Dearest Companion
From the diary of Lucy Deveroux, Duchess of Blackthorn:
Sylum is gone.
To where, I could not say, though my heart whispers its own cruel suspicions. He did not say goodbye. He did not even look at me before leaving. Men who love their wives do not depart without looking back.
I am told he had business to attend, but it is well beyond midnight.
Where is he?
When I woke, Nelly was seated at my bedside like a warden, her hands folded, her eyes too careful. She told me that Sylum said I am not to be left alone for my own safety. That phrase again. Safety. As though danger does not live within these walls already.
I am to be watched.
I see now that Sylum does not believe me. Or worse—he believes them. He says there is nothing in the tea. That the Laudanum is a kindness. That the confusion is mine alone.
And yet… I know what I’ve felt. I know what I’ve seen.
You may ask why they would do this to me. I ask myself the same question, over and over, until the answer begins to change shape.
Perhaps this is an experiment.
Perhaps they wish to see how long it takes to drive a woman—one with madness in her blood—into complete ruin. To observe. To document. To nod gravely and say ah yes, it was inevitable.
Or perhaps the answer is simpler.
Perhaps my husband regrets marrying me.
Perhaps Lydia was always meant to sit at his table. Perhaps I am merely an inconvenience—a mistake he is now attempting to erase gently, quietly, with poisons and smiles and locked doors.
Yes. That must be it.
I lie here now, alone in my bed, listening.
Elizabeth cries every night.
She weeps softly, just beyond the walls, as though the house itself is grieving her death. I hear her most clearly when I try to sleep.
Sometimes she whispers my name, beckoning me as though desperate to warn me—or claim me.
Sometimes I wonder if it is she who wishes to drive me insane. Perhaps she is jealous. Perhaps she wishes to bury me beneath these stone walls of Blackthorn with her…
Poe is perched near the panel by the hearth again, staring at it with that knowing tilt of his head. I believe that is where she is. Where she waits.
He knows something. I am certain of it. But my thoughts scatter before I can catch them, slipping through my fingers like water. I feel myself unraveling even as I write this.
I am falling.
I know I am lying safely in my bed, yet it feels as though the floor has given way beneath me. The walls seem nearer than they were yesterday.
And I fear—truly fear—that I will die here, swallowed whole by Blackthorn, while everyone insists I am merely resting.
I must stop now.
The house is listening. —L