Chapter 19
XIX
LUCIAN
The steps to my cottage are cracked, the stone chipped at the edges like ancient teeth.
Every member of the Augustine-Beaumont family who attended the Academy lived here. My great-grandfather probably walked on these steps. My wrought iron bed frame was moved into this cottage by Lord Thomas Hanover’s footmen.
Now, I sit on those very steps, elbows on my knees, joint burning slow between my fingers. The cold seeps into my bones through my cotton long-sleeved jumper. I could’ve put on a coat. But I deserve to be cold. I’ve earned it.
From here, I can see the ruins of Augustine.
The charred skeleton of the boys’ Dormitory, the scorched bushes in the rose garden, the ashes of the trees that once surrounded the chapel. The empty classrooms with broken windows. The gutted hallways, the nuns sequestered in their convent.
The silence.
To others, it would look like a graveyard.
But to me? It looks like justice.
My family calls it the aftermath of a tantrum none of them cared enough to stop. My mother especially was unfazed. She called it an exorcism of the emotions I’ve never expressed, and was relieved that I ever felt so strongly about something.
About someone.
Was it worth it?
I exhale, letting the smoke curl into the grey sky. My throat burns and my lungs ache. The sedative nature of this strain of indica kicks in soon after, though. The fire in my blood cools, the anger that kept me going for the past few weeks finally starting to subside.
Was it worth watching the institution rot from the inside out? Watching every member of the Order flail, their secrets surfacing, their blood spilling everywhere but the altar of their god?
Was it worth losing her?
That last one echoes.
The look on her face after my “toast” at her engagement party last night would have brought lesser men to their knees.
In fact, I had to take a breath after I stepped out of the hall.
The walk to my car was a fight—every other step I wanted to turn back, to shelter from her life collapsing in on her. But I didn’t. It had to happen.
She deserved it.
Because the truth is, Eden never gave me a fair chance.
I would have burned the whole place to the ground for her.
I almost did. If she had been open with me, we could have been best friends first. Losing her inheritance wouldn’t matter—my mother would have welcomed her into our family, marriage or no marriage.
Eden is intelligent and beautiful enough to make her own way in the world, all she needs is support not someone in her life controlling her.
But she chose him.
After all he did to her, she chose him.
I toss the roach, and pick another preroll from my pocket. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve smoked so far—but the twenty pack I brought back with me from London feels so much lighter than when I got it.
But it doesn’t matter.
None of it does.
Not anymore.
A sharp, chilly wind cuts through the trees with a whistle, making the rustling leaves sound like whispers. Then I hear footsteps.
My body tenses.
Eden?
I glance sideways.
My heart sinks a little—it isn’t her.
It’s Tyne. No habit. No veil. Just a grey wool coat, black slacks and a turtleneck. She looks soft and modest, but most of all, human.
“Well,” she says as she reaches the steps. “You’re exactly where I expected you to be.”
I roll my eyes, but don’t say anything.
“You’ve certainly done a number on the place,” she quips.
I don’t smile, just tilt my head to the empty space beside me and hold out the joint. She chuckles and takes it without hesitation. Tyne sits beside me, and takes a deep inhale.
“I forgot this was the entry fee to the world of Lucian Augustine-Beaumont,” she mutters, fingers brushing when she hands me back the joint.
“Glad you remember,” I mutter, taking another long inhale. I lean back on my elbows, watching the smoke dissipate into the air.
I swear I see Eden’s silhouette in the smoke.
“Was all of this really necessary?” Tyne exhales slowly, mirroring my movements and crossing her legs. “The Labby I know was never one for this kind of…drama.”
I shoot her a glance. “Don’t call me that.”
Labby.
The childhood nickname derived from my initials that she gave me because I kept calling her Tiny instead of Tyne. My eyes are on the bells missing from the bell tower when I finally get around to answering her question.
“It had to be done.”
“Why?”
I get the ash off the tip by smoldering it a bit on the rock beside me. “Else she’d be stuck with that asshole for the rest of her life.”
Tyne hums.
It’s that neutral sound she always makes, the one where she’s not quite in agreement with what you’re saying but doesn’t want to offend. “You could have told her.”
“She wouldn’t have believed me.”
“So, instead you turn Augustine into a war zone and embarrass her in the most vile way possible in front of London’s entire upper echelon? Photos of her running out of the party with tears in her eyes are splashed all over the front page of the papers.”
I hadn’t seen that.
“I just brought honesty into the picture,” I say. “None of what I’ve done or said is a lie. Everything has always been this way. I just tore the masks off.”
