Chapter 9
Only when the immense wrought-iron gate slammed shut behind them did they stop, gasping for breath.
Will bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to drag air into his lungs and from there into his exhausted muscles.
Elodie panted beside him, one hand pressed against her tight bodice, smearing the blood even further.
Had she truly just killed that woman? The entire evening had slipped beyond his understanding.
“What the hell are you doing out there?” someone shouted from the entrance of the grand townhouse, framed by the golden light of the hall.
Elodie had barely caught her breath before she stormed toward Eric Arcos. “You have some nerve showing your face here!”
“And you are completely mad to go walking on a new-moon night!”
“Remind me why I was forced to do so in the first place!”
Will turned away from them, overwhelmed by the scene and still trembling with adrenaline. He stared out at the street, where a lantern flickered and went dark. Then another. The night began to take shape again; shadows moved, howled, cackled, and snapped their teeth.
A strong hand seized his shoulder and hauled him back into the house.
“You have absolutely no survival instinct, pup,” Mr. Arcos growled.
Elodie shut the door behind them. “I am going to bed. Mr. Arcos, get off my property.” Gathering her skirts, she swept up the stairs.
The entrance hall fell silent as Elodie’s footsteps faded, and Will became aware that he was still standing there as though waiting for something. An explanation? An apology?
The little power game seemed insignificant compared with what had just happened. Deep in his bones, Will knew Elodie had done the right thing, that the woman had been more than a desperate beggar. He could still see the madness in her eyes.
And Elodie—and the magic… He had never seen anyone cast a spell before. He did not know what he had expected, but not such ease, nor that small, cruel gesture.
Without warning, Mr. Arcos dropped to one knee, pulled off his glove, and dipped a finger into a red stain on the stone floor where blood had dripped from Elodie’s hand.
Guilt pricked at Will, and he considered following her to be sure she was all right.
But he didn’t even know where her rooms were located.
“What are you doing?” he asked as the ambassador raised the blood to his lips and licked it away.
For a moment, Arcos closed his eyes. “She always did have the sweetest blood.”
Will gave a disdainful snort and turned away. “Leave. It was bad enough that you knowingly deceived me, but to expose a woman like Duchess Ormonde to ridicule in that way was vile.”
Mr. Arcos rose and regarded Will, thoroughly unimpressed. “You can’t have spent much time in high society if tonight shocked you. And there is no need to rush to Duchess Ormonde’s defense—I shall pay for it in full soon enough.”
“Then why did you do it?”
The ambassador smiled, almost gently, glancing toward the staircase where Elodie had disappeared.
“Because this is the only language we know. We have hated each other since childhood. We will fight until one of us is in the grave, and even then, the other will try to build a larger mausoleum beside it.”
For a moment, Will considered asking whether Mr. Arcos had been the fourth child in the drawing, but a small, bitter part kept him silent.
“I too was hurt by your game tonight.”
“There is always collateral damage.”
Will’s pale eyebrows rose at the unexpected sting of those words. “And tonight, that was me… But why that opera? So you could mock me personally as well? The ignorant man from the Capitol. So na?ve.”
Some of the tension left Mr. Arcos’s posture.
“I chose that opera because, as a child in Bloodgrove, it was where I first heard of the Capitol—the magical golden city beyond the mountains, ruled by a powerful queen. To a poor child like me, it was an unreachable place, but I wanted to fight for the chance to travel there one day.”
Startled, Will searched for an answer and found none. Arcos sounded remarkably sincere for someone who had dismissed Will’s feelings as collateral damage only moments ago.
With an unreadable smile that lifted only one corner of his mouth, Mr. Arcos stepped closer and studied him one final time.
It seemed as though he meant to say something more, but then he turned toward the door.
The instant he opened it, the howling of the wild pack waiting outside in the darkness filled the hall.
“Wait—you cannot go out there!”
“But the night has only just begun,” Mr. Arcos replied without turning, and vanished into the dark. Will caught one last glimpse of him as he drew a concealed blade from his walking stick.
Howls, whimpers, and screams that sounded far too human made Will shudder, but he remained in the doorway until silence returned. Then he closed it and slid the bolt into place.
Will stared at the stripped wall. Large brown stains soaked the stone where dark wallpaper had once decorated the ballroom. He would have to find some way to conceal the dried blood. Thoughtfully, he tapped the end of his pencil against his lower lip, but his mind began to wander.
The night before, the naked young men and women carved into the bedposts had taunted him, singing and sighing as they writhed in the moonless dark and invited him to join them—to free them from their restraints and ease them with his desire.
Neither cold water nor a pillow pressed over his head had helped, until at last he broke and gave in.
Until he offered himself to them with one hand beneath the sheets and finally came, accompanied by their mockery and encouragement.
In the morning, he had felt filthy because he had dreamed of lust and longing rather than horror at a woman’s death. Perhaps a nightmare would have been easier, though he had no wish to carry another worm inside him.
He sensed Elodie’s presence before he heard her light steps over stone and rubble.
Caught off guard, he flushed. He could no longer say whether one of the faces that had tormented him in his dreams had been hers, or whether one of the statues had taken on her soft curves.
He blamed it on her presence, which he could never entirely shut out, no matter where he was in the house—the way the silence of the grand townhouse would suddenly change when she entered a room, as though something had settled.
“None of the workers has said a word about all this blood,” he began when she stopped beside him. He really did not want to discuss the incident.
“What would they say? Every house of rank has secrets like these. But most have the decency to indulge them in tiled rooms.”
He looked at her in surprise. Her expression was as composed as ever, but something in her voice—a tremor low in her throat—betrayed her. The ballroom had gotten under her skin.
“I do not know whether painting over it will be enough.” He kept his tone professional. It was none of his concern.
“I have samples of silk wallpaper. If we order quickly, it could arrive before New Year’s.”
“Risky.” But they both knew they would choose that solution.
At times, it startled him how closely their tastes aligned.
He admired her dress today as well, high-necked and long-sleeved as always, made from the deepest black.
Unadorned, it covered nearly every inch of her body.
A row of buttons ran from her tightly cinched waist, over the swell of her breasts and the smooth plane above them, all the way to her swanlike throat.
Yet the white lace at the collar and cuffs made it truly captivating.
With every step, white petticoats flashed beneath the skirt, as though she were allowing the observer a glimpse of some secret hidden under her black shell.
“I am receiving guests tomorrow. I advise you to remain in your room.” Something in her usual warmth fell away.
“Of course.”