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T hey fell into a delicate rhythm after the evening Murdoch apologised.

It was still tense, thrumming with something couldn’t quite put her finger on, but he gave her more to do, and would sometimes even carry on conversations with her. She discovered the book he’d been reading when they’d first met was a work of fiction, The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope. It took some cajoling, but he’d even told her what it was about, and suggested he watch Princess Bride because it sounded similar to her.

He’d smiled then, a small thing that looked as if it pained him a bit. “I don’t get to see many films.”

Then, the conversation was over and they went about their work separately, marking papers and Murdoch scratching away at a notepad.

“Did you read about the section of campus they’re blocking off to bury some of the Infected?” she ventured a few days later when she brought him coffee between classes.

watched Murdoch’s jaw clench. “I did. Yes.”

“It’s strange, isn't it? All this time we’ve been told it’s important to burn them. What changed? The article said the Medical College was taking part in the research to stop the Plague. Is that you? I would assume Pathology and Morbid Anatomy would be the perfect department for tha?—”

“Those matters are not to be discussed here.”

swallowed the rest of her words and busied herself with other things until her next lecture and shift at the morgue.

By the time she made it to Achilles House that night, she was surviving off of caffeine and a petrol station chicken fillet roll she would undoubtedly regret soon. But it was worth it.

The Unidentified Infected numbers were still low. The Plague had its tendrils further into the flesh of society leaving more and more mourners behind, and without subjects. There had, however, been one Unidentified that day. When Carl arrived for the TBB, she lied and told him the body had been identified, and that it would be buried in the new Trinity Cemetery. Carl left and sliced, rejuvenated by the prospect of the first subject in what felt like ages.

Her heart fell when there were no signs of flora, but she still found something grossly interesting. The blood around the cadaver’s heart had not only turned black but congealed into a loamy mess that resembled used coffee grounds or— had gasped. Soil . She quickly made her notes, sewed the body shut, and hauled it into her car.

The door opened before she could finish knocking. Gold Stitch stared down at her, the light glinting off his goggles. “You haven’t been here in two weeks.”

“Wow. Thanks for the history lesson.”

“That body better be for me.”

“Isn’t this whole shindig yours?”

She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was snide. “I need a Stage 3, and you know it.”

This piqued her interest. “Is that what you call it—the flora phenomenon? How many stages are there? What marks the other stages?”

Gold Stitch stepped out onto the stoop, causing her to back up, descending to the gravel. She didn’t like him higher than her, peering down.

“Stop asking questions.” He came down the steps and walked past her to her car. She opened the boot for him and he cursed, really a rather colourful display hissed through the beak of his mask. “You opened the corpse again. A–” He abruptly broke off. “You have to stop opening them. It jeopardises the integrity of the research.”

“How am I supposed to know if there are signs of flora if I don’t open them, Sherlock?”

The sigh that escaped him was so long she thought it might be his final breath. “I foolishly assumed you were aware of the outward signs.”

Her banter slipped away into the cold night air. “Wait. How did I miss that?”

Gold Stitch lifted a shoulder, impatience in the set of his limbs.

Had she, though? Missed it? “Do you mean the black veins?”

“Especially in the eyes.”

gnawed on her bottom lip. She had put that together internally, perhaps even in her notes, but it hadn’t fully registered. . .

She squinted at Gold Stitch. “What’s your name, hm?”

He didn’t answer her, only strode back toward the door.

“Tell me your name and I’ll stop opening the cadavers.”

“Nice try.”

He disappeared inside, and tried with all her might to get as good a look as she could at the interior of the House before the door slammed shut. When it re-opened, a Black Stitch wheeled out a gurney, and the usual gangly White Stitch brought her a half-payment, more skittish than usual.

“Hey, does that Gold Stitch guy run his place?” she asked White Stitch conspiratorily.

He startled back a step. “You need to get out of here.” The lad fled and returned to her car, counting her money.

When she looked up from opening the car door, a masked figure was sitting in her passenger seat.

