Mrs. Rosewood leaned forward and beckoned Catherine closer. Heart in her throat, Catherine tilted forward. Her body felt wooden.
“The fae,” she said in a whisper and then leaned back, her gaze darting toward the door.
The room felt as if it were spinning around her. She needed something to drink. Catherine grasped for her teacup and drank down her scalding tea in one gulp, burning the roof of her mouth in the process. Outside of that strange dreamlike place with Mr. Thorn, she’d never heard someone speak of the fae. At times she doubted whether what she had seen in Faery had been real at all. And yet here she was, all her suspicions confirmed.
“Are you alright? You look terribly pale.” Mrs. Rosewood rose up to take a seat beside Catherine on her sofa and took Catherine’s slick palm in her hand.
Catherine’s entire body was trembling. This might be reckless, but she had to know more. “How did it—” she choked on the words.
Mrs. Rosewood looked down. “It’s rather gruesome. I’m not sure if I should say.”
She didn’t want to hear it, and yet she needed answers.
“Did they take her... heart?” She practically whispered the last word.
Mrs. Rosewood glanced up and met Catherine’s gaze. Her dark eyes searched Catherine’s face. “How do you...?”
“Miss Ashton.” Those sightless blue eyes still haunted her. For Catherine, it had been mere days, but that grizzly scene, despite her attempts to pretend it wasn’t real, was never far from her thoughts.
“Oh. No. I feared as much. Edward was insistent that we not talk about it. He didn’t want to frighten you...”
“Then he knew?” Catherine asked.
“We went in search of the body after you told us about it. But it went missing...” Mrs. Rosewood looked troubled.
Then if he knew that meant she didn’t need to hide it anymore. She could share with Edward as she had never been able to with any person alive. The very thought filled her stomach with butterflies. Would she get her happily ever after just like a heroine from a novel?
“We are fortunate you were able to escape the forest. If Raethorn had found you...”
Raethorn. Wasn’t that what the Twilight Queen had called Mr. Thorn?
“You can’t mean, Mr. Thorn. He helped me to leave Faery; he protected me from the queen.”
Mrs. Rosewood frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve met him? Catherine, he’s dangerous. That man killed Edward’s mother!”
It felt as if she’d just been dunked into an ice bath. It was the same sort of feeling as when Dr. Armstrong would make her sit in tubs of ice. Mr. Thorn had been there when she’d found Miss Ashton’s body. The ghost told her he was the killer. But she had taken him at his word. She had wanted to believe him.
“But he told me he couldn’t hurt me. He gave me his dagger...”
“That is all part of his game. The fae are cruel creatures. They win your trust, and then when they’ve got you, heart and soul, that is when they strike.”
“What should I do?”
“You must stay away from him at all costs. We’re fortunate this time. Next time...”
Then next time, Catherine would be like the sightless corpse of Miss Ashton.
15
Ray stabbed his shovel into the soil. The earth cracked along the surface, giving way to the slightest pressure, and crumbled as he shoveled. The sad pile of damp dirt he turned over on the surface mocked him. Mr. Rockwell had ordered him to turn over the garden beds near the pagoda. With these sad excuses for tools, it would take him hours of back-breaking work. After using up all the magic, he’d gotten helping get Lady Thornton out of Faery, he didn’t have enough to glamour Mr. Rockwell and get out of his duties as usual.
Since he’d been found at the edge of the forest with Lady Thornton, he was skating on thin ice. He’d made the mistake of having an affair with a Lady Thornton years ago, and it didn’t end well. He’d had to flee, lay low in the forest for a month before changing his name and appearance, and finding work somewhere else in Thornwood. He would have risked it to avoid anything as tedious as gardening, but he couldn’t risk leaving Lady Thornton unprotected. Knowing the Queen of the Twilight Court, she wouldn’t give up so easily. And besides, there was still the matter of the murderer at large.
Ray gouged the earth again, and his shovel collided with a rock. The collision sent a reverberation through his arm, and he swore and tossed the shovel to the ground. If he had his power, he could have clicked his fingers, and this garden would be turned over and ready for planting. In the near-century he’d been posing as a gardener, he could count the amount of actual work he had done on one hand. Stomping footsteps reverberated through the ground, and the aggravated grumble of Mr. Rockwell soon followed. He was hidden by the hedges, and it gave him ample time to pick up the shovel and resume shoveling.
“Mr. Thorn!” Mr. Rockwell roared.
He paused in his digging and quirked a brow. He couldn’t have seen his short break, but already he was yelling. Why even bother working if he would get scolded anyway? Even when he’d been a new recruit in the king’s guard, he hadn’t been this mistreated. The next new moon couldn’t come soon enough... that is if he could find a low court who would take him in for the dance. Best not to think about that right now. Ray leaned upon his shovel as the troll-sized man barreled toward him.
