Just like you.“Hey, why don’t you write a book? A history of witchcraft, or of Briarwood Castle. You could sell it at the gift shop after the tours.”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“You could try. You could ask your dad for?—”
Corbin shook his head. “Dad’s made it clear he doesn’t want to speak to me ever again. I can’t say I blame him.”
“Why, though? It’s not your fault that your brother died.”
“Yes, it is.”
Corbin’s words pounded inside my head, and even though his voice was as soft and stoic as if he were reciting some historical fact, the pain behind them tore me up.
I stopped walking, dragging him to a halt as well.
“That can’t be true, Corbin.” I met his eyes, searching for the killer he seemed to think lurked there. But that killer didn’t exist. “You have to tell me what happened.”
“It’s not important now.”
“It is. It might be the most important thing you ever tell me. Why do you think you’re responsible for Keegan’s death?”
“Because I am.” Corbin’s voice shuddered. His fingers knitted between mine. He inclined his head and started walking again, the steady beat of his steps seeming to calm him, perhaps in the same way the pounding drums of heavy metal music calmed Arthur. “Keegan and I had a huge fight the night before he died. We were down in the garden. He told me he hated me because Mum and Dad loved me and not him. He said he hated us all and he wished he was dead. I thought it was just one of his episodes, so I turned my back and left him to rage and vent. He didn’t come to dinner and I didn’t see him in the evening, but it was pretty typical of him to hide somewhere when he got upset. The next day, he wasn’t at breakfast. Mum sent me out to look in all his usual hiding spots, and I found him hanging in the woods behind the castle. Here we are.”
Corbin dropped my hand. He swung around a large decorative concrete urn and leapt up a short flight of steps toward a fancy terrace home, leaving me frozen in shock on the street.
What the hell?
Corbin’s words – spoken so easily as he dropped that bombshell, carrying no trace of the torture behind them – slammed into me, conjuring the image of a lone figure swinging from a rope looped around one of Briarwood’s towering oaks. A sibling lost, a family broken. A brother who felt he let down the one person he was supposed to help.
So much of who Corbin was became clear to me. No wonder he rarely left the comforting darkness of his library. No wonder he never walked on the grounds unless it was coven business. No wonder he rarely slept. He must see that image behind his eyelids every time the lights went out. No wonder he wore himself out trying to keep the coven together, giving us every piece of himself and holding nothing back for his own happiness. Because he feared that if he missed a single clue, if he messed up again, he’d see another person he loved hanging from a rope.
All that he bore with his easy smile. All that guilt that had been heaped unfairly on his shoulders he had turned into goodness, because of the person he was.
That broke my heart to pieces.
I raced up the steps after him and slammed my hand over the brass knocker. “What are you doing?”
“Our meeting’s in three minutes,” Corbin said calmly, turning back to the bright red door. “I’m knocking.”
“You can’t just drop that bomb on me and then expect us to walk into this meeting as though everything is totally fine.”
“You asked me to tell you.”
“That’s not the point. We should go somewhere and talk about this.”
“What’s there to talk about?” Corbin’s face remained impassive. He looked like he was discussing the weather. For some reason, his indifferent expression tore at my heart more than seeing him upset ever did. “Talking won’t bring my brother back or make my dad talk to me again.”
“No, but maybe I can help somehow. Maybe we can find a way to reach your family together?—”
“It’s okay, Maeve. Really, it is. I understand. Dad had to cut Keegan down from the tree. Whatever I feel, they feel it a hundredfold, because they lost two sons that day. They had to bury their love for me when they buried him, so that they wouldn’t crush me under the weight of their own guilt. I won’t burden them with any of mine. We don’t need them to defeat the Slaugh.”
“But they were there that night. Clara said my mother had two assistants. Maybe it was them. Maybe they remember the ritual.”
“The ritual isn’t important, remember? The power is. And we have Clara now, and Isadora – if today’s meeting goes well. And we have you.”
“But—”
Corbin pried my fingers off the knocker. “Isadora was very specific. We were not to be a minute late or we would forfeit our meeting.Please, Maeve. I’ve already got too many deaths on my hands today. Don’t make me dredge this one out of my conscience, too.”
