I don’t respond, shoving the vibrating device into the pocket of my trousers and changing course. Desperation for a victory drives me from asking Lydia what’s for dinner to breaking into my grandfather’s study. Told myself I would nevereverdo it again because last time I was sixteen and Percy convinced meGrandfather wouldn’t notice if his Mouton Rothschild Pauillac 2000 went missing.
All I had to do was find it.
Instead, I discovered that two hexagenarians are still fully capable of getting it on against a bookshelf. Came for wine and left with trauma—a price I’m willing to pay once more if it means understanding this dream the locket has inflicted upon me.
What little luck bleeds through the curse takes pity on me, and I find the space empty. His laptop’s still open on the desk, the screen filled by an email from Lord Octavian Halpine. Considering it was sent three weeks ago, I’m guessing he was confirming the time again; he has the memory of a fish sometimes, I swear. Good news is that they’ll be at that charity gala until morning, at the very least. Thus, I take my time perusing the walls, tracing every newspaper clipping that’s meticulously framed and dated.
Lord, Lady, and Heir Lost in Boating Tragedy.Flags Lowered, Bells Toll: Mourning Period Declared Across the Duchy.Three Members of the Sheffolk Family Lost. Dark Day on Lake Mirethia. Francesca Lanorythe: The Girl Who Survived the Unthinkable. Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood: Was It Really an Accident?
That last one fromThe Redford Recordsinks its teeth into my unease, but I resist little-me’s request to bolt from Frank Sheffolk’s museum of misery. Gran buries and perfumes her rot (as I warned Eric), but Grandfather believes it stinks more when you try to hide it. My father was his firstborn, his mirror image—aBlythein all but name, until the lake reminded him that even love can drown. I look at these clippings, feel the grief trapped behind glass, and find myself pitying him.
One frame stops me, and I almost lose sight of what brought me here in the first place. There’s a photograph of me and Lucy, taken on my sixth birthday. Last one I celebrated withher. I remember the confetti, the little hats Pascoe handed out, the sound of Mum’s laughter, and the smell of baby lotion as Lucy covered my eyes, whispering for me to make a wish. We look so similar that it hurts to see, to remind myself that one’s dead whilst the other still breathes. I press my palm against the picture before I even realise it, and when I feel glass instead of my sister’s jaw, I jump back as if I’ve been burned.
I fish my phone from my pocket before the tears have a chance to fall. Percy picks up on the first ring, offering a quick, “Please tell me you found what you’re looking for. Because the suspense is literally fucking killing me.”
I can hear a nib scratching against paper, she’s probably trying to make sense of Nanna’s later journal entries.
Lucy’s image receives my back as I walk towards the desk. “Yes, um, I was thinking… since that man’s been dragging me into the water every night, it made me think of Lucy.” The scratching stops. “She carried me as far as she could that day. I always assumed that she got lucky, in a way, because she died before Gran could introduce her to the curse.”
“Bleak, but same.”
“I mean, she couldn’t have known about the test. I would’ve been called to the chapel as the spare, wouldn’t I?” Percy hums in agreement. “No, Lucy was too young; that’s what I always thought, but the morehepulls me under, the less I believe that.” I’m looking atThe Redford Record’sclipping again. “I don’t believe the accident was an accident, Percy. Because after my family died, a man held me. Tried to drown me. And I could see the shoreline in the distance. None of these articles mention him, and he couldn’t have vanished that quickly, not unless he wasn’t fully corporeal to begin with.”
The other end of the line goes silent, disrupted only by a careful, “Chess…”
Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood: Was It Really an Accident?
Lake Mirethia Drinks Blood.
Blood.
There’s blood in the water—there always was: our name, our secrets.
In light of my recent suspicions, it sounds less like ramblings and more like Nanna warning me about the lake. Perhaps she saw blood in the waterbeforemy family even went under because the boat was marked. I feel his hands on my throat again, the only target he didn’t manage to hit.
“Lucy failed her testbeforeanybody could even warn her.” I say, confident in that conclusion despite my throat burning with the effort. “And I would’ve failed mine too if Hildebrand had succeeded in the water.”
Percy splutters for a moment and her bed squeaks as she presumably pushes to her feet. She stutters at first, then says, “How… how did you even come to the conclusion that it was him? Look, I’m not invalidating what you’re saying, but you know that lake holds ghosts just as well as this castle does.”
“His smell.” I let that sink in, but Percy only lets out a confused ‘huh?’. “You know how Tommy carries mildew?”
“God, if only I could forget.”
I’m rambling now, clammy palm lifting to my throat and feeling the pulse there. “Hildebrand’s ghost smells of pomegranates, Percy. Not sweet, but sour, like it’s gone off. It only clicked when you mentioned the letters and the wax seals. The oil Adelina used would’ve soured after a time; maybe he kept one of her old letters on him the night he died—something he couldn’t let go of. That’s what he smells like… old sweetness that rotted.”
“Okay, what the fuck, Chess?—”
“He tried todrownme after Lucy let go.” I can hear my own panic, can practically see how air rips through my lungs in their desperation to oxygenate my trembling body. Grandfather’slaptop shifts when I knock into the desk in search of something to stabilise me. “Oh my God, my test began way before Gran even woke us up that night.”
Percy makes every effort to soothe me, but I can’t help but see that tiny version of myself struggling to stay afloat until the people standing ashore have seen her. There’s water leaking into her mouth; the arm around her tightens but she can’t fight any longer. Luck alone has Godwyn’s ghost vanishing as someone from the rescue team yells that they’ve found the girl.
“I can’t pass this,” I mutter, shaking my head and blinking through the wooziness. “There was never even a chance of me?—”
“Hey, no, we’re not doing this.Stop,” she snaps, all traces of her usual nonchalance gone from her voice, and it hits like a slap. “Starting the test early doesn’t change a damn thing. Barring Gabe’s attack, normalcy only started glitchingafterwe dug up Cillian. Think about it: years of nothing and suddenly you feel someone watching, then Prince Eric brings him up and boom—your nightmarish song is back. Cillian’s a lead and G-spot knows we’re circling it. So take a deep breath and use your brain.”
“Iambreathing,” I tell her, hand moving from my throat to the back of my neck. The skin there is on fire. “But it’s like part of me can’t accept it because if he’s this aware of me, then it means I’m closer than I’ve ever been. Every time I get somewhere, he wakes up a little more. It’s like he’s waiting for me.”
She laughs incredulously. “And that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s a two-way street; he’s waking upbecauseyou terrify him too. Now, I want you to go find that prince of yours, get off that cursed property, and calm yourself down. Understand?”
