“He was—” I shook my head. I couldn’t find the words.
“You don’t have to tell me. I know.” Andrew’s eyes darkened. I could see his pain turning inwards, his hatred of himself gnawing away at his flesh. Well, good. I wanted him to hate himself for all the minutes Corbin spentnothating him forabandoning Briarwood, because hatred was beyond Corbin. He was too good for that shit.
But I wasn’t.
“What will you do?” I asked him. I didn’t know what I meant by that, but I needed to fill the silence.
Andrew blinked. “We’ll stay here a few more days to organise the funeral. The girls – that’s Corbin’s younger sisters, Tess and Bianca – will join us with their aunty soon. After that, I don’t know. We’ll help Maeve speak with the lawyers, see what to do about Briarwood Castle.”
I nodded. It occurred to me that after everything that’s happened, Maeve may choose not to keep the castle. She could take the insurance money, walk away from the ruined castle, and start her life over if she wanted to. I didn’t think she’d do that, but the fact she could leave us would dangle over my head like the Sword of Damocles.
Andrew’s hand fell on my shoulder, startling me out of my thoughts. “Tell me, was my son happy?”
I nodded. “He had his books, and his mission, and people to care about who cared about him. Living at Briarwood was a lot of fun. It’s the best home I ever had.”
“Your parents didn’t mind you living in the castle with him? They didn’t mind you putting your life on hold to look after Maeve?”
“My parents are dead,” I said.The one I cared about, anyway.
“Then you’ve known too much of this pain in your life already,” Andrew said, his voice cracking. “There’s the family you’re born with, the family you marry into, and the family you choose. We’re blessed that our son chose his so wisely after his blood abandoned him. Don’t make the mistakes we made, Arthur. Don’t miss out because you’re angry or hurting.”
“Yeah, yeah, hate is just another side of love.” I wished that stupid line I’d given Maeve would stop coming back to bite my arse.
I left them, feeling like shit, but a calmer kind of shit. The fire inside me had faded to a dull roar, one I could ignore as long as I didn’t see Blake again.
I turned a couple of corners and found myself inanotherguest wing, this one decorated in lurid red Victorian wallpaper. At this rate, I’d starve before I found my way back to my own room. This house should be on Ash Tree Lane, it seemed to grow bigger on the inside with every turn.
My bladder stung. I shoved open the door at the end of the hall, hoping for a bathroom.
Itwasa bathroom, but it was occupied. Isadora stood in front of the bath, naked, wrapping her hair in a towel. My eyes immediately flew to her hip, where a dark shape stood out from her creamy skin – a green cross surrounded by words in latin. The edges of the design were red and swollen, the skin around it puffed up in tiny lumps. It looked like a tattoo that had become infected.
“You need to get that seen to,” I said, by way of greeting. Even with so many other assets on display, I couldn’t take my eyes off that tattoo. With her designer clothing and haughty airs, Isadora didn’t seem the type to have a tattoo, especially not one so obviously shite.
“If you don’tmind,” Isadora snarled, whipping the towel across her body and slamming the door in my face. I stared at the white wood for several moments, then slumped away to find another bathroom, my bladder howling in protest.
If Isadora wanted her hip to go gangrenous and fall off, that was her own bloody fault.
CHAPTER TWELVE
TWELVE: MAEVE
Istalked down one of the endless drab hallways, fire dancing in my veins. Daigh’s mocking expression played in my mind, blurring with Corbin’s burned corpse sliding down the stake to become a constant showreel of horror. My hands ached from the magic pulsing through them. I rubbed them together, but that only made the magic leap down my arms and sizzle against my collarbone. My stomach twisted. If I touched another person, I’d probably do some serious harm.
I needed the magical equivalent of a cold shower. Talking to my sister would do the trick.
It took me some time to locate Kelly in the enormous house. Ryan had given us the run of the place, and everyone seemed to have taken his invitation literally. Kelly sat in a lounger by the fireplace in the yellow drawing room, rocking a sleeping Connor in her arms. She looked up as I leaned against the doorframe, and gave me a tentative smile. “I told Jane I’d watch him for a bit so she could sleep.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“Hey, what’s a girlfr— afriendfor?” Kelly’s cheeks reddened. “This house is unreal. I can’t believe you’re friends with a billionaire artist.”
“Ryan’s not really a friend. Well, I guess he is now. Recently, I seem to have acquired more friends than I know what to do with. Pity I have no idea how to treat them right. Can I join you?”
Kelly nodded. I slid into the chair opposite her, gripping the arms and pumping my flaring magic into the inanimate chair as I tried to think of what to say and where to begin.
“Do you want to hold Connor?” Kelly held him out to me. He turned his head away and flailed out a tiny fist, as though he couldn't bear to associate with me. I didn’t blame him.
“I’m kind of dealing with an overdose of magic at the moment. I don’t think Jane will thank me if I feed him nightmares I stole from the Fae King.”
