The duffle bunches his shirt as he hikes it higher up his shoulder, and he dips into a dramatic bow. He earns a scoff from me with his next comment.
“Keep an eye on this one for me; he’s notoriously terrible at relaxing.”
“Sheffolk doesn’t exactly screamrelaxation, now does it?” I add in, broadening that grin of hers. “I’m more likely to die than get some actual sleep.” The trees beyond the runway shift in the wind for emphasis.
Francesca side-eyes me. “Best make it poetic, then. Wear something embroidered when you finally collapse. Maybe I’ll even have Philip recite a poem; you do know how headoresyou.”
About as much as I enjoy crowded gatherings, I suspect. “You’d compose it yourself?”
“If you die interestingly enough, perhaps.”
A crack of laughter leaves Kai, a brash sound that draws a withering frown from Philip, who receives a wave in return. “Keep your haunted countryside,” Kai snorts. “I’ll drink to leaving this cult of death behind, that’s for certain.”
The moment shatters upon my brother’s teasing, and she reaches out to squeeze his hand, addressing him with vague amusement. “Safe flight, Your Highness. Thank you for tolerating Sheffolk for a few days.” To me, she says, “My grandparents will be back in an hour or so. Be ready for judgement.”
I don’t even have a moment to respond. She walks off without another word, leaving me standing with a smirking Kai. He visibly wrestles between saying something useful and something funny.
Thank fuck, he chooses neither and goes for truth.
“You already look claimed by the land. Pale as fuck, with the scent of death clinging to you, brother dearest.”
“Then may it bury me quietly.”
We don’t hug. We don’t even say goodbye. Maybe it’s because we never really learned how to. Goodbyes don’t exist back home,just polite removals. He has no idea what he’s returning to within those gilded palace walls, and worse yet, he’s completely blind to what I’m potentially staying behind in. His hand twitches at his side like he wants to reach for me but remembers whose sons we are. He offers a half smile, brittle at the edges.
The shape of that smile speaks for itself.
I’m sorry to leave you to this fate.
His apology is unneeded, evidently. I’ve made peace with my exile. In the distance, I can make out Anthony standing at the base of the jet’s stairs. Seeing that loyal hound only reminds me that splitting from Kai isn’t the mercy I tell myself it is; it’s a sentence. He’s not going home, not truly, only stepping back into the leash. The scars left behind from mine are invisible, but they burn all the same.
I give my brother a nod, a simple acknowledgement of pacts made in boyhood and the dread we both refuse to name. He glances past me to the car, where Francesca sits behind tinted windows. I read the thoughts that swirl in eyes identical to mine—misgivings about Edmund, caution about the very much haunted castle, and the beginnings of brotherly advice.
It’s all there.
But the moment’s too thin for confessions. In the end, he settles for humour, an old defence when time runs out. “You always did like punishment.”
“I just prefer it honest,” I mutter, eyes trained on the pale flank of the jet.
Just a step forward, and for a second I think he’s going to hug me. Even Anthony’s shoulders go rigid from his vantage point. But Kai only bumps his shoulder into mine. “Don’t go quiet, Eric. Not on us.”
“I never learned how, remember?”
His laughter is a scrap of my childhood, and I cling to that relic from when our world still felt safe. He steels himself, jawclenching as the wind snatches at his hair, golden and wild. Much like himself. Kai doesn’t turn to check if I’m watching; he knows I am. My eyes have followed him all his life, and neither exile nor a poisoned kingship could loosen that grip.
The stairs devour him whole.
The fuselage doors shut.
And Sheffolk inhales, lungs drawing me in with no promise of return.
22
THE BIRTH OF BASKERVILLE
ERIC
Idon’t know whether to be offended or not that Duchess Sylvaine couldn’t care less about me, but Francesca says I’ve dodged a bullet, so I believe her. Honestly, the woman barely spat more than a few sentences at me before being whisked off by Pascoe and that positively vampiric-looking woman Ms Thorpe—who I’m still supposed to believe is the head of security and not Dracula reborn.