“Fucking hell!” she spat. “What in hell are you doing?”

“I told you I need a particularly plagued body,” Gold Stitch said rather calmly if it wasn’t just the mask muffling and distorting his voice.

“And I told you, I don’t have a Stage 3 .” She threw sufficient mocking into the last words.

“Then let’s go.”

“Are you mental? I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Get in the car, .” The words brooked no argument, but that wasn’t why her breath caught. He knew her name. He knew her fucking name.

“ No .”

His sigh sounded trapped this time. “It’s your car. You have the keys and I’m in the passenger seat. Who has the upper hand here?”

He had a point. Maybe.

She slid into the driver’s seat and started the car, smashing a fist against the dash

His head turned slowly toward her. “Was that some sort of fit?”

barked a mad laugh and it seemed to startle Gold Stitch, to her great satisfaction. “It’s the only way the heater comes on. Old car.”

She turned in her seat to look at him, wondering what he’d do if she reached across and ripped the mask off. Probably kill her. We all have to die some way , Murdoch had said.

“Where are we going?”

“The campus cemetery.”

“What do you need me for?” she asked as they crossed the Liffey. “You’re a big lad.”

He was turned away from her, looking out the window, and he smelled of embalming fluid and cigar smoke. “I haven’t told the others about the flora, and told my anatomist you mentioned it to that you were mistaken.”

His honesty shocked her so much that she almost stopped the car. “Why?”

“I suspect some above me already know, but I like to keep my research close to my chest.”

“And how do I fit into this?” she pressed, turning at the next light.

“Those are Botany textbooks, are they not?” He pointed a black-gloved finger to the stack of coursebooks he’d had to move to the footwell when he invaded her car.

Grappling with a mixture of flattery and fear, she said the first stupid thing that sprang to her mind because of the scent filling her senses. “Do you smoke?”

The mask stared at her for a moment, the cherry street lights reflecting in his goggles and making him look comically ridiculous. “On occasion. Why?”

“I can smell it on you.”

He was silent until she turned onto Nassau. “Turn off the headlamps.”

She parked as he directed her to. The streets were nearly deserted, the pub and tourist crowds calling it quits past 3 a.m. Gold Stitch opened his door first, and considered shoving him out of the car and speeding off, but the massive, black iron gates loomed ahead of him, and bent to peer up at the top of one through the windscreen. Then, she blew a breath past her lips.

“How are we going to get in there?” she whispered.

“You’ll see.”

God, she was tired. “I don’t exactly have a shovel in my car.”

“Yes, you do.” He pointed a gloved finger again and followed the direction, looking into the backseat. “Put two back there myself.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You think you’re quite clever, don’t you.”

“You aren’t scared of me,” he said, completely off-topic and sounding more befuddled than anything. “Why?”

Frankly, she was pleased she’d come off as unafraid because she was still rather terrified. Though, she supposed, it wasn’t the creepy masked man or the horrible crime they were about to commit. It was the possibility of getting caught. “We all have to die some way or other, Gold Stitch.”

He cleared his throat at her words but said nothing.

“There’s a little phrase wise women live by. If he wants to, he will . It’s usually more romantic than our particular scenario, but the point still stands. If you wanted to murder me, you would. Now, come on.”

They exited the car in unison, both having the forethought enough to shut their doors quietly. used her hip to close hers the rest of the way while Gold Stitch opened the rear door and produced two shovels. walked around and he handed her one, reaching inside to pull out a lantern.

“A kerosene lantern?” she mocked. “I probably have a torch in here somewhere.”

“I’m old-fashioned,” he answered her, leaning his shovel against the side of her car and lighting the lamp with a match.

“Mmhmm.” They both knew she was goading him, but she didn’t feel inclined to stop. Judging by his status, build, and muffled voice, she’d peg him somewhere in the latter half of his thirties, possibly early forties. She’d always been enthralled by slightly older men. They knew what the hell they were doing in life. A flash of Murdoch slipped into her mind unbidden—the day he told her about the novels he’d been reading. shook the memory loose.

