I’ve already vanished down the corridor before he catches his breath.
The next morning, I take breakfast in my room even though there’s a formal dining chamber just five corridors over, where a butler announces every dish as though we’ve never seen toast before. Always the same fanfare, every single time. Yet, I’m seated here, not because I prefer solitude or anything, but because I’m petty and enjoy pissing off my father. So whilst everyone else is out there performing, I’m in bed with a little table over my lap.
The servants arranged it almost surgically. A plate of scrambled eggs and toast, black coffee alongside fruit I’m probably not going to touch. No offence to fruit or anything like that, but over the past few days, Kai has developed a parasocial relationship with Sheffolk’s agriculture through research alone.
The sentence is a sin inside my head.
It was a tactical error on my part, really. I’d cut out my tongue to stop myself from ever having asked him for assistance. I’ve always hated social media. It’s loud, unhinged and deeply unserious. Kai? He’s fluent in nonsense, so I outsourced.
‘Get a read on Sheffolk,’I asked him during a moment of stupidity. A moment set somewhere between my sixth and seventh glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Wine-dumb enough to think my brother might be useful.
Within twenty-four hours, my phone was flooded with links, reels, and infographics of a fucking Annual Red Reaping. According to him, it’s some kind of rustic pilgrimage hosted by House Rosenthal, a family I’ve no interest in reading about solely because of my brother’s sudden obsession with their orchard.
Kai recites details about it better than I’ve ever seen him even attempt during our schooling years: there’s apparently a hedge maze where people wander in with one half of a pomegranate lung, whispering their wishes into the dark in the hopes that the first duchess will hear them. No maps allowed whatsoever, and if you run into someone, you’re supposed to confess a desire. And not anything like a kiss or a job promotion—but the type of confession you’d only be able to pull from my lips under gunpoint or threat of orgasm.
They crown a ‘Crimson Bride’ too, who then gets paraded through the festival, dripping pomegranate juice. Wikipedia says she weds herself to Sheffolk’s roots, but it reads more like debauchery that polite society can engage in without being labelled strange. No wonder Kai’s intrigued by it. I’ve since blocked his number, but the damage is done. Caught myself googling ‘pomology’ yesterday and closed the tab as though it was porn.
I’m halfway through my eggs when the door swings open. “Get out,” I say without looking up.
Kai immediately plops into bed beside me, stealing the grapes from my plate. “You’re not even doing anything,” he says, tossing a grape into the air and then catching it with his mouth.
My hand twitches with the urge to flick his throat, just to watch him cough it back up. But I’m trying to be well-behaved this morning.
“I’m eating toast.”
“You’re glaring at toast.”
“Same thing.”
Kai rolls his eyes. “Are youstillannoyed?”
“Of course I am. I asked you to find out what Sheffolk’s elite posts online and get a sense of them through digital habits. What did you give me? Jam politics and proposal reels to the tune ofHallelujah.”
“Okay, whatever, monologue over—you fucking blocked me.” He digs into his pocket and whips out his phone. “Thanks to you, I have to come and present my findings like a stupid reporter.” The fucker thrusts the screen into my face with zero regard for boundaries. “Feast your eyes on this shit.”
I recoil instinctively because his brightness is set to blinding mode. “Jesus, get that small sun away from me?—”
“Readit!”
By the time my vision clears, I almost wish his screen cauterised my eyeballs. The top of it says:[r/AncestralMurder] — What Really Happened to Gabriel Fairbanks.Posted by u/BeansOnBread4Eva.
Ten years shrivel off my lifeline as I blink at my brother. “Are you showing me a fucking Reddit thread?”
He taps the phone. “Just look, they’re making valid points. This one comment says her fiancé just vanished and that her cousin is an undercover weirdo.”
“I asked for research, Kairos.”
“And I’m giving it to you, for fuck’s sake.” Kai begins screenshotting maniacally, and I have the sinking feeling he’s going to send that to our group chat. “You underestimate how powerful these people on Reddit are. Theyknowthings.”
“Fascinating,” I murmur, chomping down on a piece of toast. “And how long before the Crown is overthrown by BeansOnBread4Eva?”
“Laugh all you want, but BeansOnBread4Eva had over ten years of activity on here until he posted this four monthsago. Then he vanished. Another user called Francesca ‘Lady Homicide’, and they vanished too.”
Against my will, I read the thread as he scrolls. The original poster claims to have been working on the estate when it happened, but refused to go into further detail. He found it important enough, however, to reiterate that everybody should be watching the cousin. The comments are filled with some believers, people pressing for more info and your average trolls.
Kai takes my curious expression as the green light to continue his presentation. “Look over here; this comment says they tracked down the poster’s last known IP, and it pinged somewhere close to Redford. Do you think the poster worked as their gardener, maybe? I mean, BeansOnBread4Eva?—”
“Can youstopsaying the full username?—”
