“Yeah, a fallen one,” Bilal chimed in, which made everyone laugh again.
This was the magic of the attic. It made things better in this house of horrors.
Perdita hated life most when her family felt fractured, and over the years, she did everything in her power to mend the cracks when they’d form. But she knew she couldn’t hold on forever.
As she’d eventually learn—when Octavius would be the first of the siblings to leave, followed by Bilal, and then, at last, herself—some things were too fragile to remain unchipped forever. And eventually their Narnia would be a thing of the past. The horrors would prove too much for them all to stand.
3:29P.M.—THE BUTTON MANOR
Perdita Button was hiding.
After the near-death experience of facing the wrath of her siblings over their inheritances, she now found herself in the first-floor cloakroom next to the library, holding one of the Manor’s emergency landlines up to her ear. The remaining suspects had not been allowed any personal devices back, which had been locked in a safe somewhere in the bowels of the Manor. It was weird to even think of herself as asuspect, in her own father’s murder, but with their phones still under Waxler’s protection, she was limited on options for connecting to the outside world. And she was 95 percent sure that Waxler had no idea about this landline. She also just needed to get away from everyone and everything. In this closet she could pretend there were no murdered fathers, no inheritance, no angry brothers and sisters, and no drawing room full of suspects for said murdered father’s homicide case.
In here it was safe. In here she could speak to the one person who could always silence the storm.
She pressed dial and waited to hear his voice.
“Hello?” it finally came.
“Hi,” she said, and she heard the relief in Thorin’s voice.
“Perdita?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “I’m using the emergency landline. They’ve cut the other lines for now but I don’t think the police know about this one. Anyway, I don’t have long—someone will probably notice my absence soon.”
“Are you all right? It looked pretty intense earlier, with your siblings.”
She closed her eyes, the scene from earlier replaying in her mind over and over. Replaying the moment Mr. Fowley read out their father’s will and all that came with it.
“Itwasintense, and no, I’m not okay.”
“What happened?”
“My father, he… he left me practically everything, Rin… and they all want to know why. I think they’re going to figureitout.”
“They won’t,” he said sternly, like he truly believed it.
She shook her head, shaking away his optimistic outlook. “They will, believe me. When I can’t answer their questions, they’ll start digging. They’re going to work it out eventually, I know it. Or Fola will, at the very least.” Perdita sniffed, feeling tears weigh heavily on her lashes. “Even though I know why he did it, I still don’t know why he would. He left me a fuck ton, Rin. It feels like hush money… or worse… and now with this murder—I don’t know, I can’t accept it, I just can’t—”
“It’s okay, Dee. Take a deep breath. It’ll be okay. I can come back later, and we can talk more about everything then.”
She felt bad that Thorin felt like he had to return. He’d already helped her so much this year. With everything that had happened in Prague… keeping her secrets.
The only sound was Perdita’s uneven breathing, as she thought about how everything was going to blow up in her face.
“You don’t have to come,” she said at last. She had dragged Thorin into this enough; he didn’t deserve to be implicated in her life like this.
“New Haven is not that far,” he reminded her. “And also, Iwantto come back,” Thorin said with a note of finality in his tone. “I want to be there for you.”
“Thank you,” she said after a few beats.
“Forever and always, Dee.” It was something they always said to one another for years, even before they got together.
“Forever and always, Rin.” She sniffed again, and a few quiet moments went past before Thorin was speaking once more.
“Are you feeling better?”
“I don’t know… Everything is such a mess.”
