Chapter Thirty-Nine #3
“I doubt that is necessary,” Babbo Alilovi? says. “You must forgive my children, they are curious things, especially with matters they know little about, such as magic. My Dorian and Ana-Lucia are the only two who are able to perform it, and even then, they do not practice it often.”
“I find it all rather exciting actually,” Ana-Lucia says, leaning forward in her chair with wide eyes.
“I only wish I had the discipline for it. It’s all so much preparation and energy.
I wish I could just”—she waves her hands around in front of her, punctuating the gesture with a sharp pop of her lips—“and voila, it’s done. ”
Much to my amusement, Walden’s eye twitches at the girl’s exclamation, his lips thinning into a placating smile. “It certainly takes discipline, that is true.”
“What of the consequences?” Theodore asks, his voice more confident than I expect, considering he’s not said hardly a word since the man arrived. “I’ve heard the stories, of course. Surely there are consequences to magic, especially when a spell does not go as planned, yes?”
Walden bobs his head back and forth, thinking. “There certainly can be backlash, especially if one does not know what they’re doing—”
“And the spell you did in the cellar, the one you said didn’t work, were there consequences to that one?
” When Walden doesn’t answer immediately, Theodore chuckles and runs a hand through his styled curls.
“Ah, I’m sorry, that is probably rather personal, isn’t it?
I had no idea any of this existed until a few months ago. Call it morbid curiosity, if you will.”
“The spell in the cellar was a… modified version of the life-stealing spell,” Walden answers carefully, his posture unnervingly still—as if he is afraid of giving anything away. “It was unsuccessful, that is true, but I was lucky not to have any consequences. The spell simply did not work.”
Theodore nods in understanding, and I watch as he tracks Mr. Allard around the room, waiting until the man is standing directly behind my former husband to continue speaking.
“Perhaps you should not have chosen the victim you did then,” he says, widening his eyes in a look of innocence that he turns to the head of the table where Babbo Alilovi? sits.
“Forgive me, babbo, I am fairly new to the Court, but is there not a rule about killing our own?”
A brief flash of fury crosses Walden’s face, his eye twitching again and his fingers tightening around his wine glass, but Babbo Alilovi? only looks proud when he nods in confirmation.
“Indeed, bestiolino. It is our most important rule, even moreso than that of our secrecy. You understand my position then, Lord de Klein,” he says, turning back to the other man, “for the murder of the late Kolfina de Klein has brought forth some unsavory questions.”
Walden tenses, the breath freezing in his lungs as he glances at the other occupants of the table.
“With respect, my lord, my wife passed nearly two decades ago. I do not see what questions could have come to light in that time. She became overwhelmed with madness and threw herself off the cliff,” he says with a confidence that does not match the sudden fear in his eyes.
“I think it is rather obvious that I had nothing to do with it.”
Babbo Alilovi? clears his throat and places his napkin delicately on the table before pushing himself to his feet. The rest of us stay seated as he walks around the room, stopping behind me and Jonas to stare Walden down. “I must warn you, Lord de Klein, that I will not tolerate lies.”
“Lord Alilovi?—”
“The spell you’ve carved into the cellar was indeed modified,” Azizi’s father continues, and though I cannot see him from behind me, I can imagine the look on his face.
Stern, but unbothered in a way only people of power can be.
“Instead of the runes to signify family blood, you replaced it with the crest of Death. Our crest, if you remember.”
Walden sputters, shifting in his chair as if to stand, only to be stilled when Mr. Allard places a heavy hand on his shoulder. His eyes dart around the room, his breaths coming out in short little spurts.
He looks like a frightened animal who just realized it’s been led to the slaughterhouse.
“I… had a theory that sacrificing someone already touched by Death might strengthen the spell,” he admits shakily, swallowing loud and thick. “Wrong of me, of course, but I foolishly believed one death would go unnoticed and then the deed would be done.”
“And yet it wasn’t, was it?” Azizi asks, head tilting in an eerily similar way to her father. “You did not achieve what you were aiming for, did you? Immortality?”
Walden doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to. He knows by now that everyone here is aware of the truth. I can see it in his eyes, the panic.
