Still nothing.
I exhale tiredly and try for levity. “I know we had that running joke that you killed him and you’d lob it back at me, but that was all just dark humour. If?—”
“Please, don’t,” she whispers, spine stiffening. That’s what does her in.The joke. Lakewater green, fractured by an aching grief, lands on me with all the delicacy of a sledgehammer. Tears flash in the light of the ancient wall sconce, and my chest clamps. “Don’t make me revisit that night.”
I’m there in an instant, palms framing the sides of her face, tilting until that pretty gaze has nowhere to go but me.
“Let’s do patterns, yeah?” I murmur, lowering my head until our foreheads almost touch. “This particular one leads to two logical possibilities. One, he’s not really dead but did a vanishingact on everyone that cared about him. Two, somebody forged his signature, and if that’s the case, we’ll find out who.”
“Three,” she says, voice almost inaudible. “Whoever did this is taunting me, because they know. They know what I did to Gabriel.”
Implication lights the fuse, and her next confession detonates.
“I killed him.” My fingertips lose sensation, hands falling to her shoulders. “I killed him,” she repeats, nearly gagging on the words. “He was drunk and he tried to—tried to—he tried to?—”
I don’t give the word a chance to be born. Fuck, I can’t bear it. The moment I see her lips frame it, tongue lifting to the back of her teeth, I drag her forward, probably harder than I should in this state. One arm twines around her back, the other drifting to her skull, where my fingers carefully navigate the slightly swollen lump beneath her hair. It’s small but feels ginormous in my palm, proof that the attack happened.
Everything I thought I understood about her spins on the axis of this haunted little land. The world tilts sideways; gravity reverses and all of my theories evaporate.
My brain races to chase down timelines, and I question uselessly against her hair, “Cousin Edmund?”
She’s trembling, or maybe that’s me. Her voice breaks against my sternum, “Can’t be him. Itcan’t. He helped bury the body.”
So as much to lose as she does, is what I’m hearing,whichcompletely removes him from the board. For this move, at least. That means there’s someone else here who knows her pressure points: the song on the boat, the now weaponised candles that Lydia always brings, and the resurrection of Gabriel’s name. Whoever Godwyn’s traitor is, they aren’t just betraying the heir.
They’re fucking enjoying it.
Sardonic delight as modus operandi.
I keep my arms around her because every other option circles the drain. It’s all I can offer. Some sort of makeshift buffer between her and the person poisoning her memories.
For now, that’ll have to be enough.
Murder has rented a room in the back of my mind for as long as I can recall. It packed its bags and settled in the first time I looked at my father and realised what a monstrous man he was. We’ve lived together without incident, so long as the door stayed shut. It never shouted, never raged against my complacency or desecrated the home I provided it with. Rather, it paid its rent in taciturnity and listened as the landlord paced outside—the faceless man with a badge pinned to his lapel that readMorality, Property Owner.
Not the morality of Heaven as my brothers believe it, but the pages written by society; that fear of consequence, of being ousted once your hands are stained. That morality stopped me from stealing the key and slipping it into the lock, from becoming the sort of creature my father is. Murder stays well-fed by my hatred but caged. I think of it now, in that square space with nothing but a chair and a window through which to observe all other desires at play. I let it breathe but never gave it freedom.
But now that window has a new view, and murder sets its sights on Francesca, greeting her with a smile as if she were an old friend. It spent so long whispering through me, yetsheallowed for it to scream. Now it remembers her. Respects her, as I do. She’s folded on my bed, cross-legged in the midst of papery chaos, poring over duchy history, her throat scarred by whatshe’s endured—her mind already set on what needs to be done next.
Her hair falls damply around her shoulders, staining some of the pages, but she hardly notices, muttering to herself in frantic whispers despite the evident hoarseness to her voice. “Over here we have Aunt Winifred. She’s Gran’s second cousin through their great-grandmother—Duchess Idris—a ruler famously known for her schemes to resurrect slavery. Which makes me a walking insult to anyone who agreed with Idris, transforming Winifred from an unpleasant relative to a potential traitor.”
She pulls a stack of papers from a flowery binder and sets it aside before adding, “The Rosenthals are insanely wealthy considering their orchards have become Sheffolk’s altar. They host the Red Reaping, which the public believes is all song and fruit, but you now know better. Gran adores them and views them as loyal, so for the time being, I do too. Then the de Lauriers. Maurice owns Laurier Privé and has half the duchy passing through his hotels in one way or another. His wife, Daphne, is Sheffolk-born, and owns the fashion magazineOdette,which is read by every woman with money and influence as well as every woman who wants those things. Their daughter, Mathilde, is very sweet, but Ineedto be sensible. I’d be stupid not to consider a family of such influence.”
Her damn eyes are still red from crying because only minutes ago she was in my arms, shaking as Gabriel’s name was torn open like a wound. It’s bleeding still, yet she won’t rest, force-feeding me information my father has already given me.
These are people I’m familiar with; I know all about Lord Octavian Halpine, who owns an array of lakeside villas, how he generates millions annually through high-end rentals alone, and how he’s the duchy’s golden boy and publicly loyal to Sylvaine. I know of Lord Sylvester Bryn, whose estate has fallen into debt and now arranges countless events to entice paying clients.And I know of Maurice de Laurier by reputation alone: how he married a girl of eighteen at forty-two, came back with her to Sheffolk and began laying down hotels to spread his influence. Francesca is telling me nothing new, but I let her speak because she’s rebuilding control. I let the information pass over me as though hearing it for the first time.
She rambles on about how she’s aware the Assembly of Lords are big names but the traitor could also be somebody smaller, all whilst pressing her notes into my hands. Something splinters in my chest. I see pink ink. Gel pens. Loops with hearts that belong in diaries, not whatever the fuck this is. She’s been penning suspects since childhood, young enough to still smile as she draws hearts around potential betrayers. I put on my glasses and read the horrifying text in glitter ink.
Shit, I can’t breathe. Circled twice is the name of a gardener’s daughter. A barista at her favourite coffee spot. The old lady at the orphanage who thanked her for bringing presents. I spot Thalia about five times, but it always gets scratched out. The years in the pages are evident, folded over and over, scribbled with a new suspect. I picture a little girl hiding in her room, writing down the name of every person because she couldn’t even trust a smile. And now that girl sits before me, grown and bruised, still waiting for betrayal’s stinging blow.
The notes become unbearable and I shut the book like a coffin, setting it aside. I can’t stomach seeing what this curse has done to her childhood, so I reach for her. At first she jerks back, still latching onto her attempt at control. But then she crawls into the space I’ve hammered her name into, settles within the nook of my elbow, and I cradle her until she allows herself to rest.
“We need to get through these notes.” Her speech is warped by the fabric of my sleep shirt. “So many people will be here later and?—”
“No, not now. Not while you’re still shaking.” She blinks up at me with furrowed brows, and they only soften once my nails scrape against her scalp. The strands smell like lavender, and I breathe it in until my lungs ache. “Rest; give me ten minutes of you. Just ten. Please, baby.”
“Ten minutes,” she parrots tiredly, unmoving for about twenty seconds. Through one simple embrace, her regret seeps in, so sharp I can taste it. “Shouldn’t have shown you these notes. It’s stupid. Childish.”
