Leena would do everything in her power to ensureit.
First came the lighthearted secrets.Thosewere easy.
Bram gave an amused huff when she told him about the time she had finished a whole tray of Baba’shalwaby herself and left it under Rami’s bed to incriminate him.
But other secrets followed—less amusing, more poignant.
She told him that all the women in New Algaraa District reminded Leena of her mother. It was the eyes these women carried, filled with a gritty love that she was sure she’d inherited herself. He was listening intently, and she felt triumphant that she’d found a way to keep him conscious through their arduous journey.
She told him of her dreams to be a translator and of her mother’s poetry books. She told him of the importance ofA Guide to Botany.
Then she told him of her love for Baba—though this he already knew. But the secret which Bram didn’t know was that she resented him also. That her baba had willingly shattered their already broken family for anidealwhen he could’ve so easily stayed—an act that killed her in a thousand ways every day.
“This is the one similarity between our fathers.” Bram’s voice was distant. “They both traded their families for an ideal.”
Leena looked at him with a sharp ache. She didn’t like her baba being compared to Percival Avon, but a part of her had also made the connection and grievedit.
Her driving force since signing her contract with Bram had been to find her father and free him, to prevent the Wake from taking him. Now he had been taken, and she was back to the beginning with nothing to trade for his freedom. Yet it was inconceivable to Leena that she would ever trade Bram’s secret or his red diary. There was still her own secret to bargain with, but she’d seen what Hargreaves had done to Bram. She’d seen Lady Hargreaves’s recollection, and she knew that to trust Hargreaves would be to welcome her own destruction.
Leena gripped the fabric of Bram’s coat tighter. It was time she revealed her last secret: that she could be possessed.
That Moira had doneso.
The words streamed from her mouth in a torrential flood. Shetold him of the memory of Moira being choked to death by Percival, days after he had made her the new Lady Avon.
Then she told him of Lady Hargreaves’s memories. She told Bram how he had once been loved so fiercely and so fervently that it had reverberated even after death.
When she was finished, there was only silence.
Although Leena knew Bram wanted to disavow his father, the unholy acts of his bloodline would undoubtedly still have an impact on him. Percival had killed a woman, Bram’s stepmother, on their marital bed. Just as Leena knew the circumstances involved in Lady Hargreaves’s passing were bound to wound him. Leena wished she had never had to tell Bram this, but she knew that secrets to him were sacred—especiallyones pertaining to him.
His response came after a long moment. “Her ghost…was it—Is she now at peace?”
She slanted a look at him, and realized that although he did not glance at her, his eyes were brighter than usual.
“Yes,” she responded softly, seeing before her eyes Lady Hargreaves as she’d gifted Leena the last dream, contrasted with the first time Leena had seen her. “Very much at peace.”
It was not a lie.
He did not comment any further, but Leena knew that he absorbed it. That, even in the grips of fever, he was turning it in his mind, seeing the tragedy of it from every angle.
They walked in silence again.
It took a few minutes for Leena to realize that Bram’s grip was loose on her shoulder as he struggled to place one foot in front of the other.
“Bram,” she said sharply, looking up at him. “Bram?”
“…Yes?” His answer came slowly, as if he was drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Continue speaking,” Leena implored. “Anything to keep you awake.”
His voice was smoky with the fragmented thoughts of the feverish.
“Heused to steal emotions from us while we slept,” he said, and she felt his muscles tighten. “He especially liked our shame.”
She couldn’t begin to fathom what this meant to Bram. Who was he speaking about? A demon? What hadhappenedto Bram Avon at the hands of this father?
He halted abruptly, his eyes unfocused.
