I down the tea that Abigail brings me. It scalds my insides, but it isn’t enough to burn away the sick swirling in my chest.
Abigail is in and out for the next hour, cleaning the rug, rearranging the coffee table back into its place, bringing me trays of teas and dinner, tidying the couch I was rotting on all day.
She’s just background noise until I hear the familiar faint creak of the overnight bag.
I throw my gaze at her.
My pillow and my wet shoes and my overnight bag, it’s an untouched and abandoned pile behind the open door.
Abigail has spotted the pile, and she’s tilted over, her hand firm around the bag strap, ready to lift it… to start unpacking.
My heart lurches—
Because the deadblood book is in there.
I snap at her, “Get out.”
Abigail pauses at the door, knees bent in an almost crouch. She blinks at me once, then nods. “Yes, Miss Olivia.”
Her fingers slip from the strap, and she leaves.
My heart only settles back in place when the door shuts softly behind her. The moment it does, I slip off the window seat and dash for the overnight bag.
The pillow, I kick aside, but the bag, I toss into the walk-in-robe. I slip out the deadblood book, then wander around my bedchamber for a while, looking for a safe keeping place for it.
It did well under the seat of the armchair. But I’m not convinced it’s a great place now, with all the crumbs and paper scraps littered around my lounge area.
The imps will get into the furniture soon, vacuuming and scrubbing everything back to new.
I need another hiding spot, one that will last until I leave for Bluestone, and then I can return the book to Dray.
It’s not like Iwantto give it back to him, but I don’t need any more reasons for him to come after me.
The sigh that sags me comes with the awful realisation that I’m days away from stepping into a semester at Bluestone—with no parents around, no protection of any kind, and all masks dissolved.
My insides feel just like the violence of the rainfall battering the gardens out there.
I hide the book in the slot of my suitcase.
5
New Year is a strictly scheduled chore that starts at midnight.
Abigail comes to wake me from my short slumber of just three hours.
I’m half-asleep as she guides me to the curtained windows.
Abigail abandons me for a moment as she drags the curtains open until the entire row of windows is exposed.
The moonlight blends with the speckles of stars.
Then it begins.
With the caress of the moonlight on my bare flesh, Abigail undresses me.
The gold basin must have been carried in while I was still asleep. Even through puffy eyes, I recognise it as the same solid gold basin used every year—and just like all those other years, it is filled with the Sacred Waters.
Abigail sinks a cotton cloth into the basin and holds it down until every thread is drowning. It rains as she lifts it, rising to stand in front of me, then she presses the soaking wet cloth onto my face.
