Her eyes continued to watch the surf and she was quiet for a long moment before she replied, "I don't know my given name, but Sonia is what everyone calls me." She turned her gaze to him. Her mouth curved into a slight smile, one that didn't touch those stormy gray-blue eyes. "I suppose you might call me Sonia as well. And there is no need to apologize, I am the one who interrupted, not you."

And then her eyes drifted down to stare at her now, resting hands.

Her brows puckered and she murmured, "I do thank you for not spitting on me, Signore."

For a moment he half-expected her to ignore the question, long as she paused between answers. Malachi turned to look at her when he felt her gaze, offering but a small nod to acknowledge the name.

So this Sonia (Carrington, he assumed) did not know her given name, nor did she have any family to claim her. Did the rest of the Carringtons not care for her? He did not return her smile, but his expression was not unkind – he was simply unsure of what to make of the things she said.

“Spitting on you?” Malachi repeated, with no small amount of bewilderment bleeding through his dark gaze. That was the second time she’d mentioned spitting. Was that a common thing for her, to be literally spit on by strangers, or did she just have some sort of odd fixation on it?

“You’re… welcome. I suppose. Is that a regular occurrence for you?”

That did not feel like something she should have been thanking him for.

"In the market sometimes if people recognize me under my cowl, they are unkind. But that is to be expected, Signore. People are unkind to women of the night. We're pariahs." She gave a soft snort and found the need to sit back down. She let out a labored puff of breath, cheeks going flush a little.

The young woman then gazed up at him in curiosity, "And what might I call you, Signore?" Her brow lifted ever so slightly, her gaze moving up and down to examine him, yet there was nothing to indicate any sort of attraction from her, merely a steady studious gaze that drank in his features steadily like an observer. It wasn't that he wasn't handsome, which he was, it was that he didn't seem to ooze the type of arrogance that most men seemed to employ.

That and he wasn't trying to buy her affections once learning that she was a soiled dove.

Malachi thought that that was hardly reason enough to spit on a total stranger. A pregnant one, at that. It was clear from his frown that the answer dissatisfied him, but it was not this young woman’s fault – the world was cruel in many ways, and apparently this was just another one of them.

He took a breath to clear his head. Glanced back out at the sea, where the gentle waves (if they could even be called that) rolled along the shore.

“Me?” there was a delay after the question, short as it was. Malachi looked back at Sonia, noting how she had seated herself again, and hoped she had not over-exerted herself. If he noticed her inspection, it did not seem to bother him.

“Solomon,” came his answer, confident as any truth.

“Traveling lanternist. I just wanted to spend some time by the ocean before my ship leaves.”

She wasn't sure she believed that was his name, but far be it for her to say something about it when she didn't even know who she was. Her brows lifted a little and she nodded despite her suspicions. Sonia bit into her lower lip for a long moment and then released the plump tier from teeth's grip. It took her several minutes to be able to speak again, as the blonde regarded him again with a smokey stare, she said, "Solomon."

She was repeating his name as if trying to memorize it, but she wouldn't remember it the next day most likely. She took a deep breath and released it, realizing she needn't have even told him what she was. It did not matter though, everyone else knew who she was. He hadn't. "Perhaps I spoke of too much, Signore," she said with a low voice and turned her gaze back to the waves.

"I assume too much sometimes."

When Sonia raised her brows, Malachi mirrored her expression. What, did she not believe him? If he’d made up something that sounded vaguely foreign instead, would she have believed that? He watched as the woman turned her eyes back to the sea, and for another few moments, he was still.

The silence dragged on. In his solitude, he had been content to simply watch the ebb and flow of the tides, but now that he was up and moving around it just bored him. So, since Sonia seemed wrapped up in her contemplation and silent seconds became silent minutes, Malachi took a step to the side and started to turn, as if he meant to slip away without her notice.

Solomon, she said, and his head whipped back around to face her.

“Ah. Not a problem, signora,” Malachi assured, taking a few steps closer again.

“So much of my work is spent in solitude, I enjoy getting to listen to other people. What troubles them, what brings them joy.”

He considered the way she watched the water, the lulls between sentences. Quieter, he asked, “what about you? What brings you joy, Sonia?”

"I do not know," she said distantly, "I am not even sure I know what happiness entails." And it was true, she didn't ever remember a time where she was happy. The mother-to-be lifted her gaze to his. A cloud shifted and the sunlight brightened her features just a little. She was pale and had bruises smudging her under eyes. It was clear that, assuming he looked closer, she was not exactly in the greatest of health. There, too, was that childlike expression on her face that didn't quite fit.

She met his gaze, holding steady, and then said, "I couldn't tell you what makes anyone happy at this point." Then her brow furrowed a little and she sighed some. "I don't know..."

“Well,” Malachi began, undeterred by her non-answer, “happiness is not always a clear path, I’ll give you that.”

Sometimes it was not even a visible path at all. He held her gaze for but a moment before he looked out across the rocks, and the cliffs above. With the hope that it would not disturb her too terribly, he moved to sit on one of the rocks near her, bringing himself closer (but not quite) to her level.

“What about that?”

Malachi nodded to her stomach. She must not have been too far along, or else she could have been malnourished, but he did not think it unreasonable to assume that she was indeed pregnant. Even so, Malachi was not under the impression that it had to be under joyous circumstances – hence the question.

“Does the thought of having a child make you happy?”

"No... I bear the children of a monster," she said with a low voice. "My husband was a very bad man, Solomon." And then she filled him in on just who Magnus Carrington was. "I would have died just like the others if he didn't die first." Then she paused and sighed, looking down, "And I'll get no help from his family because of what I am, because of what I've been forced to become." She didn't weep, didn't have it in her. But she finally spoke with passion.

"I don't want to do this... Raise children in a brothel... What kind of mother would that make me? What kind of person?" And then she looked down at her hands. "I'm also frightened they will be the death of me."

Carrington was the killer he’d so briefly read about then. Or he was at least one of them. Malachi was silent as the widow explained, offering more detail to a story he had heard of only in passing, and waited patiently each time she paused.

Somewhere along the way he scooted closer, seated at the very edge of his own rock. A part of him wished to comfort her. The better part of him, the one that understood what it was like to have one’s life dictated by a monster, and to be given no pardon from family. He didn’t understand the specifics of how she felt – he couldn’t. Carrying the children of said monster was something he would never have to face.

There was another part of him – quiet as a whisper, so quickly dismissed – that wanted to tell her, I can fix this. An odd itch that plagued his fingertips and kept replaying, over and over, that hollow look in Sonia’s eyes when she had walked out of the water.

“Do you have to?” was his first question, low voice riddled with a strange, almost imperceptible edge. When he continued, it was gone.

“Raise them in a brothel, I mean. You said that his family will not help you, but is there no money from your late husband?”