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I shook his hand. How could I not know he was my own blood? “Why didn’t she and her husband come to pay their respects as well?”

Lucy’s eyes well with tears. “Willa died a while back. After she gave you up, she lost your sister, Ophelia, to the plague some years later. Only one of her children survived, Ruben Crane. But it wasn’t enough for Enzo. He has shunned the village and doesn’t leave the house anymore.”

“So, this Ruben Crane is my half brother?”

“Indeed. He’s a lovely young man. He married a kind woman too, Anastasia. She is pregnant with their first child. But they do not visit his father. Enzo is mean and bitter.”

“Perhaps that is his fate. To die alone as he once wished for me. I do hope you tell him that his plan failed. Looks like the devil won after all.”

“He usually does.” Lucy fastens a blue ribbon around her bushel of hemlock.

“So this devil is the devil. And he knows I exist? Why has he not come for me?” I fear he impregnated her to punish her, but am I to be punished too?

“You would have to summon him. But I advise against it. He is a trickster. I made a bargain that cost me the souls of all my future descendants. Bishop women can never cross over to the After. When we die, we remain as ghosts, trapped here forever. The town thinks we are witches because of it.”

“It seems they are right to think so. You lured an innocent woman into the woods so that she may be taken against her will, forced against a tree, and then yet again forced to carry the devil’s child. A baby she did not want.”

Lucy hands me the hemlock. “I am not proud of what I did, but I have made peace with my past, Lord Erebus. Perhaps you should too. You’re Bell now, husband to one of the most influential women in Melancholia, lord of your own manor, and you have more riches than the next ten generations will know what to do with. I’d say it all worked out for you.”

Her carelessness astounds me. I crush the hemlock in my palm and drop it at her feet. I will not accept the branch. Not from her. “I am going to put babies in Arkana’s womb. As many as she will let me. When our children are of age, I will arrange marriages for them that will stretch far and wide. Thorn, Crane, Harker, and Blackwell… The devil’s seed will spread across Melancholia until every single family line has been touched by him. That is my legacy. My revenge.”

She shivers and shakes her head. “You would allow his evil to permeate all of Melancholia? Punishing us will not change the past. It will not bring back the childhood you never had.”

“Punishing people is what I do, Miss Bishop. I am darkness personified. A walking, breathing version of the devil himself. He put me in her belly to cause chaos. And that is exactly what I intend to do. And if you even think of trying to stop me. I will make sure that no Bishop woman ever makes it past the age of twenty-five.”

She gasps. “You are indeed his child… No need for threats, Lord Erebus. I have no desire to stand in your way. I will keep your secret as well. But not for you or for fear of what you may do to my bloodline that I haven’t already done myself. I do it for her. For Arkana. Because I see the way she looks at you. Break the world apart if you have to. But don’t break her heart. She will be your greatest ally if you let her.”

How dare she speak to me of my wife and my marriage? I kick the hemlock away before stalking back toward the estate. But instead of going inside, I walk past it. Every single one of these Graves is on my last nerve. I fear that if I have to endure Arkana’s wrath in the carriage the whole way home, I will say or do something that will surely make her hate me forever.

“Let my wife know I will see her at home,” I grumble to our coachmen.

I thought the walk and the fresh air would do me some good, but by the time I reach Erebus Manor, I am vibrating with rage.

I stand in the foyer, shaking. Every ounce of self-doubt I’ve carried, my loathing, my anger and fury at being left behind to fend for myself as a child. Every night I’ve lain awake plotting how I would get my revenge. How I would someday find out who had the audacity to abandon me so that I may destroy everything they love…

Only to find out that they already did that themselves. I am beyond livid. I clench my fists and growl as stars dot my vision. I see pitch-black. Red. The color of fucking blood. Of course I chose it for my house. I was made in a sea of darkness and blood.

I want to murder everything.

Percy goes for my coat. “May I pour you a drink, my lord?”

I flinch at his touch and jerk away. “Get out of here,” I rasp.

“My lord? Are you all right? You look pale.” He tries to remove my coat again.

I shove him back. “Get the fuck out of here!” I scream.

His face twists in horror as he bolts from the room.

And now that the monster has been released from its cage, I fear I cannot put it back in. I charge through the first floor from the parlor to the kitchen, screaming. Each breath I take fuels another outburst that I cannot control. I want to smash everything.

The servants run as they see me. I take out an entire display of glassware with my fist, punching into the middle of it with every pent-up ounce of rage I have. And it feels electrifying.

“You must think I’m a fool,” I cry out. I spin and grab the stack of porcelain plates the cook was readying for dinner. “Do you all laugh at the devil’s spawn? Hmm? The freak with the forked tongue?” I throw the plates to the floor and relish how they break around me. Shards fly upward, sending bits of broken glass up into my face.

A servant girl shrieks just as Olga and Delia rush in and grab her. “Come, child. The lord is unwell.” Olga glares at me. “I knew you were a monster.”

“Mother, no,” Delia warns. But it’s too late. I cannot be contained any longer.