“Why didn’t he tell me?”
The words cracked mid-breath, as though splintering under their own weight. “Why didn’t Sylum tell me he had a twin?”
Nelly tilted her head, lips curling in a small, pitying smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Why would he?” she replied with a shrug, almost singsong, as though discussing the weather. “Julien was the rot in the Blackthorn tree. He was the shameful secret no one dared prune. A brother bound to him by blood… and by madness.”
She leaned closer, smiling.
“Quite the delicious paradox, isn’t it?” Her smile sharpened. “He couldn’t bear the thought of you knowing that lunacy runs in his veins. And yet…” Her gaze drifted over me with a sneer of disgust. “What right would you, of all people, have to judge him?”
The words struck like a slap, cruel and precise.
She rose then, crossing to a small leather bag in the corner. Glass clinked faintly as she rummaged through it. When she turned back, a gleam of metal flashed in her hand.
A pistol.
My heart lurched.
“What happens now?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Since you’ve ruined our original ending, we’ve had to improvise,” she explained, tucking the pistol into a garter beneath her skirts. “Julien is waiting at the cliffs. I sent word to your husband that you’d gone wandering again. He's probably halfway there already.”
Her eyes glittered. “When we arrive, Julien will take care of your husband. You, my dear, will be found with the pistol that kills him. They’ll cart you off to be with your mother and Julien will take his rightful place as heir… and I will become his Duchess.”
“You’ll be caught,” I choked out.
She smiled. “I don’t think so. All the servants think you’re mad enough to do it. They’ll tell the constable about yourepisodes.”
From her pocket, she withdrew a syringe and amber vial.
My pulse spiked.
I tried to move as she filled it, but my limbs were sluggish, uncooperative. She knelt, seized my arm, and before I could scream, plunged the needle into my skin. A searing heat spread through my veins.
“What is that?” I croaked watching the syringe empty into my vein.
“A little mixture I’ve been saving for just this moment,” she mused calmly, gripping my arm so fiercely that her nails dug into my skin. “Laudanum and Nightshade…” she paused, tilting her head at my horrified reaction. “Don’t worry, it won’t kill you. I’ve been perfecting just the right amount for weeks.”
She barely finished the sentence before the effects wracked my body. Everything began to sway and spin. Her face slid into a haze of melting colors and when she laughed, the sound came too slow, too foreign.
My body became a tomb and I couldn’t even think clearly enough to tell my brain to move my limbs.
“Come on,” she urged, scooping her arm beneath my head, forcing me to stand on legs that I couldn’t even feel. “Let’s go before it really drags you under.”
We stumbled through the tower, my weight sagging against her shoulder. Each step sent fire through my skull. The corridors swam, melting in and out of focus.
Darkness crept in and when I came to again, we were in the garden, the cool night air stinging my cheeks. The manor loomed behind us, its windows dark as hollow eyes.
“Almost there,” Nelly murmured, dragging me forward with unnatural strength for a woman her size.
The path sloped upward toward the cliffs. The moonlight shimmered off the wet grass, the sea roaring far below. My lungs burned, every breath tasted of salt.
The world bent and swayed, and the shadows seemed to breathe with us as we struggled onward.
Somewhere ahead, faint through the wind, a voice called my name, distant and desperate.
Sylum.
