She heard the soft thud as it met earth.

The grip on her wrist loosened, but not enough for her to break free.

The body so close to her rustled, moved. Crouched? Then disappeared entirely.

She snatched her hand out of the air and cradled it against her chest as she knelt and searched with her good hand for the knife. Gone.

“Damn you.”

“Good evening, Mistress Soil.”

“Damn you.”

A deep chuckle, then footsteps stalking across the ground, softly, swiftly.

“You cannot simply do what you want!” she cried out. The night swallowed her words.

“I always do.”

She could imagine him walking backward to face her, sweeping a low bow as he went, unfolding his long body and topping it with a smirk.

She ran toward the voice, froze. She’d fall into a grave if she ran in this fog. And she wasn’t as tall as he. And she didn’t have her bucket.

“Damn you!” she hissed. Then louder, because she had to, “What are you after?”

The fog was lifting, disappearing. It had begun to shimmer, waver, little bursts of light popping through. It had been a glamour, and now it was gone. The moon cast its yellow glow across the graveyard, and her fairy light was gone. She peered into the darkness after him.

No idea where he’d gone. But she had to catch him. She shot off toward the back of the graveyard where the richer alchemists were buried. The robber was a transcendent; he didn’t need money. But the deep edge of the cemetery was where all grave robbers went. At least those who knew.

He must know. Alchemists were sure to be… displeased about the situation. They didn’t like the little details of their rites and rituals to escape the boundaries of their own communities.

She found the end of the cemetery where a large stone structure rose only a foot or so above a tall man’s head. Grecian columns stretched out on either side of the entrance at its middle, and the white marble shone in the dark.

She found the man, too. He had her fairy orb, and he was squinting at the entrance to the building, reading the inscription she knew to be chiseled into the closed marble door.

The might of metal over the illusion of death.

Her father had always loved that saying. He had it engraved above the fire in his home forge. Alchemists were odd birds.

“Who are you looking for?” she asked. She kept her tone polite. Perhaps it would be a better strategy. “I can help you find them.”

The potential thief yelped, jumped skyward like a bird taking flight. But he was too big, too long limbed, so he looked liked a giant dog trying to fly and failing. Flailing.

She doubled over laughing.

“Good God,” he barked, “I thought you were a ghost.”

“Not a”—wheeze—“ghost.” She slapped her knee and stood up straighter, dragging air into her lungs in case he shot off again and she had to run after him. Again.

“You’re more annoying than a ghost. Go dig a hole somewhere.”

“Not a chance. I won’t let you steal anything.

Or dig anyone up. I don’t care how much those doctors are offering you per organ delivered to their doorsteps.

” They’d been particularly interested in alchemists lately, ever since that one was given a title.

What was his name? Temple something or other…

“And just how am I going to dig anyone up?” he demanded. Oh my, but his scowl was fearsome, wasn’t it? “I don’t have a shovel.”

“Ah…” He was right about that.

“I’m looking for an old friend.” He turned back to the low marble tomb.

“Ah. Here it is.” He reached out, and the marble in front of him pushed over with the heavy scratch of stone against stone.

Nothing but dark beyond, silent and lifeless.

“Just leave me the hell alone.” His voice dark and lifeless, too.

He was a… mourner?

She didn’t believe it.

And she wouldn’t let him defile the remains of those buried here.

She’d failed to bring peace to Percy while he’d lived.

He could have been entombed here with the honored alchemists whose inventions had moved the world forward.

But he’d been buried near the front of the cemetery, a small stone the only marker.

She’d be damned before she let anyone disturb his peace—or the peace of any other alchemist—in death.

It was all the dead had left, after all.