Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
W eston doesn’t come for me that day. Or the next.
My mother fusses over me relentlessly. So does Minnie. Even my father treats me with kid gloves, as if I might shatter at the slightest provocation.
The worst part is, he’s not wrong. I can no longer stand to have my bedroom door closed at night, and every morning, I drink three glasses of water, first thing, just in case . Then, when I sleep again, my dreams swerve into nightmare territory. I’m back in that locked room, only the walls are compressing, making a slow inward march that will end with me breaking to bits. Sometimes, Ramses appears and snags me by the wrist, his poisonous magic searing my skin.
More than once, I wake up screaming.
Two weeks slip by that way. Two weeks during which Weston doesn’t come.
Brendan haunts the hallways, quieter than usual. When I catch him looking at me, there’s something in his face I don’t recognize. I try to ask whether he’s seen his best friend, but he only says Weston hasn’t returned to Pine’s End, that no one has heard from him in weeks. That the cotton mill even hired a new accountant and everything.
My heart sinks. I can’t imagine what’s taking Weston so long. Then again, my brother dealt him a nearly fatal blow out at the cabin, and he probably needs time to recover. To remember that he means everything to me. That I’ll want him until I’m dead.
Maybe after that, too.
I spend my days at the second-floor window, studying the empty drive. A few times, I try to take my horse out for a ride—a very long one that ends in a pine-ringed clearing ten miles from here—but my mother forbids it. I’m still recovering, she says. Still settling into my new self, healing from what the duke did to me.
She isn’t wrong, either.
Because while I thought I would feel like some new person after losing my Mark, I don’t. I may have shed my luck, but it turns out being deprived of your shield doesn’t magically make you a more capable fighter. It just renders you defenseless.
Because even now, restored to comfort and safety, part of me remains in Alverton’s room, huddled and shaking in the dark.
The days bleed together. I take refuge in books, losing myself in tales where evil is vanquished and love conquers all. The heroines are always brave, resourceful, unbreakable—everything I wish I could be. But that’s the magic of books, I guess. They’re not real.
Incessantly, I think of Weston. His absence is a wound that gapes wider by the day, and I increasingly keep vigil at the window, searching for a glimpse of gold—gold hair, gold eyes, golden skin. Any day now, he’ll come for me.
But he doesn’t. And eventually, my hope begins to starve.
What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if he’s off enjoying some curseless, Markless new life, without the question of what he did for me weighing him down?
The possibility makes me feel like someone is sharpening steely knives against the underside of my ribs. I cycle between desperation and despair.
Then, three weeks and two days after I return home, I’m standing before my mirror, brushing my hair—I’ve stopped letting Minnie do it—when my mother slips into my room. She wears a smile so wide it nearly blinds me.
“Bria.” Her voice brims with barely restrained excitement. “Come downstairs, won’t you? There’s someone here we’d like you to speak with. A visitor.”
My heart stutters to a stop. “A visitor? What? Who is it?”
She claps her hands together. “A suitor. He’s made an offer for you. A generous one. Even though you’ve lost your Mark. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The silver hairbrush falls from my grip. I don’t bother to look at where it falls. Every time I use the stupid thing, I only long for one made from wood. One that has my initials singed into the back.
Now, at long last, I won’t have to wish anymore, because Weston is downstairs. This must be what the delay was about—him finding a way to approach my parents with the one thing that would sway their minds.
Money.
I take off running. I burst into the hallway, then zip down the stairs. My heart launches higher with every step I take toward the parlor. He’s here. He’s come for me.
Finally, finally, finally.
I’m going to hug him. I’m going to fling myself into his arms and kiss him senseless, right in front of everybody.
I turn the corner, skid into the room, and?—
Stop dead. Brendan and my father sit on the divan together. Across from them, rising as I enter, is the foreman from the mill. Calder. The one who let me use the antiseptic in his office.
“Miss Bria,” he says with a formal bow.
I stand there and gape. No. This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
He crosses the room and takes my hand. I can only stare as he presses a courteous kiss to my knuckles.
“Bria.” My father gestures toward a chair. “Sit down, why don’t you?”
I don’t move. “What... What is this?”
Calder darts a look at me, shy and hopeful. “Well, it’s a proposal. Or a reaffirmation of one, I guess I should say. I’ve discussed it with your father, and my offer hasn’t changed. My feelings haven’t, even if your circumstances have. I’d be just as honored to call you my wife without your Mark as with it.”
