I walked toward my brother’s wing, but paused at the sound of voices coming from my mother’s. The voices got clearer the closer I got.
“Mom,” Grayson pleaded. “Get out of the closet.”
“I don’t think I will,” she called back, or…slurred. “I rather like it in here. My dresses are the only members of this family that haven’t betrayed me.”
I entered my mother’s ivory-and-gold wing. Grayson held a finger to his forehead, standing outside the frosted doors of my mother’s closet. To his left, Story rubbed his back.
“Mom?” I called out.
“Gemma?” Grayson spun, features twisted in shock and…no, that couldn’t be right—relief? “Are you back?”
Tansy flung open the door, and all three of us stumbled away so we weren’t hit in the face. Her dress room illumined her in pale-white gold. She wore awedding dress, a plush fur coat, and a furry ushanka on her head.
My mother was drunk.
Story and Gray looked stunned. For them, it was probably like seeing Bigfoot. You’d heard about it, but you dismissed it as myth.
“I seem to have run out of champagne,” Mom said. “And wine. And cognac. And wine.”
She glared at us like we were the problem. She walked toward the other side of the room, toward the wet bar, her foot-long ivory train trailing after her.
“Mom—” Grayson reached for the champagne in her hand, and she smacked him.
I stepped between them. “Mom.”
“You.” Tansy looked up at me reproachfully from beneath her lashes. “I don’t need help fromyou.” Gone was the stoic, regal woman of all the servants’ nightmares. In her place was someone I thought belonged only to midnight.
Broken.
Human.
“If someone tries to take my champagne again, you will see why everyone calls meFührer Tansy—you think I don’t know they call me that. I know you call me that.” She spun around the room, raising the bottle high. “I didn’t used to be this way.” Her eyes watered and she took a huge gulp.
From the bottle.
Then she looked at it, brow furrowing, realizing once again it was empty. Something on her dress caught her attention. She poked a small red stain on her white dress. Wine, most likely. “My dresses have betrayed me.”
“Mom, come on.” I pulled her to the bed and she fought me off. I shot Grayson a pleading look. A moment later he was behind her, gripping her elbow and pushing her toward the bed.
“Oh, how lovely, just like my wedding.” She threw her arms in the air. “Are you going to force me up the aisle like Daddy too?”
But my mom stopped fighting and climbed into bed.
“Thanks,”I said. “You can go now.”
Grayson blinked, bewildered. “Go?”
I crawled into bed, lying sideways to see her like always. Her cheek pushed into the satin.
“You left me,” my mom whispered.
I rubbed her arm, up and down, until her eyes closed. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, but the light in the room changed, the shadows grew. Eventually my mother snored, and I sat up.
Grayson and Story were still there, and they stared.
I ignored the questions in their eyes and went to the bathroom. I yanked open drawers, emptied the wicker baskets that held towels.
“What are you doing?” Grayson asked. “What was that?”
