Lux’s heartbeat returned as Riselda faded from view. Her breaths, while fast, weren’t worryingly shallow. Her teeth ground together. “What should we do?” she said in a strangled whisper. “I don’t trust her in doing what’s right, but I feel…”
Furious, yet hopeful.
Devastated, yet terrified.
But determination beat louder than all the rest. She would never allow Riselda to choose her path. She would certainly not allow Corvin.
Which meant— “I need to talk to her. She knows more than anyone about what we’re up against.”
Even though she didn’t have Cecily’s talent, Lux could feel Shaw’s irritation billowing around her. He said, “I suppose this means we’re about to follow her into some unknown portion of this house.”
“It does.” She glanced upward to catch the muscle feathering in his jaw.
“Fine. But if she tries anythingat all, it will be my version of justice she meets.”
Lux drew a slow breath as he sheathed his knife with intent. “I think she knows.”
“Good,” he bit out. Then he snatched the book and candelabra both and said, “Let’s see what the devil has to say.”
Chapter forty
Thestaircasecurved,wideand scratched, the hardwood a warm, rich brown. It opened into a large room. One that sat steeped in darkness on one side and lit with firelight on the other.
Riselda perched in a high-backed chair before the hearth. Several more sat empty nearby. Dead plants claimed the windows, slumped in pots, and crumpled on the sills, while decaying vines draped from the walls. It smelled just as musty as the floor they’d come from, but now with undertones of earth and soot instead of paper. Lux rubbed at her nose.
“Decided the benefit outweighed the risk, Lucena?” Riselda didn’t turn toward her but remained staring steadfast into the fire. It cast flattering highlights over her cheekbones. All it did for Lux was act as a reminder of the woman’s agelessness.
“Your eyes are a different color entirely than your portrait in the manor.” Lux came around a thickly cushioned armchair and sank onto it. “They used to be the same shade as mine.”
“Yes.” Riselda drank deep from a goblet. “Interested in a similar change?”
Lux curled her lip. “No.” Shaw came to sit on a sofa near hers, but only on its edge, poised for any misstep on Riselda’s part. Lux’s heart warmed at the sight. Her mouth softened. “The collectors wondered that I looked like the Grimrook family. They used it as further reason I could be suffering from mind disease.”
Riselda chuckled into her wine.
The sound boiled Lux’s blood. “Well?” she demanded. “Am I a Grimrook or not?”
“How could you be, Lucena? You’ve already told me there is no possible way in which we would be family.”
Lux’s lips parted at Riselda’s words. At the way she’d said them. And how she appeared afterward: accepting, but hurt all the same.
“Did you have siblings?”
“None that lived past infancy.”
“Cousins?”
“Dead for more than a century.”
Lux swallowed. “Did you…carry a child?”
Riselda drew a steady breath before giving into her drink again. “No.”
Lux huffed. “So I am not.”
“I did not carry a child. Someone carried you. For me.”
“…what?”
