“Damn, dude, so all this because she was your wife?” Lachlan sounded thoroughly disgusted. “I can never understand the straights, I swear. Just divorce her, what’s the big deal?”
“Ah, but he couldn’t, now, could he?” Victoria’s words were pensive, her hand drawing the book back to her. “I was at your wedding to that girl, Prudence’s mother. I recall it being a massive to-do, since you were the mayor’s son and she the heiress from Boston. Half the island was in attendance. And all through it you were committing a crime. Bigamy is a felony inthe good ol’ state of Massachusetts. Always was, last I checked. So care to explain why you didn’t divorce her before you got married again, Fowler?”
Rhiannon looked at Pru, whose whisper was barely audible.
“My grandfather wouldn’t have approved of the marriage. And neither would Reverend Sanderson, he was my grandmother’s brother?—”
“Oh, I remember those two assholes.” Victoria actually cackled. “The mayor and his crony. Fowler Senior was a piece of work, I’ll give you that, Jed. He’d have disowned you. But it was your uncle who held the purse strings, and he suffered no sinners. Damn, that man was all fire and brimstone. A fanatic if I ever met one. Scared those girls up at the school breathless. Hell and damnation for days!”
Rhiannon remembered the two men. The Reverend always spooked her half to death, and their mother never allowed them to go anywhere he might be.
“And then Margaux ended up on Dragons. Oh, the sheer massiveness of this irony could’ve cured any anemia. Was it a shock, Jed?” Victoria’s sly tone wouldn’t let up. Rhiannon saw Fowler recoil. “You were already married and weren’t about to confess to being a bigamist. But what I suspect was a much more important detail in this ordeal was that she was ‘married’ to old Jerome.” Victoria made the air quotes with particular gusto. “Old sickly Jerome with a bad, bad heart, who owned the most coveted property on the entire island. One that kept changing hands without Mayor Fowler here being able to throw his vast money at it, ince it wasn’t fo sale, or declare eminent domain over it with the ownership so tied in legal knots. Did you decide you could finally get it by Margaux making her way into his will?”
Fowler said nothing, his hands trembling.
The ensuing silence felt sticky. Oily. And Rhiannon just wanted it all to end. This miserable man had already taken too much.
“You’re the one from her diaries, the blackmailer. First you made her keep silent about your relationship. And then to manipulate Jerome to name her expressly in his will.”
“It’s really a miracle that despite her skipping town with Rhiannon here, poor old Jerome still kept her as his sole beneficiary,” Victoria said, her eyebrows furrowing.
“Actually…” Lachlan extended the word, his voice going to a higher register. “Does this make Rhiannon’s marriage invalid as well?”
Pru turned so quickly, her hair fell out of her bun. Rhiannon had to laugh. It sounded brittle. She didn’t care. The possibility that she had never been legally tied to Margaux was strangely freeing. It felt peaceful.
“Probably does. We married the second California legalized gay marriage. She had been a widow by then, Jerome dying of a heart attack soon after we left the island.”
“You mean a broken heart. He loved her and he took care of you, taught you, shared his skill, and you repaid him by fucking the one person he cared about.”
Rhiannon watched Fowler’s face get even paler as he spoke. Righteous fucker.
“Is this act for Prudence’s sake? You never gave a damn about Jerome. Or would you want to share with the class the circumstances under which I gave you that limp? You were so loud and proud declaring me dangerous just minutes ago, after all.”
In the corner, Patches chortled. Boleyn watched everyone with wide eyes.
It was Victoria who answered.
“I hated what happened back then, that you used the craft to injure, but I think all things considered, knowing what I know now, I wish you’d have gotten him harder.”
Fowler’s jaw tightened, and he smirked. She had regretted hurting him. It went against all her mother had taught her. Now it all seemed moot.
“I was young and stupid, Fowler. And seeing you strike the woman I loved, seeing you threaten her, the woman I was leaving everything for… I wasn’t even aiming at you in my moment of losing control. Margaux pushed you, and you ended up injured. And my mother stopped speaking to me… She sent me away and forbade me from practicing magic and standing in her circle. My mother stopped relying on me when she needed me most.”
Ceridwen’s sharp inhalation and Seren’s gasp drew Rhiannon’s attention away from Fowler and away from the pain that had never left her. The guilt that had shaped her, that had ruined her.
Beside her, Pru’s eyes were huge, and she was clearly trying to keep up with everything that was happening. Lachlan was in the same boat, his face pale, his hair disheveled. Victoria had tears in her eyes. Ceridwen’s mouth was trembling. Seren was utterly still.
Rhiannon bit her lip, holding back a curse. It was a miracle that her power hadn’t yet consumed them all. Her control was slipping through her shaking fingers. She needed to end it. And she needed to end it quickly.
“I have many sins, Fowler, and I am paying for them?—”
“And are you paying for taking a life?” Fowler spoke softly, so softly Rhiannon couldn’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. “Yes, she was my wife, and we never divorced. Yes, my father would’ve disowned me for marrying a total stranger in Europe during my studies there. I couldn’t risk it. And she andI agreed to part ways peacefully. I had no way of knowing she’d meet Maginot at some auction and that he’d bring her back to Dragons. So yeah, I threatened her and pressured her. I hurt her. That’s on me, Crowhart. But you?”
He raised a trembling hand and pointed his finger at Rhiannon. “You killed her.”
Now not even Patches could be heard. Nobody breathed. In the putrid silence, a sob escaped Rhiannon’s lips before the words did.
“I did.”
