No…
My pulse faltered, my lungs constricting as I reached up and brushed trembling fingers through a lock of his hair.
It gleamed black in the moonlight… a shade too dark.
No…
Our gazes locked, his eyes were dark and depthless.
Not warm.
Not amber.
Not Sylum’s.
A smile unfurled across his lips, slow and poisonous, blooming like rot through roses.
“Men have called me mad,” he crooned, his voice slipping into something sinister, “but the question is not yetsettled… whether madness is or is not the loftiest of intelligence.”
The quote slithered from his tongue like a snake—Julien’s voice wearing Sylum’s shape.
Ice sluiced through me. I pushed against his chest, but his arms locked like iron.
“No—no, please!“
He nodded slowly, almost indulgently, as though explaining a riddle to a child.
“Ah, but it is true,” he confessed. “I knew precisely what you were doing.” He paused, brushing a tear from my cheek. “And my brother has always been thorough. He likely researched your mother long ago.”
A sob tore itself raw from my chest.
Julien lifted me, gathering me as though I were something despised enough to shatter, but beloved enough to hold tightly during the breaking. He turned toward the manor, his steps steady, deliberate.
“Don’t bother telling anyone,” he said with a smile. “No one will believe you.”
My eyes burned. Tears spilled unchecked, hot trails down my cold cheeks. My body shook with silent, helpless grief.
From the black above, wings beat the air into trembling ripples.
Poe circled, a dark omen etched against the moon, his voice rang out, echoing across cliffs and sea with a mournful shriek.
“Lenore… oh my Lenore. Namelesshereforevermore.”
And the wind carried it. Carried it down the cliffs, carried it through the night, carried it into the hollow of my shatteringheart…
“Lenore… Lenore… Lenore…”
Dearest reader,
“Sir”, said I, “or Madam”, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was napping…
—Lenore Deveroux, Duchess of Blackthorn
Chapter 28
“Lenore… Lenore… Lenore…”
