Chapter 28
Elodie reacted first. She bit her lip until blood welled, and with a flick of her hand, the key turned and the lock clicked open.
She was already on her feet, but after barely a step, she caught her foot in a fold of the carpet where the desk had moved.
Will was about to rush to her when the door flew open, and Hedgefort stormed inside.
The man froze, his eyes darting to Will, who had gone still halfway between his chair and Elodie, still bracing herself against the floor. But Elodie did not immediately get up. No, she clutched her knee through all those layers of skirts and swore as loudly and viciously as the finest sailor.
Rain hammered against the windows.
Everything waited until Will broke the tension by dropping back into his chair.
With a dramatic roll of his eyes, he began sorting his papers.
Hopefully, the butler would not notice the large stains of oil and more intimate fluids as Will hastily placed his notebook over the pile of plans and pulled fresh sheets toward himself.
“She fell,” Will sighed. “There is no cause for alarm, Hedgefort.”
“You should keep this place tidier, Will. Next time, I may break my leg!” Elodie snapped, scrambling upright before the butler could come to help and see her flushed cheeks. Or the sweat on her throat and temples. Or the glazed shine in her eyes.
“Your Grace, are you hurt?” The man stepped closer anyway.
“No. I merely stubbed my toe and tripped because everything in here is a disaster!” Indignantly, she planted her hands on her hips and glared down at Will, leaving the butler with only a view of her back. “We are not finished here. Hedgefort, please leave the door open when you leave.”
“My lady.”
Hedgefort hesitated briefly, then marched out, his footsteps gradually fading along the corridor.
Will and Elodie shared a quiet, mischievous laugh as they both straightened their clothes. He handed her a handkerchief from the drawer and used another to wipe his fingers.
“I believe I have worked out what the punishment was.” Elodie sighed and pulled a chair toward the desk. “But there is something else I need to tell you as a friend and not your employer.”
“Friend?”
Elodie shrugged. “Well, I didn’t hire you to put two fingers up my ass…”
Will burst into laughter—something he could not remember doing in a very long time. It rushed through him like spring sunlight, and soon Elodie joined in. The moment felt almost as intimate as stolen kisses in the dark or a bittersweet punishment over a desk.
“You are an exceptionally unusual woman,” he said at last.
“I do my best.” Elodie tucked a loose strand behind her ear, but her expression suddenly collapsed. Her brows drew together, forming small creases between them. “Considering our situation, I believe it necessary to inform you personally…”
Will waited while Elodie kneaded her fingers in her lap and looked away. His head was still too intoxicated to jump to conclusions. Only a shapeless dread grew in his stomach.
Elodie sighed, squared her shoulders, and laid her hands flat on her skirts. “I am engaged. I will be married on New Year’s Eve.”
Will opened his mouth to speak, but his thoughts tumbled over one another, tying together every loose thread in the hope that the full picture would finally emerge before him.
It did not. “So you were speaking of a real man—a real prospect—when you said your future husband would have no interest in your pleasure or your love.”
“Yes. But I have known that since childhood. I am a duke’s daughter. I have to marry.”
A headache gathered behind his brow, and the tumor of dread in his stomach swelled. Will rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to push the pain away. “And the examination… That woman is your future mother-in-law.” He shuddered.
“You have already met my husband at the ball—Duke Wilkinson.”
The image of the dark-skinned gentleman with the pointed beard and well-tailored suit returned to him, and he nodded.
The man had seemed pleasant enough, but the face someone presented in public rarely resembled the one revealed behind closed doors.
And if he was anything like his mother, Will preferred not to imagine Elodie living at his side.
“Why?” he asked faintly.
“Why not?”
“Why this?” Will gestured vaguely toward his desk and the crumpled plans.
“Why play with me? Why allow this to happen? Why come here and remain silent about your engagement? Why tell me only now, now that you are satisfied, now that you’ve gotten everything you wanted?
” He realized too late that his voice had risen.
As expected, Elodie raised her chin. “Our behavior is dishonorable whether I am engaged or still searching for a husband.”
Will shook his head. “I am a toy for both of you, and I keep forgetting it.”
“Both of us?”
“Have you told Mr. Arcos yet?”
With a snort, Elodie rose. “What does he have to do with this? No. He will learn with everyone else tomorrow at the full-moon ball.”
