“Oh, yeah? She wouldn’t try to get us back for bullying her?” I choked out.
“Maybe she thinks Ivan was the one in her room the other night,” Titus said from the door. “She had this logic all worked out when she thought it was me, but it didn’t make sense because I didn’t do it. Dorien, let him down. You’re not helping.”
Dorien’s eyes flashed, but he let go of my collar. I sank to the floor, pulling my knees up to my chest, sucking in deep breaths to try and get my racing heart under control. Titus crossed to my bed, dropping a bag of weed on the coverlet and rolling a joint.
“You’ve both got to chill out.” He held out a joint to me. I shook my head.
“Don’t do that in here. Elena—”
“—is the least of your problems, bro.” Dorien accepted the joint, pulling a lighter from his pocket. He didn’t even bother to move to the window, just letting the smoke curl around his face. Titus rolled another, and soon the two of them were puffing away, tendrils of smoke curling around their faces. The tension in the room dropped.
“We can’t blame Faye for standing up for herself.” Titus leaned against the wall, puckering his lips as he exhaled. “But we’ve got to do damage control. She’ll be gunning for one of us next, probably Dorien, after he destroyed her—”
“I didn’t do it,” Dorien growled.
Titus shrugged. “Why do you care? You wanted to hurt her. Looks like mission accomplished. So why aren’t we celebrating?”
Dorien’s expression twisted, and I felt a familiar, jealous stab in my gut. Dorien thought he had it so hard, but he was the kind of guy who would always land on his feet, always find a solution, always get the girl. If he could pull his head out of his ass he’d see how he felt about Faye, and then they’d have loud kinky sex I’d be able to hear all the way from jail.
Faye and Dorien were written in the stars. And that left me down below with the weeds and monsters.
Dorien snorted. “We’re not celebrating, because Ivan is about to go to jail. Or get kicked back to Romania, which is worse.”
“Right. Fuck. What do we do?”
No one answered him. We all knew what had to happen next. There was one person at Manderley who had the power to make this go away, but she would demand a price. There was always a price. She’d already taken her pound of flesh from each of us. What else did I have to give?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Dorien
Titus and I waited with Ivan all night. I spooned him in Elena’s bed while Titus twisted his bulk to fit on Ivan’s bed, the way we used to sleep in the early days of Broken Muse when we could only afford cheap twin rooms.
Madame Usher didn’t come for Ivan. The police didn’t bang down the door. But that didn’t mean he was safe.
No one was safe at Manderley.
The next morning at breakfast, Madame Usher gushed over my performance. “Hans was so taken with your mastery and presence, Dorien.” She ruffled my hair like I was a favored son. “I believe he will get over his reluctance to deal with an ex-Muse and invite to you the summer residency in Berlin.”
Those words should have given me a thrill. Berlin was one of my favorite cities – to return there to perform and learn from a world-class orchestra would be a big deal for my career. Not to mention bringing me a step closer to what I’d come to Manderley to do. But the triumph felt hollow, meaningless.
I earned it off the back of Faye’s misery.
Because even if I hadn’t ruined her violin, everyone believed I did. I knew the truth that hid in Madame’s words.This is your reward for ruining her.
But who had done it? And why didn’t they come forward to claim their reward?
Faye pushed through the dining room door, but Madame Usher swept in her path. “You’re not welcome today. The Master has not forgiven you for taking his violin.”
That was a lie. Master Radcliffe hadn’t been the one to react when Faye showed up with that Becker – but Madame Usher had. Shescreamedat Faye – in all the years I’d known her, I’d never, ever seen her lose it like that.
What was it about that violin? I had to know. We needed something, anything we could use against Madame Usher.
Faye’s eyes leaped with fire as she stared down her foe. She looked like she was about to argue. Instead, she shoved a tray of scrambled eggs and bacon into Madame’s hands, turned on her heel and stormed away.
After breakfast was composition. Madame Usher smiled at Ivan as he slunk into the room – a smile that said she would keep his secret along with all the others she hoarded like a mouse stockpiling cheese, but her silence would come at a price to be paid in the future. I shuddered to think of what the price might be.
Faye didn’t show up for composition class, either. I couldn’t focus with her gone. When I paired up with Heather to tackle her composition, my fingers were all over the place. Finally, she put her instrument down and glared at me. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, I’ll partner with Titus instead.”
