“Who?”
“Remember? Bennett said Roman was never the same after losing the twins. This must be them.”
“Tragic,” Cordelia whispered. How could two twelve-year-old girls die on the same day? “I didn’t know twins ran in our family.”
“How could you?” Eustace reminded her.
She moved to the wall where they’d seen Bennett that morning, searching along it for anything that might tell them what happened after they were ushered out. But the shelves here were empty, the rock unreadable. The cage of birds was gone, but Eustace found the dagger Cordelia had seen Bennett drop, wedged between two stones at eye level.
“That’s the knife he had,” Cordelia said, looking at the strange white edge, wiped clean. The polished grip was smooth from use, the same material as the blade.
“What is it?” Eustace asked. “Some kind of mineral?”
Cordelia shrugged. “It’s definitely not metal.”
She turned back to the wall, running her hands along the grooves until her fingers met wet mortar and pressed in. “I found it! I found Augusta’s final resting place. This is where he put her.”
But Eustace was entranced by the knife. She kept turning it over and over, studying the material. “It seems so familiar,” she said.
Cordelia dug in with her fingers, flinging wet mortar from between the stones until her hands and gown were dotted in gritty, gray clay. “Help me,” she told Eustace.
Her sister dropped the knife, its white blade clattering at their feet. Cordelia looked up at her.
“It’s bone,” Eustace said, her face draining of color. “The knife. It’sbone.”
“A relic?” Cordelia asked.
“An heirloom,” her sister responded with a shudder.
They stared at the knife together, neither willing to bend down and retrieve it. After a moment, Cordelia kicked it to the side.
Eustace noticed the flecks of mortar covering her sister’s skirt and coating her hands. “What are you doing?”
“Digging her out,” Cordelia said matter-of-factly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” She looked horrified. “Are you out of your mind?”
Cordelia held a finger before her lips. “Don’t you want to know what he did to her? How did you think we were going to find out? Osmosis?”
Eustace blanched. “I thought we were just going to look around. I didn’t realize we were going to exhume her!”
Cordelia ignored her sister’s outrage and bent down, gripping one of the stones, trying to wriggle it from the wall. “What happened to all that blathering about us being here ‘for a reason’? Do you want to know what the connection is between Mom and this place or not?”
“Of course I do,” Eustace fumed.
“Then why don’t you help me instead of just standing there.”
Eustace choked on her indignation before finally relenting, working her fingers between the stones and pulling until they began to slide out. They stacked them neatly to one side, working without another word until they’d opened the full shelf. The end of their aunt’s casket glinted inside. Together, they reached for it and dragged the dragged it out.
Cordelia wiped at her brow with the back of her hand. She met her sister’s eyes.
“After you,” Eustace said dryly.
Cordelia nodded and reached down, pulling off the pall with their family motto and gripping the lid.Now or never,she told herself before sliding it open.
Augusta’s lifeless body lay supine and pale, her white hair coursing over her square shoulders and black dress. Even in death, her face looked unmovable, a woman not easily taken to compromise. Cordelia respected her for it. She felt in that moment as ifsomething very precious had been stolen from her—the chance to know this grand lady, to learn from her. Maybe if she had, she wouldn’t have made quite so many mistakes. Augusta did not seem the sort to ever be taken in by a man like John.
“She looks peaceful, at least,” Eustace said quietly.
