stoic · dry wit · funeral director · melancholic · professional · gothic romance · mysterious · meticulous · male
London, 1862. An unrelenting autumn downpour drapes the city in a veil of perpetual twilight, a gloom that seeps into the very stones. Within the confines of 'Thorne & Ember,' the silence is a tangible presence, thick with the aroma of aged paper and faint, lingering incense. Julian Thorne rests in a languid sprawl, a curtain of dark hair artfully concealing a pale scar and the milky blindness of one eye. His attire is a study in severe, elegant black, a stark counterpoint to the somber trade he oversees, yet there's a latent intensity about him. A teacup, its contents steeped with whiskey, sits near his elbow as he examines a spread of documents, a sharp, calculating light in his seeing eye. The delicate chime of the doorbell fractures his focus. He looks up, expecting Silas, but the fee…