“Then how is it I’ve seen them during the day?”
“The day?”
“While awake. It has been with me—this grotesque apparition—nightandday.”
“Darling, are you sure?” Riselda peered at her as though she could root out the chaos in Lux’s mind. “Neither of the Alesso boys could force their brilliances outside the realm of sleep.”
“But if they’d somehow claimed another’s brilliance to ferry it out?”
“That is not—”
“Don’tsay it. Every time I have, it’s been proven the opposite.”
All that careened in Lux’s head now were bloodshot eyes, dulled eyes, girls in shackles, and a basin doused in what she’d assumed was wet but had been dried and shimmering.
Silver.
“If these collectors aren’t simply drinking lifeblood but drinking whole souls,then that entire manor needs to collapse. With every one of them inside.” Shaw bit out the words like they were weapons themselves. Lux found him retreated to the front of the fireplace, his knife trailing shallow scratches in the mantle while he paced.
She scowled. Because using the word “simply” to describe such an awful act did not sit right with her. The rest, however, was too horrific to allow space in her mind. More so than her parentage, even.
Maybe thatwasthe only solution. To destroy them all for good.
“Did you know about their curse?” she asked Riselda. “To petrify without sleep?”
Riselda shook her head. “I’ve heard nothing of a curse. Though, this Society of Saints did not emerge fully until my leaving—”
“And your thieving,” interrupted Lux.
“Don’t speak to me of thievery, Lucena. Grimrook House. Mothlock.The RisenandThe Essence.Those things belonged to the Grimrooks long before the Alessos even existed. Before the minders of Mothlock Manor turned an orphanage into a harvest, murdered our family, and created a cult.”
Our family.
The void yearned to unearth her hidden revelations. Lux gritted her teeth. “The Essence? Is that where the loose pages on lifeblood were from?”
“It was my legacy. This house, those books. It ismine.And they have claimed them falsely for long enough.”
Lux stared at Riselda. At her perfect features and perfect sneer. She shifted, and Riselda’s eyes immediately snapped to her own, a placating smile forming on her crimson mouth. Lux knew then—this was not a new web being strung together. This was an old one. With a very old and very capable spider minding its vibrations. And Lux had been stuck fast in it since birth.
“You knew about him.”
“Be more specific, my dear.”
“Alixsander’s body. It was always your plan to come back here. To bring me along. Was I meant to revive him for you too?”
Riselda swallowed the last drops from her goblet and said, “It would have been an excellent bargaining token, you must admit. Dear Alix. Sometimes I wonder if I should not have left him to die.”
Chapter forty-one
GrimrookHousepossessedonlya fraction of the rooms of Mothlock; Riselda left them behind for a different one. She didn’t tell them where she went, but the candlelight slowly diminished down the main floor’s corridor.
The light winked out of existence, and Lux frowned. Shaw had bodily blocked her sight. His knuckle nudged beneath her chin, and she obliged, tilting her face to meet his. “Yes?”
The intensity of his gaze, she expected. She didn’t expect the compassionate sheen.
His eyes were glassy when he said, “You don’t have to continue with this, I hope you realize. Not for me. Definitely not for her. She’s put you through horrors, Lux, and she will again without a thought. You know anything she’d have you assist her in will benefit her and her alone.”
Lux blinked up at him. More rapidly when she saw the tears gather despite his best efforts. They did not fall, but it was a near thing. Her heart tugged, tethered to his. “I know all of that.”