“Old-fashioned or old?” she goaded Gold Stitch further. “Hard to tell with that mask on, you know.”

They hid in the shadows and the lantern light shown in his goggles, her face reflected back at her in the flame. “I’m vintage, darling.”

Blood rushed to ’s ears and every other part of her body, but Gold Stitch merely turned and walked toward the dark cemetery, lantern in one hand and shovel over his shoulder.

followed, her heart hammering against her ribs. This wasn’t like sneaking a body out of the morgue under broken streetlights after the Gallaghers had left. This was a cemetery within the college.

“What exactly is the plan here?” She rubbed her cold hands together, looking over her shoulder as he picked a lock.

It clicked open and Gold Sitch reached for the handle. “We find a Stage 3.”

“But how will we get an entire body out of here?”

“We don’t need an entire body, we need a look at one and samples .”

All the graves were fresh, the soil upturned and carefully laid in mounds atop each corpse. was inexplicably saddened by the fact that none of the graves were marked with names. “Why aren’t there any headstones?” she asked as they walked.

“Those take a while to be made,” he answered. It was difficult to hear him out in the open. “But I would venture to say they never will be.”

Frustrated and horribly unnerved, reached out and snatched the elbow of Gold Stitch’s black coat. He froze mid-step and turned to face her. “I can accept that you won’t take the mask off or tell me your name, but if I’m going to be involved in this shite, I want to know what’s really going on.”

“I can’t tell you that, .”

“Ignorance doesn’t equate to safety.”

“I didn’t say it did.”

“Do you even know what’s happening? What all of this is?”

“I know that it’s strange they wanted the bodies burned and now they want as many buried as possible,” he said sharply, “but my job is to cure this Plague, not question the burial practises of the great city of Dublin.”

“Does Achilles House work with the Morbid Anatomy Department at Trinity?” she said as he tried to walk away.

He only kept walking.

“An article said the government had consulted them. Are you not an entity of the government? How could you possibly find all the funding you need if you aren’t?”

He spun around to face her. “You ask a lot of questions,” he gritted out. “Now is not the time for a history lesson of the Society.”

He stormed off and picked up her shovel, balancing it on her shoulder to follow him. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?” she asked when they’d gone in a circle.

“Stage 3 graves are marked with something. I don’t know what. I thought it would be at least somewhat more obvious than this, I’ll admit.”

bent down next to the plot nearest her. “Hold the lantern over here.”

Gold Stitch did as she requested, and stuck her hand in the grave dirt. It was moist, fertile. She spread the soil out with her fingers, inspecting it. “Closer,” she demanded. Gold Stitch crouched beside her, one of his knees almost brushing her arm. “Jesus of little Nazareth,” she cursed and a distinct snort came from behind Gold Stitch’s mask. “This is fertiliser.”

He turned to her so sharply that the leather beak of his mask almost hit her in the cheek. “To fertilise the grass for regrowth, right?”

dusted her hands off and rose. “I never really go out to the graves, but I would think so. Except. . .” Her words trailed off as she pointed to the grave next to it, the dirt harder there. Much less fertile. It was easy to grow on the Emerald Isle, but. . .

Gold Stitch swung his lantern in that direction, then up, illuminating half a dozen fresh plots. Only one was the dark, black soil awaiting growth.

“Look at this,” he said, sidestepping the grave to set the lantern by the head of it. He reached down and picked up something shiny and silver between his fingers, glinting in the lantern light.

“A coin?” bent to take a look, and he held it out to her.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before.,” Gold Stitch mused. “The material is less dense than expected. Shiner, almost ethereal.”

“That’s a hawthorn tree on it.” held out her hand, and he placed the coin in her palm. The second it touched her flesh, she gasped, a horrible, rasping sound in her ears.

She was instantly standing in a foggy wood, surrounded by endless hawthorns.

She was afraid.

Running.

Running from something. Or was it to something?

Someone was calling her name. They sounded even more frightened than she was. She could feel tears on her cheeks, but why was she crying?