He turns back to Babbo Alilovi? with a trembling smile and a shake of his head.
“My lord, my words are true. I am sorry for my wife’s passing, and I am sorry for considering doing something as heinous as sacrificing one of our own, but I did not follow through on the act.
She truly did leap from the cliff on her own. ”
Ana-Lucia snorts into her drink, looking entirely unashamed of the undignified noise when all eyes fall on her. “You are not sorry for your mistakes. You only know now that they won’t matter because they did not work in the first place. That is not remorse, it is reluctance.”
The offense on the man’s face might have been amusing if not for the maelstrom of emotions swirling in my belly. Because she is right. There is no regret in Walden’s eyes when he speaks of my death, only regret at his failure to succeed.
I meant nothing to him. Nothing but a means to an end, and an unsatisfying one at that.
“I beg your pardon—”
“Be careful, Lord de Klein,” Babbo Alilovi? warns from behind me.
“I’ve not yet made my decision as to what to do with you, and my daughter has a point.
However, I am not a cruel man, and I prefer to consider all sides of the story when presented with a case such as this one.
There is one way we could put an end to these dreadful accusations. Dorian?”
Azizi’s brother barely glances Walden’s way, looking just as bored as his younger sister, if a bit more put together about it. “Forgiveness for such a crime can be given should the victim be brought forth to speak in your defense.”
Walden reels back as if he’s been slapped, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open.
I half expect to see flowers rotting behind his teeth, but instead I just see spittle as he sputters and scrambles for words that slip through his grasp like grains of sand.
After a moment, his hands clench into fists, his eyes narrowing slightly at the man behind me.
“Why offer me such a thing if there is no way of doing so?”
“Have I said as such?” the other man asks, and I can practically hear the mocking frown on Babbo Alilovi?’s face. “Dorian, my dear, did I say there is no way to bring forth this defense?”
If he is amused or annoyed by his father’s antics, I cannot tell, but Dorian shakes his head politely. “No, you did not.”
“But—” Confusion leaves an ugly stamp between Walden’s brows, his frown only exaggerating the faint wrinkles around his eyes. “But there is no victim to speak for me. Kolfina is dead.”
Kolfina is dead.
Kolfina is dead.
Kolfina is dead.
“Petal?” Azizi’s voice calls between the endless chanting in my head. “Is the food not to your liking?”
I do not remember standing, but the chair behind me falls with a loud clatter, and my glass of wine spills across the table. Red, red, red. The walls bend and bow around me, the floors shaking beneath my feet.
The room falls quiet, and though I can feel Azizi watching me, waiting for an answer, it is my former husband I have eyes for.
I want to demand answers from him. I want to know why he chose me, why my life was not valuable enough to continue living in the face of his own.
Why me? Why? Why? Why?
“I imagine it must be a terrible thing,” Babbo says, resting his hands on my shoulders as he stares at Walden over my head, “to learn that your sacrifice meant nothing in the end. That the man who so carelessly tossed you aside only regrets that it did not work.”
The ground shakes beneath us again, and this time I know they feel it. I know they see the liquid in their glasses shake as my garden surges to life beneath my skin, tearing and scraping at my insides as if desperate to burst out and consume them whole.
For a moment I consider what it might be like to have the hunger hidden behind Theodore's teeth. I imagine how satisfying it might be to tear into him and devour the black, shriveled organ he calls a heart.
Walden, sparing me a wary glance, turns to Azizi's father with a frown. "I-I’m sorry, I do not understand—"
The man raises an eyebrow in return, and I see Azizi pick her glass up from the table just in time for another quake to send the rest of the flutes tumbling over.
“No? Perhaps you are not quite as intelligent as I gave you credit for. My own mistake, of course. As I said, forgiveness may be granted should the victim be brought forth to speak for you. So, have you anything to say to your husband’s innocence,” the man leans over my shoulder, his red-stained eyes finding mine, playful and amused, “Lady Kolfina Daillant?”
Yes, I want to say. Yes, I will speak of its absence, of the lies layered in years of false affections and a lifetime now lost to the bottom of the sea. I will speak of the injustice of it all, of the carefree way I suffered and lost.
Yes, I want to say.
Instead, I open my mouth and scream.