No one answered.
Iris turned the handle, and the door opened slowly and silently.
The lights in the reception chamber were turned off, but the skylight in the high ceiling made it easier for her to see what she was looking at.
Even when she didn’t want to.
Lady Marianne lay on the floor, one arm outstretched, her unseeing eyes turned up towards the vaulted ceiling.
Her pale gray gown, which Iris had never seen with a stain or even a loose thread, was soaked through with blood. There was a deep, rounded-edged wound at her heart, a horrible gouge that Iris instinctively knew could only have come from a unicorn’s horn.
14
Lady Marianne musthave wanted to have a word with her about something, Keith thought.There’s no reason Iris would stay in there that long if—
Right on cue, the door behind him opened.
“There you are,” Keith said, turning around. “Is it okay—”
—to head in?
The rest of that sentence died on the tip of his tongue. Iris was ashen; her eyes wide and her lips parted but with no sound coming out. There was an awful, stunned blankness in her expression even as she turned to Keith, like it took her a second to recognize him.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Lady—Lady Marianne.”
This was the first thing Keith had heard a hint of the slurring Iris kept warning everyone about. She was obviously self-conscious about it, but now she was in too much shock to even notice.
“Lady Marianne,” she said again, dazed. “She’s dead. She’s—murdered.”
The team snapped into gear around him.
“Stay with Iris,” Cooper said, clasping Keith on the shoulder. “Get her calm. We’ll clear the building.”
Keith, now feeling pretty calm himself, could only nod as his team disappeared into the Council House.
