Chapter 54
Chapter fifty-four
Her skin was not sloughing. Her teeth weren’t blackened and her tongue remained a usual pink instead of bloated. But Riselda’s natural ivory tone was replaced with grey. And her eyes—her eyes were green.
Her hair, no longer lustrous, hung like a dull and brittle curtain about her shoulders. She pushed it back. “I had planned to take this to my grave, but the Grimrooks did value honesty between family.”
A pit formed in Lux’s gut. “That means I might—”
“No.” And now Riselda was stern. “What I suffer from does not follow any bloodline.” She glanced at Alix, then toward the bodies collecting on the gravel.
“I know vengeance did this. I wanted Ghadra—and everyone in it—to suffer. Because I’d suffered.
I wanted Grimrook House returned. For anyone in it to run screaming from my estate.
And now…now I want every last one of these traitorous men to die. ”
She left Alix and drew nearer to Lux. Near enough that Shaw stepped between them.
Riselda rolled her eyes, and said around his shoulder, “I realized after a few decades what was happening, when nothing cured me. I had The Risen; I understood a necromancer could expunge the madness. But once it came to asking for your assistance in a revival, I simply chose not to.”
Riselda cackled so abruptly, Lux startled. “You see, I like it.” Her finger rose as if she meant to stroke Lux’s cheek, the motion meeting only air. “You needed me though, didn’t you, darling? And so I did not abandon you.”
Lux could hardly stomach Riselda’s laugh—it was the phantom reincarnated. And Shaw had had enough.
Low and harsh, he said, “She does not need you. She is magnificent despite you. And you cannot order her or control her or claim her. She is not yours, Riselda.”
For a brief moment, Lux thought Riselda was going to lunge at him with her teeth.
But the smile upon her face only grew, stretching, wide as it could.
“She is magnificent, isn’t she? Don’t worry, Cockroach.
I do not want anything from her anymore.
” Then she turned and crouched before Alix.
“Dear Alix. I loved you like a brother. Why? Why did you betray me? You should have known you would be next.”
“Riselda.” Lux pushed around Shaw. “Don’t kill him. His soul is good. I think he would do good things for Mothlock, if he could.”
Riselda’s nails twitched beside Alix’s face, but she did pull them back. “Well, dearest?”
“I didn’t mean to betray you. I only didn’t know why you stole and why you ran. You were so secretive and withdrawn from me. I was worried for you, Riselda. Please believe me.”
“Because they were taking, Alix. Wasn’t it obvious?
My family was dying and our estate pilfered piece by piece.
How could I trust anyone but myself to fix it?
You stole it from me, whether you thought you would do good with it or not.
” She surveyed the grounds. “It grew sick, even twisted, with our absence.”
“I swear I didn’t know.”
“Ignorance is an excuse I never accept.”
The danger had returned to Riselda’s voice. The vengeance. And Lux shoved aside her discomfort to grab hold of Riselda’s bare shoulder. “That’s enough—”
Lux didn’t mean to. But neither did she stop it. In that moment, she witnessed Riselda’s soul—and every bit of its consuming cage.
She surfaced to stunned silence, her fingers removed and now pressed to Riselda’s cheek. Green eyes, identical to her own—watched her closely. “Stop. Leave it alone, Vesperine. My Lucena. I am through.”
Lux could not break her gaze. “Through with what?”
“My plan. I dare say it was well executed.” Dropping Lux’s fingers, she rose. “You will listen to her, Alix. More than you ever did to me. She is a Grimrook, and this estate is hers. It knows it too.” To Lux, she stretched out her hand and said, “Do not allow anyone to steal it again.”
Lux stared down at the scroll placed into her palm, dumbstruck. Loose pages lay beneath it. “Riselda—”
“Your blood, darling. It is all you’ve ever needed. You did not share it with any of Mothlock’s traitors, did you?”
Caught off guard, she answered, “No.” But then she saw Artemis burrowing his way beneath a body to deter the crows. “Or—I might have. A little.”
Riselda’s grey skin purpled with irritation. “I taught you better. Curses are mockeries of brilliance—fake gifts with very real consequences which anyone may wield. You had better hope it wasn’t kept.” Then she strode down the steps and onto the garden path.
She called back, “I will not chop my way out of these, Mr. Roser. No need to follow. Though you may want to head this way eventually. There’ll be tonic for your eye and Lucena’s cheek in Grimrook House.”
Lux, however, was not told to keep back. She leapt after Riselda, to the start of the garden path, and there she watched her—the woman who had both given Lux life and destroyed it—embrace each garden statue. When she pushed into the eager brambles, Lux felt no sympathy, guilt, or sadness.
Maybe it was always how Riselda’s life was meant to end. In the graveyard of her family. On her terms.
Mad as they were.
Lux glanced over her shoulder, to Shaw shrugging out of his jacket and handing it off to Alix.
To the women who had come down the steps, utilizing their toxic feathers to poison investors who attempted to flee.
Aline, fitting her contraption to the gate.
And Magda, a guest she’d missed in the mess, sobbing against Manphry, her arms wrapped around his waist.
Lux’s fingers tightened on the scroll. On the papers beneath. She moved the deed aside.
The Essence, read that first yellowed page. She shuffled them quickly. To the illustration of an anatomical eye, lifeblood’s description alongside.
Not a book of death, but a book of life.
Lux lifted her gaze to peer into Mothlock’s dimly lit interior and waited to see if Corvin would come.
She should have been watching other things.
When stone claws snatched her arms, Lux could do no more than shriek and kick before her boots left the ground.
She whipped her head to what held her—thick, stone legs and a beast above that. A gargoyle from the tower. And then down to every upturned face.
An explosion blew the iron gate apart.
Lux was soon in line with the tower’s shattered windows, knowing to fall now would find her bones smashed to pieces. She quit her flailing at once; she held onto the gargoyle’s feet with all her might.
Matthias! Why isn’t he dead?
The beast flapped its wings, soaring over the peak and, for a moment, Lux hung suspended, face to face with the moon. She stared at it, frozen, before a scream ripped up her throat.
The gargoyle dove.
It flew beyond the cliff.
And it was as Lux looked down at the seafoam that it let her go.