It suits Faith and Marion perfectly fine. It’s Olive and Emmy I worry about.
Marion and Faith’s butler answers the door, and I show myself into the drawing room. I know the way well enough by now. Fromthere, I exit through the back door and cut through the damp garden to the cellar.
“You’re late,” Faith scolds as I swing the crumbling wooden door open.
I swat away a spiderweb. “I’m your queen,” I shoot back, then glance at the watch pinned to my waist. “I’m also exactly on time. It’s not my fault you’re chronically early.”
Marion pats Faith’s leg. “I happen to like your timeliness, darling.”
The cellar is dim and dark, lit with beeswax candles set atop dusty milk crates we’re using for tables.
The first few times we met, it was just me, Faith, Marion, Emmy, and Olive, so we gathered in the drawing room. Then our little group grew. Now we have Marion’s sister, Este; Lottie; Ben, an assistant cook in my employ; and, shock of all shocks, Eduart, a 410-year-old former banner knight who fought in the War of the Roses and bargained with Mor to become immortal.
When her bargains were broken and the rest of her immortal footmen turned to ash, Eduart remained standing. He didn’t even know what had happened until about a month ago. News was slow to reach his hamlet in Hampshire. He also didn’t have any friends, as his bargain with Mor had made him absolutely repulsive to others.
He ended up on my doorstep at Kensington Palace asking to see Emmett’s now-dead father, Edgar. I took him to Marion’s for safekeeping and explained the whole sorry story on the way.
With these numbers, our ragtag group of rebels can hardly gather in Marion and Faith’s drawing room, in full view of prying eyes, so we meet here, in the cellar tucked away in the back of their garden.
“I’m aging.” Eduart sticks his hand dangerously close to the flickering flame of the candle.
“That’s dirt.” Olive peers down at his hand.
“A freckle,” Eduart argues.
Olive reaches down and tries to smudge it with her thumb. “Fine, a freckle,” she concedes. “What does it mean?”
“It means after four hundred years on this rainy rock, I’m finally on my way out!”
We’ve spoken at length as to why Eduart didn’t crumble to dust when Mor’s bargains were broken. The bargains with her doomed footmen must have had different wording, bound them to her in some way she didn’t do with Eduart. We know her bargains got more specific as the years passed.
It seems for Eduart, the clock of his mortality has simply started ticking again.
“That’s wonderful, Eduart!” I’m genuinely happy for him. “Though I am sorry you’re stuck with us for at least thirty more years.”
“A mere blink of an eye,” he says with a cheerful smile.
I glance at Olive next to him. She’s in the same gray cloak Rhion described. “Have you been meeting without me?” I ask the table.
Their faces are startled. “No,” Olive answers for the group.
“I would understand. I know my schedule can be difficult.” I try to sound kind, unsuspicious. Rhion is just playing with me like he plays with those girls draped at his feet. I’d be silly to believe anything he says. I long for the days when I believed the Others could not lie.
“I swear it, we have not met without you. Why do you ask?” Olive says.
“Rhion says he saw you in disguise, running all around town.”
Olive’s face blanches and it makes my stomach sink. “When was this? I often go to the kitchens with Ben to try new recipes.”
“Every day at eleven a.m.,” I answer. Perhaps it’s unwise to lay all my cards on the table like this, but I trust Olive. It would feel like losing to let Rhion take that from me.
Olive’s gaze falls to her lap. “Is he trying to sow discord? You know how they are.”
An uncomfortable glance flits between Faith and Marion. I’m envious of the way they can communicate with nothing but a look.
Could Emmett and I do that? I don’t even remember now.
I lay my hand atop Olive’s. “Of course. I didn’t mean to accuse. I’m just so on edge these days.”
