Chapter 42
Stepping into the infirmary was like entering another dimension entirely.
The warm sunlight streaming in through the arching windows was at odds with the tense atmosphere inside the room.
A heavy silence hung over the infirmary.
In one corner, two older couples, August’s and Neha’s parents, were speaking to Dean Winthrop in low voices.
The parents of the deceased wore their grief like a shroud, their shoulders hunched and their faces mirrored masks of numb disbelief. They did not notice our entrance.
Like a blow to the gut, I recalled how August had taken on the burden of restoring his family’s ruined name and fortune, an endeavor he aimed to achieve by climbing Ouverham’s prominent social ladder and pursuing a career in politics.
The Sinclairs’ hope of restoring their once great family name were now dashed.
“Wait here,” Casimir murmured in my ear before striding into Dr. Hobart’s office to speak with a nurse.
I obeyed, resigned to standing awkwardly in the middle of the ward while they spoke.
I couldn’t hear their conversation, but after a few minutes, the nurse gave a heavy sigh, nodded, and got up from her desk, a ring of keys in her fingers.
With a jerk of his chin, Casimir motioned for me to follow as she led us down a long, winding stone staircase that led to an underground cellar beneath the infirmary.
I stiffened as we reached the bottom, the stale air mingling with the smell of blood and decay.
This was where Ouverham was keeping the bodies until the coroner came to collect them.
My stomach turned, bile threatening to rise, but I gritted my teeth and stepped into the makeshift morgue.
“You have ten minutes,” the nurse said, and with a nod, she exited.
Two bodies were laid out on a large marble slab and covered with crisp white sheets, obscuring their faces.
They might’ve been anyone, but I knew better.
I needed to see them. This was what I had come for, but my limbs had turned into stone and were refusing to obey.
My gaze fell on the longer of the two bodies.
August, I thought.
Casimir shot me a sidelong glance. “Do you want to see him?” he asked quietly.
The shudder that ran through me had little to do with the frigid temperature of the cellar.
I nodded, unable to speak.
Casimir obliged, stepping carefully over and lifting the sheet that concealed August’s face.
Pale, gray skin. A sickening slash across his throat, the color a muted maroon, like some macabre Halloween decoration.
He wasn’t wearing his glasses, but it was unmistakably him.
August. The first boy I had ever kissed.
I still recalled the feeling of his lips on mine, warm and tentative.
My first love, now an empty vessel, cold to the touch.
Bloodless. I looked away as my vision blurred, tears threatening to spill over.
I let them, partly because I couldn’t bring myself to look at Neha, knowing she must look much the same, her tawny brown skin turned ashen, eyes empty and unseeing.
They were gone, and nothing I’d done had been enough to save them.
Later, back at the loft, Casimir lay supine across the leather sofa, ostensibly asleep. Reposed in a nearby armchair, I occupied myself by staring into the fire. Thinking. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Casimir’s wince of pain.
“Is your wound hurting you?”
“It’s fine.”
I glared at him. “If I’m not allowed to lie, then you aren’t either.”
He snorted at that, eyes still closed.
“Listen, I want to talk to you about what we’re going to do.”
“It’s not—” he began.
“I want you to take me to Ethervale.”
Casimir’s eyes shot open, and he cast me a wary glance. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly.” I turned to face him properly.
He gaped at me for a moment before giving a slow shake of his head. “You might truly be insane,” he said, muttering something about an asylum being a more appropriate place for me to visit.
“Fine,” I said coolly, folding my arms over my chest. “I don’t need your help. I’m sure my father’s journals detail exactly how to enter the city. Through the Lacunae Caves, right?”
Casimir glared at me. He likely suspected I was bluffing about traversing the caves alone, but—
A sliver of doubt interrupted the surety in his gaze, and I knew I had him.
“If I were to even consider bringing you to the Isle, there would be conditions,” he warned. “And Ethervale is one thing—but there’s no way in hell I’d let you set foot in the Ivory Court.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let me?”
“You know what I mean.”
I shrugged. “I will accept your conditions, so long as they are reasonable.” I suppressed the urge to revel in my victory.
“Then… alright,” he gritted out.
“Alright, what?” I wanted to hear him say it. To make a promise he couldn’t easily renege on.
He spoke through clenched teeth. “I’ll take you to Ethervale.”
“You will?”
“Gods help me, I must be mad,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair.
“Before you agree, there’s something else you should know.
” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “No secrets, no lies, right?” He grimaced as if what he was about to say would cause us both pain.
“It was my mother who betrayed Katerina.”
I stared at him in numb confusion.
“Your mother?” I repeated. “But—”
“Lucretia Wrayburn is my mother,” he said, his eyes darkening.
“I didn’t know about your father. We never crossed paths.
I was living in exile by the time he began his duties as emissary.
I’d heard my mother was doing her own reconnaissance mission, most likely trying to restore the Queen’s trust in her following the fallout from the rebellion.
” His expression was contorted by shame and disgust. “But I can only guess as to her motives in regard to Katerina, but knowing her, they must’ve been self-interested at best, and nefarious at worst.”
A dull ache formed at my temples as I processed this new information.
Casimir’s mother had betrayed my father.
It was hard to comprehend that they’d known each other long before I was even born.
