She thinks better of it. She will burn this. That is her intention, even as she whispers his name over the parchment, a wave of her hand scrambling letters about the page. There will be no other eyes on her words; author and reader the only eyes able to make out the writing. Merlin and all gods past and future, why did she write any of this? It doesn't matter; she sets this aside, as she has every ill-advised confession.

---

25 December 1894

Samuel,

I should not send you this, and perhaps, you will be angry that I have. Perhaps that would be kinder, knowing that I earned your disdain. It would be better than fretting about your safety. And yet, who am I to assume such worries? I have no right to know of your condition; I have no right to you at all. It is not my place, and yet...

Oh, my dearest Sam, how I worry for you.


I beg your forgiveness even as I long for word of you. Show mercy to a heart too fond and tell me you are safe.

Yours,
T.L.

The letter found Samuel Griffith when he left the house of his family in London Christmas night. It was late. Earlier, after the morning tea, Samuel excused himself from his relatives' company; he felt unwell. Everyone seemed relieved to be offered an explanation for his state, which was disturbing them.

He retreated into the house and for a last time went up to the rooms of his father. He made him get up and sit by the fireplace. He made him lie down on the bed again and stood over him and gazed upon his vacant face. He could not do it. Samuel had meant to kill Mr. Griffith Senior on the 21st of December and he failed to go through with it. On the 22nd, he still could not will himself to do it. And today, he would not do it, either.

There was no relief to be spared this sacrifice — he conceived of it as a sacrifice, one that would damn him and set him free.

But if he could not do it, nothing was solved. If no one died, and life went on, Samuel Griffith was destroying himself for nothing. He was not only destroying himself, no, that had not been enough for him. After all, misery loved company.

He went to stand at the window and envisioned Don Juan in the old house; a desperate ghost haunting the dead structure, walking through broken glass and bedding his head on the carpet that grew damp blooms of mold. The vision ignited heat, eating away at Samuel's barren interior. It was fueled by memories and it was fed by guilt and shame and hunger. Sam. Samuel leaned his head against the cool frame of the window. Something appeared to be wrong with his right eye. His vision was impaired. It was sharpening and blurring. His head started aching.

Desecration and destruction, for nothing. It could be him instead, he thought. Put an end to it. Wouldn't that be a relief?
One of them, he was certain, would not make it through tonight.

He left the Griffith's townhouse to head towards the shuttered laboratory. Brighter days, high up in a tower, were nothing but a distant recollection, until the owl found him. He read the letter a few times.
The next few hours Samuel drifted through the deserted city, appearing and disappearing along the great dirty river running through its midst.

The letter he sent back to Themis Lyra some hours later read as follows:

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Themis,

This may be unexpected, and not fair of me to request, considering I have asked too much of you already. However, I am returning to Hogwarts tonight and will come to your tower in the hope of finding you there.

Should you decide to receive me, I must ask one more thing of you, and I do not know if I will bring myself to repeat my request, so I ought to put it in writing: please do not allow me to leave. At least, until this year is done with.

To my regret, nothing could be solved and less can be explained.

I am sorry.

Yours,
Samuel

  

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