It feels like Tommy’s leaning over my shoulder. If she could speak, I imagine she’d be saying something along the lines of‘This is what matters, you idiot. Not your pride. Don’t fuck it up’.
I brush the photo clean and hand it back without any flourish, yet Frank’s already pushing something else into my hand as he takes it back. A folded paper the size of my palm sits there, tea-stained and so brittle with age that I fear closing my hand would cause it to crumble into dust.
He tucks his wallet away and says, “I’ve carried that for thirty-seven years. Wrong hands. Wrong man. The longer I kept it, the worse the feeling grew.” The air creaks when he exhales, and I realise the door has opened slightly, beckoning him without much choice. “Maybe you’ll get it right.”
The‘maybe’doesn’t exactly sound like he has his reservations; he’s already decided he’s right.
Then he pats his breast pocket, right over his heart. “I should probably get back to Sylvaine. Delphine might be arriving soon, and she likes me better than she does her sister.”
The forced laugh makes me internally cringe. He gives St Nic’s one last glance, mournfully eyes his finished cigarette, and gives a polite bow before he steps outside. Tommy departs with him, leaving me standing in what feels like Fate’s Blessed Breath, but it smells of nicotine and old parchment.
I’ve gotten what I wanted: a chess piece, a direct lead from someone in the bloodline; even so, I can’t bring myself to unfold it. Ridiculous. It’s just a piece of paper. But Frank has held it forthirty-seven years, and now it sits in my hand like a bomb. Imagine he gave me the wrong thing, and it’s actually a grocery list from aeons ago.
I almost unfold it when footsteps break my contemplation clean in half. Instincts move me, and I stash the paper into my pocket just as the door swings open. Without any effort, the universe rewrites my priorities.
My brain flatlines.
I’m dead.
I know I am.
One moment, I’m standing there, counting down the seconds until I have to go and interact with other humans again, whenithappens. Francesca steps into the building, and I almost tell her to go back. To fuck right off back into whatever haunted painting she fell out of. She’s watching me and… yeah. Okay.
No.
No,notokay.
What the fuck is this?
A dress, my mind supplies. But it’s notjusta dress. Those sleeves, those fucking medieval sleeves that drape almost to the floor, belong on an elf inLord of the Rings, not in the twenty-first century. It’s crushed, midnight blue velvet, almost black, really. Her skin glows against it, that warm brown softness completely owning this relic
Someone died in that dress, probably Lady Athena as she mourned her poet. It has to be her because my palms are sweating like I’m seeing ankles for the first time, and I’m on the verge of writing a sonnet about it.
That dress is something you wear to a funeral where you’re the one in the casket, for sure. Or haunting a moor. I look at her collarbones again.Definitelyhaunting a moor. The gold trim around her waist should wash her out. It’s too ceremonial, making it seem like it was designed by Henry the Eighth’s court seamstress or some shit. I’m waiting for Pascoe to stroll in to tell her the pyre is ready. That the mob is ready with their pitchforks and accusations, seeking justice against the local witch.
She catches me staring at the trim and starts fidgeting with it like she’s expecting me to laugh. It’s uneven at her waist now that she’s tugged it. I have the dumbest urge to fix it for her, but my thoughts aretick-tick-tickingin warning not to touch. I need to say something, but my mouth is full of teeth, and my brain is glitching, and Francesca Sheffolk is being so unfair standing there in that dress.
Her hand goes to her chest, and I’m only now realising she’s slightly out of breath.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah.” Because what else could I possibly say?
She smiles, and something inside me kneels. Is it because Frank slapped the word ‘suitor’ onto my forehead? Because my body seems to be auditioning for the role without informing me. The door shuts behind her, and I think my sanity doesn’t make it in time because I feel it get locked outside.
“I’ve just come from Susannah’s office; she let me stay there because I told her I needed to hide from Gran for a bit, which was a lie because I really just needed to snoop through her things, and I’m trying so hard not to feel too bad about it right now.”
My mouth aches with the need to smile because she’s rambling, fidgeting with that heirloom around her neck where it lay pressed against blemish-free skin. Seems the foundation came in handy for the bruises.
“Does this have anything to do with yoursend-and-deletespree?”
Her mouth makes a small ‘o’. “Well,no, but I’ll get to that in a bit, I promise. It’s just that I asked Susannah about where we get extra staff for events as big as this one, and apparently we don’t hire them individually. We go through an agency called Staffed Ltd., and temp workers get dormed four to a room, right?” I nod because she’s waiting for one. “Right, I’m assuming you heard about the mess in dormitory 4A. According to the report, all occupants—three of them—got high on that preposterous mix, but the roster says there was a fourth occupant named Abe Williams,exceptAbe was also listed in 10B. Susannah had a post-it pinned to her desktop calling it an admin hiccup that needs to be ignored, but listen to this?—”
“Francesca,” I interject quietly, and she stills for only a fraction. “Breathe.”
Her eyes dart to my mouth, eyeing it traitorously as though I were the one to steal the air from her lungs. Then she gives a shaky little inhale, hold, and then exhale. It’s unnervingly and indecently pretty.
When she picks up again, I can barely hear her, and I’m scolding myself because I should be listening better. Every few seconds I lose my place in the story she’s drafting because she looks up at me like she’s waiting for me to commend her sleuthing, and each time I nod in approval, she gives a pleased laugh. I almost die. I’ve fuckall idea why Abe suddenly has a whole chapter dedicated to him and why she’s doing—did she just say she went through security footage?—whatever it is she’s doing. I should be asking questions, grasping at the pieces of information she flings at me, but I can’t function.
