She rises and grabs my shoulder. “Lyra, I want you to find out what Devin wants from you.”
“I’ll try.”
She nods firmly, then squeezes my shoulder before letting go. As she climbs out the window and turns to me to scale the outside wall, she whispers, “Tomorrow we’ll start training your visions.”
Thirty-Five
- MARCELLA -
“Girls, I hate to inform you of some rather unpleasant news. But, two ladies have fallen ill since our dinner last night. If you feel off at all over the course of the next twenty-four hours, please report to me immediately. Both girls have been taken to the infirmary and are under quarantine while our doctors tend to them. Please do not enter the infirmary, as we don’t wish to spread the sickness,” Lady Bethany announces the next morning.
I slowly set down my fork, the warmth draining from my face. When I returned to my room last night, as I crept through the window, I could have sworn I heard a woman’s scream.
I immediately flick a side glance to Lyra on my right. We have barely started breakfast, but my appetite immediately vanishes. Lady Bethany also told everyone we were sick. And we weren’t.
“Do they know what their illness is?” Stella asks from further down the table, her eyes wide.
“Not at the moment, no. Which is why it’s important to keep them contained in the event it is highly contagious.” Lady Bethany’s voice is tight with seriousness.
We all fall quiet, eventually returning to eating our meals. After we are led through an etiquette lesson and then dismissed for free time, half the women split for the gardens and the others for the library.
I pull Lyra aside after we walk to the gardens. “Did you hear a scream last night after I left?”
Her thin brows pinch. “No, why?”
I stretch my neck to look behind her and make sure no one else is within earshot before dipping my head to whisper, “As soon as I got back, I could have sworn I heard a woman’s scream.”
“And…” She sucks in a breath. “You think it was…what?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. But I find it wildly suspicious that no dinner bell rang last night, I heard a scream, and two women are suddenly sick. You do remember when she told everyone else we were sick, right?”
Her doe eyes round. “Yes, of course I do.”
I tilt my head to the side before straightening.
“Ahh, there you girls are!” Aelia bumbles through the path, a wide smile on her face. “I saw you two slip into the gardens, but then you disappeared!”
“I was just showing her the dahlias,” Lyra smiles back and motions behind us toward a flower bed bursting with light pink flowers. “She mentioned it was one of her favorite flowers.”
“Is that so?” Aelia looks at me, still smiling.
I’m not sure if Aelia’s genuinely this bubbly, or faking it. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable having someone so distant from me being so kind to me. Despite her not knowing my role here, it makes me feel like she wants something from me.
I pull up a smile to mirror her. “Yes, my mother’s, too. The soil in Millton is quite rugged. But my father, back when he was alive, used to travel to Everden to collect them and bring them back for my mother whenever he could.”
I’m not really surewhatthey were, but they definitely weren’t dahlias.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father…” Aelia’s smile falls. “It's been only my mother and me since I was young—my father passed when I was a child. My grandmother stepped in, too, when my mother had to work. But otherwise…” She shrugs with a sigh.
I nod. “I’m sorry to hear about your father as well.”
A corner of her mouth tilts up. Lyra leads us further into the gardens to show us more, and I ask questions about Aelia. From the outside, it might look like I’m trying to get to know her. But really, I’m trying to understand if she would be capable of being a traitor.
After we’ve been dismissed from dinner, as I take out my hairpins, a flash of memory sparks. Of me removing them last time and keeping one to unlocka door. UnlockingCyrus’office. Of scanning his desk and seeing an unfinished letter. Scratch marks in the wood. The memory within a memory as I remembered the Dark Seer envisioning Cyrus’ assassination.
With a sigh, I look at myself in the mirror.
I need to speak with him.
