“Ignorance is an excuse Ineveraccept.”
The danger had returned to Riselda’s voice. The vengeance. And Lux shoved aside her discomfort to grab hold of Riselda’s bare shoulder. “That’s enough—”
Lux didn’t mean to. But neither did she stop it. In that moment, she witnessed Riselda’s soul—and every bit of its consuming cage.
She surfaced to stunned silence, her fingers removed and now pressed to Riselda’s cheek. Green eyes, identical to her own—watched her closely. “Stop. Leave it alone, Vesperine. My Lucena. I am through.”
Lux could not break her gaze. “Through with what?”
“My plan. I dare say it was well executed.” Dropping Lux’s fingers, she rose. “You will listen to her, Alix. More than you ever did to me. She is a Grimrook, and this estate is hers. It knows it too.” To Lux, she stretched out her hand and said, “Do not allowanyoneto steal it again.”
Lux stared down at the scroll placed into her palm, dumbstruck. Loose pages lay beneath it. “Riselda—”
“Your blood, darling. It is all you’ve ever needed. You did not share it with any of Mothlock’s traitors, did you?”
Caught off guard, she answered, “No.” But then she saw Artemis burrowing his way beneath a body to deter the crows. “Or—I might have. A little.”
Riselda’s grey skin purpled with irritation. “I taught you better. Curses are mockeries of brilliance—fake gifts with very real consequences which anyone may wield. You had better hope it wasn’t kept.” Then she strode down the steps and onto the garden path.
She called back, “I will not chop my way out of these, Mr. Roser. No need to follow. Though you may want to head this way eventually. There’ll be tonic for your eye and Lucena’s cheek in Grimrook House.”
Lux, however, was not told to keep back. She leapt after Riselda, to the start of the garden path, and there she watched her—the woman who had both given Lux life and destroyed it—embrace each garden statue. When she pushed into the eager brambles, Lux felt no sympathy, guilt, or sadness.
Maybe it was always how Riselda’s life was meant to end. In the graveyard of her family. On her terms.
Mad as they were.
Lux glanced over her shoulder, to Shaw shrugging out of his jacket and handing it off to Alix. To the women who had come down the steps, utilizing their toxic feathers to poison investors who attempted to flee. Aline, fitting her contraption to the gate. And Magda, a guest she’d missed in the mess, sobbing against Manphry, her arms wrapped around his waist.
Lux’s fingers tightened on the scroll. On the papers beneath. She moved the deed aside.
The Essence,read that first yellowed page. She shuffled them quickly. To the illustration of an anatomical eye, lifeblood’s description alongside.
Not a book of death, but a book of life.
Lux lifted her gaze to peer into Mothlock’s dimly lit interior and waited to see if Corvin would come.
She should have been watching other things.
When stone claws snatched her arms, Lux could do no more than shriek and kick before her boots left the ground.
She whipped her head to what held her—thick, stone legs and a beast above that. A gargoyle from the tower. And then down to every upturned face.
An explosion blew the iron gate apart.
Lux was soon in line with the tower’s shattered windows, knowing to fall now would find her bones smashed to pieces. She quit her flailing at once; she held onto the gargoyle’s feet with all her might.
Matthias! Why isn’t he dead?
The beast flapped its wings, soaring over the peak and, for a moment, Lux hung suspended, face to face with the moon. She stared at it, frozen, before a scream ripped up her throat.
The gargoyle dove.
It flew beyond the cliff.
And it was as Lux looked down at the seafoam that it let her go.
Chapter fifty-five
