I turn halfway back to him. “I have been faithful,” I say quietly. “I know that may not be enough for you, but it’s the truth. I am yours. Even when I’m angry. Even when I’m afraid of you. I never ran to him or other men.”
His eyes are dark and unreadable. “Good,” he says, too easily.
I open the door and step into the corridor, my heart pounding. Behind me, the door closes with a soft click. As I walk away, a single thought beats in time with my footsteps.
I told the truth.
Yet maybe, I shouldn’t have.
Chapter 49
Gustav
Voices awaken me before dawn.
They do not scream this time. They whisper. Thin little threads of sound pulling at the back of my skull, weaving into my thoughts until I cannot tell where they end and I begin. I lie there listening, chest tight, eyes open to the dim ceiling beams above our bed.
She is beside me, curled around my arm. Peighton sleeps on her side with one hand under her cheek, the other draped over the gentle swell of her stomach. Her hair spills across the sheet in dark waves. Her lips are slightly parted. She looks peaceful.
Her confession from earlier sits like a stone in my chest. Rupert. Messages. Secrets buried under good intentions. She said she chose me. She said she would always choose me. Yetshame gleamed in her eyes like oil over water. Shame feeds the voices. Shame wakes them.
You do not know. Women lie. She lies. They always lie.
I realize I am no longer in our bed.
My bare feet press against cold stone. I am already downstairs, pacing the length of the corridor, the old castle still around me. I do not remember getting up. My hands are clasped behind my back, shoulders rigid. I have done this before, walked these halls in the dark, trying to outrun the noise in my head.
“Gustav…”
The sound is barely there, soft as breath. A woman’s whisper curls out of the shadows at the far end of the corridor, where the tower door waits.
My lungs seize.
I turn my head slowly. The heavy wooden door that should be locked, bolted from the outside, stands dark and quiet. The whisper comes again, closer. Inside my bones.
“Gustav. Come.”
My hand lifts before I decide to move. Fingers close around the iron latch. The lock clicks on its own. The door swings inward with a long, familiar creak, as if the tower has been waiting for me.
Of course it has.
I step inside and the air changes. Older. Colder. Dust and ghosts. The spiral staircase climbs into darkness, each stone step worn by centuries of feet and my own countless visits. I begin to climb. By the third turn, the whispers have settled into a chorus. By the fifth, everything inside me has gone quiet, as if I am walking into church.
At the top, the door to her room is slightly open.
I push it with my fingertips.
The old bedroom looks almost gentle in the firelight. Flames crackle in the hearth, a soft orange glow licking at old stonesand worn rugs. The scent of lavender hangs in the air, faint but unmistakable, as if the past never left.
She is sitting in her armchair by the fire.
Sophia.
Young. Beautiful. As she was before madness and time hollowed her out. Dark hair glossy and loose around her shoulders, eyes the same pale wolf-gray as mine, only softer. Her lips curve in a serene smile when she sees me, and the boy buried deep inside my ribcage shudders awake.
“Mother,” I say.
My voice comes out hoarse. Small.