Like snow falling on the hillside, it was just another betrayal to pile on the growing mountain of treachery.
My father’s secret life, the revelation that the woman who had raised me with a disapproving eye was not my biological mother, and then learning I was half-Daemon.
And now, discovering that the person who betrayed my parents was Casimir’s own mother. It was too much to bear.
“I understand if this…changes things for you,” Casimir added gruffly.
I took in the downturn of his mouth, the cold look of self-loathing in his eyes as he glared off into space, and shook my head. “It isn’t your fault,” I insisted. “You didn’t know. You weren’t even there.”
“Still, I’d understand if you felt betrayed by proxy.” His expression was steely as he turned to meet my gaze. “After all, Lucretia is the reason you never met your biological mother.”
It was true, but beneath my shock and dismay were other, more burning questions.
Why did Nymara Pax assign my father as emissary in the first place, and why did the council name him Keeper?
How had he managed to escape Ethervale once Lucretia betrayed them?
What did it mean for Casimir and I that his own mother was the reason my birth mother and I had been separated for over twenty years?
What did it say about me that I had fallen for a Daemon, just like my father?
I don’t ever want to be unbound from you.
I wanted to ask Casimir if he’d meant those pretty words he’d spoken at the Jewel Ball, but my feelings would have to wait.
Sitting in the light streaming in through the window of the loft, I was struck with the full weight of my past and future, unfurling before me.
I wanted to meet my biological mother, Katerina.
Even if she was no longer living, I had to find out.
And my best chance of doing that was to go to Ethervale.
I knew the journey would be treacherous.
I knew that Ethervale was “no place for mortals,” to use Casimir’s words, but I wasn’t mortal.
I was a half-Daemon. A freakish hybrid. Entering the city of Daemons would place us both at great risk, but what choice did we have?
I wasn’t about to sit by and watch him waste away under the Necro Hex.
“If you’re serious about taking me to Ethervale, I want you to make a vow. A magically binding vow,” I added, so that there would be no ambiguity as to what I was asking for.
Casimir’s eyes were locked onto mine, his lips curved into an expression of disapproval. “Why do we have to make a bargain?”
“Because I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”
There was a tense pause, and then—
“Not a bloodbargain. I won’t put either one of us in that position again.” His eyes flared with anger as they rested on the fresh rune burned into my arm.
“Fine,” I conceded. “Whatever you want. I just—I have to find my mother. And as much as you irritate me—”
He rolled his eyes.
“—I don’t want you to die. We need that elixir. We have to go to Ethervale.”
“Does it matter that I’m technically still exiled?” he quipped.
“Does it matter than I’m technically half-Daemon?”
Casimir’s lips twisted into a reluctant smile and he shook his head. “Alright then. If you’re sure. Does this mean you forgive me for my part in erasing Gwen’s memories?”
I held his gaze for a moment. “If you forgive me for poisoning you at the ball, then yes.” Grimacing, I added, “By the way, if I haven’t apologized—”
“You haven’t,” he intoned.
“—Then I’m sorry.” Shame heated my cheeks. “My bloodbargain with Evren included one favor at a time and place of his choosing. He asked me to dose you with the poison. I tried to stop myself—”
“Don’t sweat it, Farrow,” he cut me off. “I figured it was something like that. Not that you don’t hate me enough to poison me outright.” He smirked down at my troubled expression.
I was reminded of the words he’d rasped into my neck on the eve of the blood ritual.
How much do you hate me?
So much.
“Casimir, I-I don’t hate you,” I blurted, blushing furiously. But he knew, he already knew the truth. That what I felt for him was far from hate.
His eyes grew soft. “I know you don’t. As much as you try, you just can’t resist me,” he said, grinning smugly. “As for the poison, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“It’s all my fault,” I choked out, ignoring his jest. “If I had just told you about the favor, you wouldn’t have drunk the spiked champagne. You trusted me and I—”
“There’s no value in rehashing what has passed,” Casimir interjected. “If you’d failed to fulfill your side of the bargain—things might’ve been so much worse.”
I gazed at him in broken disbelief. I wanted to accept his absolution, but knowing my lies had had a role in the deaths of August and Neha, as well as Gwen’s trauma… I couldn’t forgive myself.
“Ready, Farrow?” Casimir reached out to take my hand, his gaze unwavering.
When I nodded, he began, “I, Casimir Wrayburn, solemnly vow to do all in my power to protect Arden Farrow-Flynch on our journey to Ethervale. I will help her find her biological mother.” He hesitated, a wry smirk twisting the edges of his lips.
“On the condition that she meets my requirements for combat and softmagic training prior to our journey.”
I shot him an accusatory glare. Of course he had fucking conditions.
And he knew I would comply, that I would do whatever it took to get him that antidote.
As I spoke, I met his gaze with fiery determination.
“I, Arden Farrow-Flynch, vow to meet Casimir’s absurd conditions, even if I do not agree with them.
” At once, the tang of his glamour shimmered across my tongue, making me shiver.
“And so it is sealed,” he murmured.
“It is sealed,” I echoed.
No blood, no brands burned into flesh. Just one name, glamoured into the skin of my inner thigh, replacing the first as it vanished into dust.