“No,” I said weakly, shaking my head. “No, you’ve been giving me Laudanum too. To make me sleep. To make me think I’m losing my mind.”
His eyes widened, his jaw tightening with disbelief. For the briefest moment, I saw something flicker across his face—hurt, confusion, then pity.
“Lucy,” he assured carefully, approaching me as one might a frightened child. “The doctor prescribed Laudanum for your concussion. I was only following his orders.” He paused, lowering his voice. “You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to. I would never force you.”
His maddeningly gentle calm only fueled my panic. The room was spinning now, the air thick with the scent ofroses and earth. My vision tilted, the edges of Sylum’s form bending and breaking in the haze.
I stumbled backward, gripping the edge of a table for balance. “Don’t,” I breathed, though I wasn’t even sure what I meant anymore.
He took another step forward, hands raised slightly in a placating gesture. “Lucy, you’re not well.”
“Don’t say that!” I screamed, the sound sharp enough to make Poe cry out from the rafters above. “Don’t call me that!”
My breath came fast and shallow. The air itself seemed to pulse, the shadows in the corners moving, whispering. I pressed my palms to my eyes, willing them to stop.
When I lowered my hands, Sylum was suddenly closer, his face pale, stricken.
“Lucy, please,” he murmured, reaching for me.
But I recoiled from his touch as though burned. “You’re all trying to make me like her,” I hissed, my voice breaking. “You want to send me away like my mother!”
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The hurt in his eyes was unbearable.
Then the dizziness crested, black waves swallowing the light, and the room fell away.
I felt his arms catch me before I hit the floor, his voice desperate when he called my name as everything else slipped into shadow.
From the diary of Lucy Deveroux, Duchess of Blackthorn:
Dearest Companion,
Sylum is gone.
To where, I could not say, though my heart whispers its own cruel suspicions. He did not say goodbye. He did not even look at me before leaving. Men who love their wives do not depart without looking back.
I am told he had business to attend, but it is well beyond midnight.
Where is he?
When I woke, Nelly was seated at my bedside like a warden, her hands folded, her eyes too careful. She told me that Sylum said I am not to be left alone for my own safety. That phrase again. Safety. As though danger does not live within these walls already.
I am to be watched.
I see now that Sylum does not believe me. Or worse—he believes them. He says there is nothing in the tea. That the Laudanum is a kindness. That the confusion is mine alone.
And yet… I know what I’ve felt. I know what I’ve seen.
You may ask why they would do this to me. I ask myself the same question, over and over, until the answer begins to change shape.
Perhaps this is an experiment.
Perhaps they wish to see how long it takes to drive a woman—one with madness in her blood—into complete ruin. To observe. To document. To nod gravely and say ah yes, it was inevitable.
Or perhaps the answer is simpler.
Perhaps my husband regrets marrying me.
Perhaps Lydia was always meant to sit at his table. Perhaps I am merely an inconvenience—a mistake he is now attempting to erase gently, quietly, with poisons and smiles and locked doors.