“ !” The voice again, bellowing. It was familiar, that deep, resonant voice.

The tears fell harder, her legs pumping faster.

“ , no !”

She thought her gasp into the hallucination had been guttural, but this man’s cry for her was rife with pure agony.

Lights were flickering in the fog. Blue, like the hottest part of the flame.

Wills-o-the-wisp she heard her own fragmented mind say. Corpse Flames .

She darted further into the fog, chasing one. Breath heaving, she pulled out a vial of black salt and ran harder.

A piercing scream filled the misty night, and everything went white.

“!”

Someone was shaking her.

“ , wake up.”

A gloved hand was on her cheek, the leather soft, the touch tender. Her eyes fluttered open, going wide when she saw the plague doctor mask hovering over her. She was in his lap, covered in grave dirt.

“Oh my god.” She scrambled off of Gold Stitch and into the muddy grass. “I’m so sorry.”

“,” he said calmly, “what happened?” He stood and made to help her up.

She didn’t take his offered hand. “Nothing. I get migraines sometimes.”

“Migraines that cause you to faint?”

She scrubbed at her arm. “That part was new.”

“Give me the keys.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“But what about the body? The samples?”

“Never mind that. Give me the keys.”

“No.” But she swayed on her feet and he jumped to steady her with an arm around her waist. When he pulled away, he had her keys in his hand.

“Hey!”

“Let’s go.”

“You forgot your damned lantern. You make a terrible criminal.” She scooped it up and startled when the flame turned blue, then leeched away from the wick, darting out of the lantern completely. Before she could even react, it dissipated like a spent sparkler over a different grave.

“What are you doing?” Gold Stitch groused as she jumped over one grave and then another to look at the one the flame had sent her to. Will-o-the-wisp , her traitorous mind whispered like the migraine-induced vision, Corpse Flame .

“This one has been fertilised too,” she called over her shoulder. “Come here.”

“We can deal with this later. You need to get home .”

“Shut up.” She saw another coin glint in the light. Another hawthorn tree. She handed it to Gold Stitch, feeling a buzz in her veins.

“We need to go .”

“I see something.” She leaned in closer, finally giving up and getting on her hands and knees. Something else was peeking up out of the soil.

Stoic Gold Stitch was on his knees beside her in an instant. “My god. Is that?—”

“A mushroom.”

“I don’t claim to know a lot about Botany, but that isn’t likely on a fresh grave, is it?”

“Not one this fresh. I’m going to take it.”

His hand clamped down on her wrist as she reached for it. “Not without a mask and gloves you won’t. This Plague is spreading somehow and we can’t take risks.”

“Give me your gloves then.”

He contemplated for a moment, but eventually shucked off his gloves and handed them to her. They were too large and too difficult to work with. “I need the mycelium beneath it.”

“I don’t have a specimen jar big enough for that. We’ll come back tomorrow night.”

Everything in her wanted to snatch that mushroom and study it. For all they knew, it had somehow managed to cling to life from where it had been upturned with the soil. She wouldn’t know unless she could study the mycelium.

“Please, just— Let’s get you home.” His tone had a note of tenderness, enough to stall her.

“All right,” she finally conceded, rising and dusting off her clothes.

She followed Gold Stitch to her car and let him drive. They spent the entire ride in silence until they turned into the car park and he parked away from other cars, turning off the ignition.

“How will you get home?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about that.”

They exited her car and he handed her the keys.

“Why would an Infected person sprout a plant from their organs?” Her voice was smaller than she would have liked for it to sound, but so was his, almost inaudible through the mask.

“I don’t know yet. And now I’m worried about who does. Get inside your dorm.”

He strode away into the dark trees, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat.

She was unnerved by how much he knew about her—her name, where she lived—but it was her lack of fear of him that unnerved her even more. Halfway to Briseis House, she turned to look over her shoulder to find him in the trees, watching her. He made a small keep going gesture, and it wasn’t until she made it up to Third that it occurred to her he’d been watching to make sure she made it inside safely.