The courtroom erupted into chaos. Jurors leapt to their feet, the crowd surged forward screaming, and the gavel's beating didn't quite penetrate the bedlam. Eleanor stood frozen, her heart lodged in her throat. "Winthrop killed?"

Jonathan clamped his hand on her arm. "We must leave. Now."

But the crowd closed in. Some spat at Eleanor, faces twisted in outrage.

"She's under a curse!" one screamed.

"First her husband, then her friend, and now Winthrop!" another roared.

The cry turned to a chant, a snarling, poisonous whisper.

Murderess. Murderess.

---

Eleanor was escorted back to her townhouse by Jonathan, the streets filled with rubberneckers clamoring for scandal. Eleanor closed the curtains tight, her heart racing. She paced in front of the fire, her gown sweeping across the floorboards.

"Three murders, Jonathan," she gasped. "Three murders, and all the fingers pointing to me. What is there left to defend myself? Even if we do uncover the truth, the world will not believe it. They already think of me as a black widow."

Shaken and drained, Jonathan leaned against the mantel. The fire seared shadows deep in his eyes. "Then we have to stop searching for defence only. We have to go on the offensive."

Her eyes flashed to him. "Attack?"

"Yes," he said, his voice low but burning with resolution. "Someone has played this game all along. Winthrop's murder is testament to that. He was powerful, yes—but even he was only a pawn. Someone higher up, someone smarter, has been playing with these pawns on the board."

Eleanor's blood ran cold. "And if Winthrop was their shield, his murder leaves them closer than ever."

---

That night, Jonathan left once again, though Eleanor begged him not to. "You won't survive a second ambush," she said, taking his hand.

His expression softened, but his jaw did not. "If I just stay in one place and do nothing, you won't survive the week. Trust me, Eleanor. I still have some friends."

She released him with trembling fingers, watching his form fade into the mist.

The late night stretched out endlessly. Shadows crept across the walls, darkness seeped in from the street. Eleanor tried to read, but the pages blurred together. She crawled on hands and knees, trying to pray, but no words would flow.

Finally, she could not bear it and so crawled back into her husband's old study, a room she had avoided since his death. The smell of pipe smoke lingered over the curtains; the desk covered with unstamped letters.

Her fingers caressed the drawers. Locked. She moved to retrieve the key Henry had kept hidden in his watch case and turned off the lock. The drawer creaked as it swung open.

Ledgers, scores of them, their leather covers worn and cracked. She opened one, another. Her breath was taken away.

Names. Dates. Payments. Debts. Not half the lords of the city's, but Henry's, and half of theirs. Even judges, merchants, barristers. Her husband had kept accounts, a book of secrets.

Her finger trembled as she flipped through the pages. And there, in Henry's unmistakable hand, she came upon a name that chilled her blood.

Grey stale Dion.

---

Eleanor's heart thudded in her chest as her fingers traced the name on the page. Grey Stale Dion. The letters swam before her, their meaning falling into position with terrifying clarity. The name was odd, macabre, yet somehow far too familiar, like a ghost from her husband's life, someone she'd never met, yet whose presence appeared all too close.

Her breath caught in her throat. She had expected debts. She had expected names of business partners, perhaps names of deals that had soured. But this? This was something different.

Dion. She had never heard Henry speak of a man by that name. In all the time they were together, she had never once seen him make any reference to it. And yet here it was, in Henry's own hand, recorded neatly alongside dates and numbers. The figures meant nothing to her, but the name appeared to hold some ominous weight.

Her mind reeled, each one more frantic than the last. Why would Henry have retained this ledger? What secrets was he keeping? Debts were a possibility, one, but a name in their midst indicated something more sinister, a connection she had not anticipated, a strand that could unravel everything she had thought she knew about her late husband.

Trembling, Eleanor continued to turn the pages, searching for more.

Her gaze fell upon an odd entry halfway through the ledger. Under the name "Grey Stale Dion" were a series of coded words. "Last payment due, The night of the incident."

This was no simple ledger of debts, it was a map, one that linked her husband's death with something far more sinister. Had Henry been mixed up in something he had never told her about? Had his death been planned, the poison only a final piece in a much larger scheme?

---

The next morning broke with a bruised sky, clouds boiling over the peak of the courthouse spire as if nature itself had cause to anticipate the storm of testimony. Eleanor sat rigidly alongside Jonathan at the defence table, her gloved hands clutched together, so tightly the knuckles were white. Every whispering voice in the spectator gallery rained down upon her spine like pins.

"Be brave and don't lose faith," Jonathan whispered, clinging tight so that she alone could hear. "What has passed today will make all the difference. For you and for them." He glanced toward the jury, who were taking their boxes with carefully unemotional faces.

The judge's gavel crashed like a gun. "We resume the trial of Eleanor Whitmore, charged with the murder of her husband, Henry Whitmore."

The prosecution wasted no time. Mr. Graves, round and confident, rose to his feet in a flourish of a robe. "My lord, members of the jury, today before you, you will see evidence that will make clear the truth. A truth Mrs. Whitmore has attempted to cover in false mourning."

He turned towards Jonathan and smirked.