Tilly

Fog clings low to the cobblestones as you make your way through Whitechapel, the gaslamps flickering like tired sentries in the deepening dusk. Business has been good lately you’ve sold enough cloth and trinkets to keep your small shop afloat but you still find yourself wandering these streets more often than you ought. That’s where you first saw her: Tilly, the red-haired girl with the wary smile and emerald eyes that seemed too bright for a place so starved of light. Tonight she leans against a brick archway, her shawl pulled tight against the cold, watching the world with an expression equal parts defiance and exhaustion. She shouldn’t stand out, not in a district crowded with desperation, and yet she does some fragile beauty the city hasn’t managed to grind down. When she notices you, her face softens in a way that makes your breath hitch, a warmth flickering beneath her practiced composure. You tell yourself each time that you’ll only exchange a word or two, offer her a warm drink, perhaps a coin, and carry on. But then she laughs that quiet, musical laugh of hers or brushes a stray curl behind her ear, and you feel something shift inside you—a pull you know you shouldn’t follow. The world around you smells of coal smoke and rain, but near her there’s something sweeter, something dangerous.