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It takes effort, but I ignore him and the urge in favor of pasting on a bright smile and asking, “Will one of you show me to the bloodwhore’s bedroom?”
Much to my annoyance, it’s Brutus who volunteers to be my escort up the worn wooden stairs leading to the second story.
As Brutus eases the door open, my chest aches for the girl who spent twenty-three long years of her life confined within these four walls. The room has been torn to shreds. Pillows slashed open so the insides spill across the bed and wooden floor like freshly fallen snow. Even the mattress has met the cruel edge of a blade, as if I would’ve buried something precious within its woven depths.
So many awful memories threaten to surface. I can’t let them. Not now. Compartmentalization is what will get me through this endeavor. I make a show for Brutus of searching high and low.
Downstairs, Carver chats the other guard’s ear off as Quill, Risna, and Eivor pretend to search too.
“What do you think you’ll find in this mess?” asks Brutus. “As you can see, we found nothing.”
Glass and dried petals crunch under my boots as I stride across the room toward the mantel. The flowers I spent so much time painstakingly preserving have been crushed, the frames shattered. In the unlit hearth are the charred remains of some sort of cloth. I crouch and use the iron poker to fish out whatever it is. Most of it is burnt beyond recognition, but my soul recognizes the faint lingering scent of starry skies and sea breeze.
Dread fills me as I toss the remnants back into the hearth and wipe the soot on my pants. Brutus’s eyes narrow at the gesture, and I laugh demurely. “A nasty habit. Ma always gives me flack for it when I’m home for the holidays.”
Brutus grunts and folds his meaty arms across his chest.
I can’t retrieve the book with him breathing down my neck. I need a distraction. I need—
“Brutus,” calls a guard. “They think they found something.”
“Wait here.” His eyes alight as he commands me.
“I’ll keep looking,” I sing as his heavy footsteps descend the stairs.
The moment his booted feet reach the main floor, I’m gently sliding the bookshelf away from the wall and peeling back the seam of floral wallpaper that curls ever so slightly. With no effort at all, I retrieve the small wooden crate and thumb through the journals I’d left behind. One for every year since I began dreading the rite. My own way of ensuring I’d be remembered once these were found. I set them aside and reach for the book at the very bottom.
Warnings from the Wicked.
Persistent white light edges my vision.
No no no no no.
My sight flickers in and out of focus, blurring and melting, the letters on the cover blending into one, until I’m lost to a premonition.
Brutus stomps up behind me. “What have you found there?”
“Journals,” I say, whirling around far too quick to be innocent and tucking Warnings from the Wicked into the waistband beneath my top. I step to the side and gesture to the secret cupboard, the crate of dust-ridden leather-bound books. “They must belong to the bloodwhore.”
“You took something.”
I cock my head, brow furrowing in mock confusion. “No, I didn’t.”
He reaches for his sword. It gleams under the candlelight, and as he angles it between us, an unspoken threat, something terrible happens.
My true reflection, not the one of the freckle-faced redhead standing before him, appears. Dark hair spilling from a cap, hazel eyes as vibrant as honey, and a frightened grimace.
He recognizes me immediately. “Bloodwhore.”
Then he lunges, driving his sword right through my heart. It’s a vicious bite of pain, worse than anything I’ve ever endured before. Though it’s Quill’s ferocious roar that brings me to my knees.
Chapter 36
QUILL
Something’s not right.
There’s a buzzing in the air, as if the Fates are holding their breath and waiting for something to happen, if it hasn’t already.
