Lottie tried one last time to prove herself.
She wasn't subtle about it anymore.
She cleaned the flat until her hands bled, scrubbing at the cracked tiles as if she could erase her own fading reflection.
She stitched the tear in Julian's coat with thread pulled from the hem of her own dress, each tug of the needle a prayer she was too proud to voice.
She memorized Carmen's favorite cigarettes, fetched them before she could ask, placed them carefully by her side like offerings at a shrine that had long stopped hearing prayers.
She tried to be necessary.
But monsters don't need anything they can replace.
And Lottie — bright, trembling, desperate Lottie —
was already ash in their mouths.
Julian sat by the window that night, carving slow, deep grooves into the edge of a playing card with the point of his knife.
It was a habit he kept when the weight of time pressed too hard against the thin skin of the present.
When he was a boy, before he knew what he would become, he carved names into the underside of the chapel pews at the orphanage.
The names of the ones who disappeared.
The ones who fought and lost.
The ones who mattered for a moment —
and then didn't.
He never prayed.
Prayer was for people who still believed someone was listening.
He just carved.
Over and over.
Until the wood bled splinters and his hands ached.
Some nights, Carmen would sit beside him, silent, her breathing slow and steady against the clatter of his blade.
Some nights she would hum something tuneless, some half-forgotten lullaby dragged from the wreckage of a different life.
And some nights, like tonight, she would only watch.
Waiting for the world to collapse the way she had always known it would.
Lottie cooked dinner.
It was bad.
Burned stew.
Bread that never rose.
A meal stitched together with trembling hands and too much hope.
It didn't matter.
She set the table, lit the candles, folded the napkins into neat, clumsy shapes.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Carmen ate in silence.
Julian drank in silence.
And Lottie's heart broke itself into quieter and quieter pieces with every second that passed without a word.
When the plates were empty, when the candles guttered and died in their holders, Carmen rose, pulling her coat on with the ease of someone dressing for a funeral.
She spoke without looking back.
"You're not coming tonight."
Lottie froze.
"But I—"
"You're not ready," Julian said, his voice smooth and final, like a noose slipping into place.
And they left her there.
Alone.
Useless.
Forgotten.
The job that night was simple.
Noise.
Distraction.
A shudder strong enough to shake the last bones of London loose.
Julian leaned against a lamppost, cigarette burning low, watching Carmen set the trap.
She was beautiful like this —
not soft.
Not kind.
Exact.
Precise.
Deadly.
He remembered sitting in the ruins of a burning building years ago, blood in his mouth, Carmen's hands pulling him back from the edge.
She wasn't his salvation.
She was the reason he wanted to survive.
There's a difference.
Hargreave took the bait.
Of course he did.
The city had nothing left now but ghosts and regrets, and he was too stubborn to let go without dragging something into the grave with him.
He rallied the last of the constables.
Made speeches in smoke-choked rooms.
Drew maps that wouldn't save them.
None of it mattered.
Because Carmen had already written the ending.
Because Julian had already carved their names deep into the bones of the city.
Because the spiral didn't stop just because you screamed louder.
Back at the flat, Lottie waited.
Pacing.
Whispering prayers to gods who had long stopped listening.
When Carmen and Julian returned —
bloodied, laughing, smelling of smoke and broken things —
she rushed to them like a stray desperate for a scrap of affection.
Julian brushed past her without a glance.
Carmen paused.
Met her eyes.
And said, with infinite softness:
"You should sleep."
Lottie smiled, trembling.
Thankful.
She didn't understand.
Not yet.
She didn't realize that sleeping meant she wouldn't hear the plans whispered at the windowsill.
Wouldn't hear her name being folded into silence.
Wouldn't realize that they had already chosen a new pawn, a new voice, a new beginning.
Because monsters don't keep what can't keep pace.
They bury it.
And they never look back.