I blink at him. Then scan him head to toe, certain I’m seeing him for the first time. He gives me a wobbly smile, then takes off his cap and rolls the thing in his hands, his knuckles white around the fabric.
“I could get down on one knee, if you like.” He seems flustered by my silence. “Or... Well, whatever you want. Just tell me. ”
In the span of a heartbeat, my regard for him expands tenfold. Maybe those ninety-nine proposals weren’t all the same.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry this man. I can’t .
“Bria,” my father says. “Sit. Down.”
I don’t. Calder flushes and starts listing all the ways he’ll care for me, everything he’ll strive to provide, but I can’t hear him.
Because I’m standing frozen, poised on the razor’s edge between my future and my past. Something new unfurls inside me, fragile and defiant. A seed of resolve, cracking open, reaching for the light.
Fortuna, I’m hiding, aren’t I? Still. I’m waiting . I may have ridded myself of my luck, but I haven’t gotten rid of my reliance, because all my life, I’ve waited to be saved. By Fortuna. My Mark. Weston. And it worked. Which is why I kept doing it. Over and over and over again.
But this whole time, I should have been saving myself. Or trying to, at least. Because no one is going to cede me control over my own life. Certainly not my parents. They’ll only sell me to the highest bidder, like Brendan tried to.
Which means if I want control, I have to take it. I have to stand up, walk out of Alverton’s horrible little room, and shut the door behind me. And maybe that doesn’t mean I’ve left it broken. Maybe I’ve just left it changed.
Bold as brass .
“I’m sorry, Calder.” The words spill out before I can stop them. “I’m touched. So very touched. Your offer means more than you know. But I can’t accept.”
My father makes a gruff, annoyed sound. “Bria. This is just a formality. We’ve been discussing for weeks, and I’ve already?—”
“No,” I say. “No, it’s my life, and I’ll decide what to do with it. And I’m not marrying Calder.”
Calder blinks. Once. Twice. “Is my offer unclear in some way, or?—”
“No. It’s not you, believe me. It’s just...” I falter, groping for the proper words. “My heart belongs to someone else. It wouldn’t be fair to you to pretend otherwise.”
“Bria Iris Radcliffe.” My father stands now, his low growl deadly with promise. “This isn’t about that Null boy again, is?—”
“Yes.” I whirl on him. “It is. It’s always been about him, and his name’s Weston. And he’s not a Null anymore. And he’s definitely not a boy. And I don’t care if you approve of him, because you don’t need to. Anyway. I’m leaving now.”
I turn away, only to almost run straight into Calder. “You’re lovely. Really. I hope you can understand.”
He regards me for a long moment. Then he nods, slowly, as if coming to some silent decision. “I wish you well, Miss Bria. Every happiness. Truly.”
Goddess. He’s going to make some woman incredibly lucky, someday. She just won’t be me.
I step around him and aim for the door. My father leaps up from the divan, moving to intercept me, but Brendan snakes out a hand and snatches his wrist. My father tugs, but Brendan holds on tight.
I pause, bewildered. My brother can’t be...helping me, can he?
“Go,” Brendan says. “Quickly. I’ll make sure you have enough time. ”
I gawk, even as wild, desperate hope sings in my chest. My father pulls and shouts, but I don’t stay to witness it. I pelt from the room and through the foyer, then out the door, headed for the stables. Somewhere behind me, my mother shrieks, apparently having made it down from the second floor, but I only increase my pace.
In the stables, I snatch a cloak off a peg and saddle my yellow mare, then hop astride and race out into the chilly afternoon.
Ten miles to go.
I clear the driveway and steal a glance behind me. No one is following, at least not yet. And I’m lighter than my father. Faster.
Even if he does catch up, it’ll only be after I reach the cabin, and Weston can take him in a fistfight. If that happens, I won’t even intervene. I’m done trying to talk sense into my parents.
But...
My heart withers to a pitiful husk when I think of how much time has passed. Weston might not actually be at the cabin. Brendan cut him down so ruthlessly that day. What if he never recovered? What if he thinks he did spoil me, or disrespect me, or whatever nonsense my brother spewed in the heat of anger?
What if Weston left?
I spur my horse faster. Pines roar past while the wind slices at my cheeks.
Fear opens a void within me, one that might never be filled, because I may have let everything slip through my fingers. I might have waited too long.
Yet I keep going, because there’s only one way to find out.
And because it’s time, finally, to make my own luck.