But the hunger in his eyes is molten gold, the heat of it already creeping up my bones, sinking teeth into the vein pulsing too fast just below my skin.
I press my lips into a bloodless line. “And if I do not?”
It is a gamble to play this game with a man who holds much more power than I do. But isn’t that the way of things?
A man holds the world, and a woman scrambles toward it, only for it to bowl her over. Crush her time and time again. Perhaps the moment has arrived to change the game. The entire bloody narrative. To take the world into my fist and crush it until it runs green and blue between my fingers.
Ransom steps away from me, elegant fingers folding in front of him. A smile smears across his lips, this time like honey. Dripping saccharine sweetness.
“Oh, Thorn.” He speaks my name with all the solemnity of a prayer. “I had rather wished it would not come to this.”
Fear blossoms at the base of my skull, purple monkshood. A sting so cold it freezes the bones. My stomach ties itself into knots, but I shake my head, clearing the cobwebs.
“Are you threatening me?” Anger settles into the space between my ribcage, red-hot as cinnamon.
Men will never speak plain words. They like to twist them, shape them to form their own wills behind forked tongues.
I stalk closer to Ransom, the air between us souring with the scent of the gardens. The mold creeping along these old stone bones. His smile quirks, sparking something in my guts. Something so deep and primal it tastes of rich earth and blood.
“If you do not help me use the bell and find my mother, I will be forced to rescind my patronage of your father’s good work, the vicar will fall to ruin, the money you rely on will turn to ash, and all you love will be devoured by Erybrus. You know how Ithrandril punishes those who cannot walk in His ways.”
Above us, the clouds shift, moonlight throwing a darkening halo against Ransom, spreading darkness like wings.
A bitter laugh breaks on my lips. “Did you know my father ties me to a chair? Your threats are empty, Lord Black.”
Ransom’s face turns to sharp angles. Like if I struck him now, I would only hurt myself.
“Oh, but I know what it is you want, Thorn. You want to piece your family back together, soul by soul. Isn’t that what every lonely child wants? A warm hearth, fireside reading, laughter?” He brushes a curl from my cheek, the touch once more lighting fire to my skin. “But there are other things I can do. I’m a lord now. There isn’t much outside my grasp.”
Anger curdles in my stomach. Not just at Ransom, but at this world of reaching men. “Your meaning?”
He picks at dirt beneath a fingernail. “Clara Weston and Liza Thatcher are planning to run away, are they not?”
“How do you—”
He presses a finger to my lips. “What matters is, they matter to you, and I could make life very difficult for all your…loved ones.”
“Are you now threatening my friends?”
Moonlight drips down either side of his face. “I don’t have to be, Thorn. If you help me, I could offer you means of fortune. I would not let you fall to ruin.”
Ruin. My father’s exact word. I clench my jaw.
“I do not need your salvation, Lord Black.”
“Ah, but that isn’t the full truth, is it?” His words slip around me like oil.“I have heard talk of a house of healing in Idlewild for young women of yourcondition. Tell me, you are not much younger than me, are you not? One and twenty? Two and twenty?”
The hairs rise on the back of my neck. “One and twenty. But I do not see how—”
“Then you are old enough to tell your father no, to leave if you truly wished to.” He paces around me. A cat stalking a mouse. “But you see, I believe I have stumbled upon the truth.”
“And what truth is that?” I snarl. If he wants to cage me, to back me into a corner, then he will know the sharpness of my teeth.
A cold finger traces the line of my jaw, and my skin tenses with the touch.
“Adelaide Thorn, cursed by Erybrus and desperately clawing for Ithrandril. Your father promised Idlewild would make you better, didn’t he? Told you the healers there could cure you.” His breath is moist and hot on my ear, drawing a tiny, not wholly unpleasant shiver from me. “My father told my mother the same thing, you know. And when she came back, she was more broken than ever. Took to roaming the moors on horseback until the day she was thrown.”
My heartbeat screams in my ears, chest heaving with ill-gained breath. Lady Miriam Black. Thrown from her horse only a week after not being seen for over a year. Whispers of her mind, how it had been broken a long time before her spine shattered on the rocks. Murmurs that she had sold her soul to Erybrus.
