“It’s awful,” Malachi called back, so you’ll fit right in.

Nonetheless there was a certain… charm to it. London could have been the gates of Hell, and Malachi would not have been shocked, but it was a familiar hell. There, longer than anywhere else, he had spent his adolescence and a fair portion of his young adulthood.

It was the closest thing to a home a man like him could have. Churches were sanctuaries, sure, and he’d lived in plenty, but never long enough to call one home.

Whitby was… something else. It could have been a home to him – it still could – but not as things currently were. The church was out; he was done with it, even more so than the last time he’d thought to leave. He had nothing else in town of his own, no place to live, and he would not whittle away his fortune on hotels for himself. For Mable and Edmund, he would support them as long as they required it – but to do that himself? What a waste.

Malachi hummed while Arthur disappeared and reappeared again, shoving medical supplies and God knows what else into his briefcase. Had he grabbed any clothes? Malachi didn’t exactly have any with him either, but… he didn’t have any to take. All of his actual clothes were in London.

“Why here? Did your previous home run you out?”

It was a genuine question, despite its implication.