“High lady.”
“John.”
Marietta started to rise and I tugged her back, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her in place. She was still maintaining the shield around us, and it was amagnificentthing.
“It has been almost a year since you visited, John. I thought you hated it here?”
“I do. I planned to wait another week, but matters have forced my hand.”
John walked toward Melissande, but stopped as his gaze passed the tea service. Three cups, two still full. His lips crushed together. “Gabriel.”
“Have you decided to call me a pet name, John?” Melissande said. “How thoughtful, though I question the choice of moniker.”
I could kill her myself.
“Silence,” John hissed, his gaze gleaming and vicious as he focused his own magic around the room, yanking the household spells from her grasp. She stiffened, her only reaction. “Did you truly think those spell modifications would hold him, high lady? Failing in your advancing years. Let me tell you now—they won’t hold me either.”
She shifted the journal on her desk, all buttery leather and malicious intent.
“Blackmail won’t save you now. The third cup, Gabriel? Bringing Marietta here to use her skills? You should have left her at home.” He shut his eyes, but just as quickly opened them again. “I rooted the household spells. Still part of them—perk of being a ward here for so long. Hiding won’t help you. Though ifyou are under the desk, down on your knees before the devil, I will be quite upset.”
I squeezed Marietta’s shoulder and rose from behind the fire screen, pulling from the warm embrace of her magic.
“Ah, a preferable choice of seating, with the option to pitch yourself into the fire to spare yourself the irritation of petty games.”
“John.”
“Gabriel. And Marietta, be a dear?” He looked to the screen. She popped the shield and peered over the edge. “And here we are.”
“John, we don’t need to—”
“Wrong, Gabriel. I think we do. How did you find out? And when?”
“Earlier.” The grief that had been clawing at me ever since stretched. “I read Octavia’s journal. There were entries concerning someone else, tied to me, with the rest happening after I left. And then I remembered you saying you had been to the estate last summer. When questioned, she”—I motioned sharply at Melissande—“mentioned losing her letter opener around that time. I remember that letter opener. Hideous, evil,familiar.”
I looked at John’s left hand, at the silver tip enchanted with terrible things sticking out of his sleeve. “It all made a sick sort of sense.” I lowered my voice. “They got you too. I never knew.”
“I know you didn’t, Gabriel.” John’s chest heaved before he took a deep breath, shoulders straightening.
I took a step away from Marietta, putting distance between us, silently willing her to stay put. Or flee. I had made her practice running while invisible. I prayed she would do so. “Why didn’t you say something? You never even pretended to know about their club until a few weeks ago.”
“What was I to say? Youleftme there. You weren’t the buffer forme.”
Pain sliced through me. “I didn’t know. I never thought they’d touch you. She said they couldn’t—”
“They did,” he said savagely, a growl erupting as Melissande snorted—though her knuckles were white on the chair’s arms. “A week before you disappeared. I thought it a grand lark at first. I had no idea what was happening. Who wouldn’t want six women panting over them? But they were planning other entertainments. I heard them whispering about it. Saw the looks. Read the journals, later, much later, their planned entertainments for the both of us. As soon as you left, things changed. I didn’t understand why, but suddenly it wasn’t just a weekend’s lark. I was in their clutches. Couldn’t escape. Drained of my vitality. And youleftme there, Gabriel.”
“I’m sorry, John,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t even write to let me know you were safe.”
I swallowed at the sudden swing. “I was hiding in Lower Gildon. The network protected me until I rose to the head. Until I had more than enough power to deal with the likes of them.”
John stepped forward. A friendly step instead of a threatening one. But he was still holding the household spells. “It was magnificent of you, of course. I was ever so proud when I discovered your actions.”
Sincerity. He meant it.
“Gabriel is always magnificent. You never quite measured up.”