“Gods, you’re cruel.”
“You act so innocent, as though you know nothing, as though I am forcing you—”
“I do know nothing!” Will was on his feet now too, his fists braced against the desk. “All I know is that everything here has something to do with the Red Hand, but I do not understand why you are willing to sacrifice yourself and everyone around you.”
Elodie stepped to the desk and glared at him across the wood.
“Of course you do not understand! You are not from here. You do not know what it is like to be trapped on this scrap of earth, cursed and tormented, knowing you will never grow old, that you and your children and your children’s children are condemned to become vampire food, vampires themselves, or victims of the endless power struggle.
Survival—that is the game we play here.” Elodie regained control and straightened.
“But you, from your golden city, cannot understand that.
You do not have to fight for the hope of someday being free.
For someone to lift the yoke from your city.
“If I do not do it, no one will. All these men want nothing to change. They do not want to lift the curse, fight the vampires, or reestablish contact with the outside world. Because if the borders open, they will finally be confronted with how small and insignificant they truly are. So you see, Mr. Frank, there is no one but me. And I’m willing to give everything—and I mean everything—to free this city, even if I must surrender my house, my family, my friends, my body, and everything I hold sacred. ”
Will was about to speak, but she raised a hand. “Do not mistake me for some innocent sacrificial lamb, a martyr surrendering her pure soul for her people. I was born for this role and forged in blood so that I would be strong enough. There was never a crumb of innocence in me to be destroyed.”
Her words faded into the silence of the room, accompanied by the drumming rain. Slowly, Will straightened fully, and the distance between them yawned wide. “Then am I the sacrificial lamb?”
Elodie pressed her lips together. “On your first night here, I asked whether you were prepared to help me usher in a new age. Whether you were willing to give everything for it. Have you changed your mind?”
He could barely reconcile the masked, fragile figure from that first evening with the strong woman before him now.
“I am giving you one final way out. Do you want to leave? I will put you on the train the day after tomorrow, once the full moon has passed, and you can forget everything that happened here.”
No, she was not fragile. She was neither spoiled nor na?ve. She stood firm, the head of her family, an invisible crown resting upon her head.
“What was the mask for on the first night?” he asked instead of all the other questions.
Elodie raised an eyebrow in surprise, and for a moment, he thought she would dismiss him with a brief answer.
“The ritual that brought you through the barrier and paid for your ticket demanded a high price. I had to give and therefore drink a great deal of blood. I was at the end of my strength and had half lost my mind. It took everything I had not to jump you and drain the last drop from your body. The mask would have prevented it if I lost control.”
Will nodded slowly. He should leave. He should accept her offer. If she had been willing to give so much to bring him here, her plans extended far beyond a new ballroom. She had assigned him a role in her play, and he would not understand it until the curtain fell.
But he could not leave. What awaited him in the Capitol if he returned empty-handed? His future, his reputation, and his dreams all depended upon this commission. He had to see it through. He could not fail again.
Perhaps he could return to his parents’ village and become a fisherman like his father.
The sea had called to him since childhood.
But what he could not leave behind were those storm-filled eyes, that hard and stubborn gaze.
Elodie would haunt his dreams like the Albatross, only there would be no release from her, merely lonely nights and colorless days.
Because he had seen someone truly burn for something.
How could anyone ever return from that? How could he turn his back on such a beacon?
No, he could not go back to his old life after knowing Elodie.
And in the depths of this city, he sensed that something else was waiting for him. That he had taken one step closer to his destiny when he stepped off the train.
“I cannot,” he said at last, tasting poison on his tongue.
“I am trapped here as you are. I am powerless to change anything and must watch while you lead me to the cliff so you can push me into the abyss. And if I remain, I am not allowed to complain, because it was my choice. Because you offered me a way out.” He shook his head, unable to look at her.
He admired and despised her in the same breath. “That is cruel.”
“If you stopped pitying yourself and finally began using all that potential you are so terribly afraid of, perhaps you would not be so pathetically helpless! You are a damned mage. Start acting like one!” she snarled before sweeping from the room.
Will nearly abandoned everything then and there, packed his suitcases, and fled.
He would have, if he had not known somewhere deep inside that she was right.