Page 46
I storm out, flustered, embarrassed, and unsure of what just happened.
As I walk the halls alone, I lift my pendant to my mouth and whisper, “Come visit me after you’re done talking about brinicles.”
I restart my pacing track as I wait for them. I’m halfway between the dresser and the bed when they appear at their full height, leaning against my bedpost with one ankle crossed in front of the other.
I hold my hands up. “Why did you barge in on us like that?”
“I sensed your…uh.” They uncross their legs and stand up straight. “Your frustration, and the duress that followed after it.”
“Oh no.” I back up into the corner of my dresser and sit on the edge. This means they know exactly what I’m feeling when the aether is active.
“Cordelia, I’ve felt you for the past twenty years,” they say, prowling closer. “I show up when you need me.”
Heat prickles up my neck as they stop in front of my shins. “I didn’t need you.”
“You left with the intent to kill the Duchess, and ended up with her hand roaming up your dress. What happened?”
“Why didn’t you listen in if you wanted to know that information?”
Their eyebrows knit together. “Because I try to give you as much privacy as I can, believe it or not.”
I do, actually. I may as well explain my thought process.
“Darcy made a comment about using her house’s power to make things better, and it gave me an idea.” I dip my fingers into the basin beside me and dab my neck with cool water. “What if I can make things better for the Order of the Undine? I might’ve failed to revive their magic, but someone will succeed someday. I can use my position as a duchess to ensure that this house will not treat them like monsters in the future. They will not be hunted again.”
“Are you choosing this because you still love her?” they ask softly, like they’re afraid of the answer.
I let out a sardonic laugh. Do they also see me as some poor, naive creature? I thought they knew me better than that.
A part of me wants to look them in the face and say yes in defiance, let them write me off as a spoiled princess.
“No, my fantasy of the sailor is irretrievably broken,” I tell them instead, because they’re the only person I can be fully honest with. “But Darcy is a malleable person who’s surrounded by the wrong sort of friends. I can nudge her to help protect the ocean.”
“If that is what you need to do, then I’m glad you’ve found your purpose.” They scrub their hands over their face. “But you cannot forget the importance of your deal with Cosette. She’s planning something, and I suspect you’re at the center of it.”
“Me?” I scoff. “No, our terms were clear—a vow of love, sealed in blood, will make my transformation permanent. There’s nothing more to it.”
They brace their hands on the dresser, framing my hips. “There’s always more to it when you’re dealing with Cosette. It’s no coincidence the stoor wyrm showed up the night you were about to revive the Order of the Undine.”
“I don’t see how she could possibly have anything to do with that.”
“Your father’s monsters are reappearing, and she has the rune marks to unlock four of his keys.”
I search their eyes. They’re leaning over me, their nose close enough to mine that I can feel their breath puffing over my lips. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m the one who gave them to her.”
I stand up, and Zephyr barely steps back. My face comes level with their neck, and I swipe my knife from the dresser, twisting it at my side. “Why would you do that for Cosette?”
“The same reason as everyone else; I made a deal with the sea witch when I was desperate. I’d been in stasis for ten years when you proposed our arrangement, so I turned to someone I thought could break our bond faster. She gave me a task to find your father’s rune keys, and I used my vantage point to locate them.”
“You spied through my pendant.” My chest caves from the revelation.
“I did.”
“But you couldn’t have given her the cursed objects.”
“She told me she only needed to know what the runes looked like for her to undo their curses, but that’s not what she did. She re-bound them to herself instead.”
