‘I’m trying to protect you.’
‘Raleigh’s harmless!’This was quite obviously a lie, and we both knew it.Raleigh was as harmless as he was human.But until the end of the year, he was harmless to me in every way that mattered.As long as I could be back up the mountain before he came home, we could all forget this ever happened, but I feared Father may have sealed all our fates.I stopped hammering, letting my hands fall to my sides.‘Please don’t leave me here,’ I said weakly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Father said, and as his footsteps rang out in retreat, Yann’s voice replaced his.
‘This is for the best,’ he said, ‘you’ll understand in time.’
‘Open the door, Yann,’ I begged.‘I know this wasn’t your idea.Let me go and we can forget this ever happened.Please just open the door.’
‘I love you,’ was all he said.
His words conjured a memory I’d fought to suppress.My mother’s bedside.Lost in the echo of another life Raleigh had extinguished, I couldn’t make myself say it back.I thought I heard a sigh fromthe other side of the door, then his footsteps followed Father’s and he was gone.
I swore through my tears and slammed my fist into the wall, which I instantly regretted.Shaking the pain away, I tried to come up with a plan.There wasn’t time to mope around like a weeping damsel over Father’s betrayal; Raleigh really might kill them if I stayed here.So I had to escape.This wasn’t Castle Rostenburg.There was no thousand-foot drop waiting below my window.At worst I’d earn myself a broken ankle and, considering the alternative, I was quite happy to take that risk.I crossed the room, threw open the glass pane and shoved at the shutters.
Pain jolted through my wrists.It was like trying to open a brick wall.I tried again, throwing my full weight against them, but they barely shook.I cursed again.They were never going to open.Someone had nailed them shut.
I thought back to the banging from earlier with a groan.Father wasn’t having repairs done, the sound had been Yann barricading the shutters.They’d planned this.Worse yet, they’d planned thistogether.Of all the things they could have collaborated on in the last twenty-five years,thiswas what they chose?
I was furious.First Raleigh, now Father and Yann.Was I some sort of communal prisoner for the men in my life to pass around?
I threw myself down on my old bed.I should never have come.How long would it take for Raleigh to come looking for me?A few hours?A day?And how many would die when he did?The thought should have horrified me, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything more than numb.
I suddenly remembered the single letter I’d managed to salvage from Father and dragged it from my pocket, thinking to tear it up.As I lifted it into the light, I found it was the one from Raleigh.It had no date, but he must have sent it before he went away.
Curiosity overcame me.I knew I shouldn’t read it, but after all the letters Father had stolen from me, he could hardly complain if I stole one back.I slid a thumb under the seal and unfurled the parchment.
Juri.
If postal tampering isn’t a crime, I’ll petition the Emperor to bloody well make it one.I don’t know what you have to gain by intercepting your daughter’s letters, but it’s only her you’re hurting.Or is corrupting the postal system your newest financial scheme now that your last one has washed away?
Never yours,
R
So Raleigh knew.I clutched the letter close to my chest, fighting a losing battle against the urge to cry.He knew and he let me think it was him.Why?What did he gain from me turning against him and not Father?What benefit could there possibly be, except to not upset me?
I didn’t understand it.All I could hope was that Raleigh spared my father, because in that moment I wanted to strangle him myself.
Ten
IWOKE TO THE SOUNDof tapping.Not the gentle shift of a house bracing itself against the elements, nor the brisk, scurrying taps of the menagerie of creatures that nested in the walls.It was a rhythmic, intentional tapping, and it was coming from the window.
I lay awake listening to it at first, my fear surging around me in the way it always did in the early hours of the morning.As wakefulness began to set in, the tapping persisted, louder now.Something must have been caught against the window and was flapping in the wind.That was all.
‘Clara.’
That wasn’t the wind.I shot out of bed, more awake than ever.I pulled a robe around my shoulders, as though the thin layer of warmth might protect me from danger, then mustered the courage to open the curtains.
I suspected I’d find a face in the darkness and still the apparition made me jump.
‘Raleigh.’
He was clinging to the wall, framed by the open window and shutters, but how, I couldn’t imagine.There were no handholds on this side of the house.
A mix of emotions washed through me.This was exactly the scenario I’d feared, but now, seeing his face shining in the dark, the trace of annoyance weighing down his brow, I no longer cared whether he locked me in the castle for the rest of the year, or if he cut off all my contact to the outside world.All I wanted was for him to take me away from here.
‘May I come in?’