She nods slowly.
I hand her the joint. She takes a lungful, staring at it like it holds answers. She’s always been pensive, reclusive. We only became friends because we attended the same preparatory school. She was a couple grades ahead, but I was the only kid she could tolerate.
Or the only kid who could tolerate her, I suppose.
She’s a talker.
I’m a listener.
“You love her.”
Her pronouncement slices through the air. I’m afraid it might cut my throat and the truth comes spilling from me like fresh blood. I don’t answer.
Tyne grabs my chin, forcing me to face her. “You’re in love with Eden Lockhart.”
I meet her gaze.
“Yes.”
It feels like bleeding.
Tyne whistles low. “I made you guys partners in literature class because she had a near perfect score in her O levels, so I thought she’d help you since you were taking the class in your final year.” She chuckles softly. “But love? I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.”
More silence.
“I’ve heard bits and pieces of the story,” she comments. “I want you to tell me the truth.”
“Can I at least get my joint back?”
“After you’ve told me the story.”
She gives me a devilish grin, a rare flash of the mischievous little kids we used to be. In addition to being talkative, Tyne was a troublemaker. I was her scapegoat, because they would have punished her—but nobody dared lay a finger on me.
With a huff, I tell her the story of Eden’s betrayal.
I detail how we got close, how I noticed the bruise on her face.
I tell Tyne about the times we spent together talking about Literature but really not.
I recount the night she called me and I rushed to her rescue.
The threats and fights that ensued between Silas and I.
Then I tell her how we almost had sex after she showed up on my doorstep racked with grief—and what I now know is guilt.
I wrap up the story with how embarrassed I felt when I confronted Silas about her to find that they were already engaged.
For what it’s worth, she takes it all with a straight face. True to her word, she hands me back the joint. I take a long, shaky breath. Recounting the story stirred up emotions that I’d forced myself not to feel.
Now, I don’t know what to do with them.
She puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Lucian.” That lands heavier that it should. My eyes burn, but I tell myself it’s from the cold, dry air. “When we were kids, I remember thinking that you’d never fall in love. That you’d end up married to some posh brittle girl and keep your heart locked away in a box somewhere.”
A dry laugh. “Maybe that is what happened.”
She raps my knuckles like a true teacher. “Eden’s not brittle.”
No, she’s not.
She’s fire dressed in tulle. She’s sorrow carved into grace. She has a soul like mine—broken but not defeated, lost and roaming. I figured we’d find our home in each other. We’re so alike but so different, in the best ways.
Eden is the only thing that ever made me want to be good.
“You think she regrets it?” I say after a long pause.
My voice is a whisper so thin I’m not even sure she hears it before it gets carried away by the wind.
“Do you?”
I blink at her. “What?”
“All this destruction, this chaos, the pain, the blood. Do you regret it?”
The silence stretches.
“No.”
Tyne smiles, rueful. “Then neither does she.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she says. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you.
Like you terrify her. Like you’re the only real thing in a world made of glass.
” She looks at something out in the distance, beyond me.
“Even the day you showed up to my class to break the window to scare her—that was overkill by the way—she was listless until she saw you.”
“I don’t get your point.”
“If neither of you regret it, there’s nothing to be upset about.
” Her eyes flick back to mine. “Do you remember Les Misérables? Javert spends the whole novel chasing Valjean. This man who broke parole, who did something wrong. He obsesses over him. He tells himself it’s justice.
That it matters. But the truth is, it becomes personal. It eats him. He can’t let go.”
“And?”
“And when Javert finally realizes Valjean’s not the villain he thought... it breaks him. Because his whole identity was built on vengeance.”
I watch the smoke from the joint twist in the air like a ghost.
“You’re saying I’m Javert?”
“No. I’m saying don’t become him. You’ve done what you came to do. Let it be done.” She gives me a knowing look. “Let yourself choose something else other than bitterness.”
“Bitterness? You’re calling me bitter?” I hiss.
She nods fervently. “Yes, you’re being a bitter bitch.” Then with a tight smile she says, “Give her a second chance. It’s her first time being a human.” She touches my chest. “It’s your first time too. Both of you deserve that much.”
I let my head fall back against the cool stone.
The sky is bruised as the sun starts to set. Purple and gold start to streak across it.
My chest aches. It’s not pain. It’s pressure.
Like there’s something growing there. Something terrifying.
Hope.
“I don’t know if she’ll forgive me,” I mutter.
“Then ask her.”
I close my eyes.
“And if she still chooses Silas?”
Tyne gives me a wicked smile. “Kill him.”