Night draped Wolthrope in a shroud of frost as Eleanor sat by the hearth, its embers a dying whisper in the tenement’s chill. Her cough rasped, a hollow echo, and her hands—scarred, bloodless—rested limp in her lap. The bloodletter’s scorn had left her empty, the shilling unclaimed, and hunger’s grip tightened—Eldric’s bird lay still, his breath a faint thread, while Margaret’s silence and Henry’s wheeze wove a dirge she could not escape. She lit a taper, its flame a frail sentinel, and turned to her kin, her heart a wound too deep to mend.

  Eldric stirred, his bent legs tangled in the quilt, and she lifted him, his weight a wisp against her chest. “Sleep, love,” she sang, her voice a broken lullaby—“Hush, my babe, the wind doth sigh”—and his eyes fluttered, the wooden bird pressed to his cheek. Margaret rocked, her hum faint, a snatch of the tune rising from her fog, and Eleanor’s throat burned—her mother’s voice, once a balm, now a ghost joining her song. Henry’s hand twitched, as if reaching, and she clasped it, its coldness a mirror to her dread.

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  The room softened, shadows stretching like mourners, and she held them close—her son, her parents—in this final night, a fragile communion. James’s coat hung on the peg, its wool a silent witness, and she felt him in the stillness, his absence a weight she bore alone. Wolthrope’s mills growled beyond the cracked panes, their rhythm a knell, and she kissed Eldric’s brow, tasting her tears. “My brave boy,” she whispered, knowing dawn would bring no mercy.

  The candle guttered, wax pooling like her grief, and she gazed at them—Eldric’s trust, Margaret’s drift, Henry’s fade—slipping from her grasp. She’d fought, bled, stolen, yet this night marked her surrender, a mother’s love powerless against the dark tide rising. The fire dimmed, and she clung to their frail warmth, a sentinel to their end, her spirit breaking under the ashes of defeat.