Chapter 37
The weeks after Saint’s death were quiet, but the renovation advanced.
Where there had once been a wasteland, right angles, smooth walls, and the subfloor now took shape.
Will watched over everything, his white blouse with its high, starched collar concealing the last discolorations that covered his body.
Elodie had worked more blood magic, and the wound on his cheek had faded to a ring of silver scars against his pale skin.
Absently, his fingers traced them. She had been so close while healing him that he had seen the pulse beating in her throat.
He missed her nearness like a lonely prisoner in a dungeon, yet he did not dare touch her or ask her to stay.
He hid the other wounds beneath elaborate fabrics.
In the evenings, when he sat alone on the floor of his washroom before the large mirror, he examined every one of them, pressing his fingers into the scars until pain shot toward his spine.
He could not allow himself to forget how close he had come to death.
And yet, strangely, the thought left him cold.
Then, one week later, Saint’s remains were carried to their final rest.
The funeral procession wound through the narrow streets, and as though in mockery, sunlight glittered upon the immense black carriage.
Will realized that he had never seen Saint beneath the sun, had never watched his freckles and red hair catch fire in the light.
Although Will had felt most normal in his company, Saint had been a creature of this city’s shadows—whether in the dim shop, between dusty bookshelves, beneath the red glow of the balls, or in cold moonlight.
It was the only time Will appeared in society. He stood silently beside Elodie. Eric passed them with several other members of the Senate, but he was entirely Mr. Arcos again. The chasm between them was almost visible.
To Will’s disappointment, no one blamed him. One noblewoman even shook his hand.
“How fortunate that you escaped. It would have been a tragedy to see you inside that carriage as well.”
“It is a tragedy. Saint is dead.”
The woman smiled thinly and squeezed his hand once more. Saint had not been a nobleman, not one of their close circle, merely a supplier of body parts and siren scales.
“May I see the wounds?” Balto asked, his eyes darting across Will’s black mourning clothes as though he might see through them. “I heard they bit you everywhere.”
“Go away,” Elodie snarled.
And then Saint was cremated while his father wept.
Then life continued.
Now and then, Will felt Elodie’s searching gaze upon him whenever conversation fell silent.
He could almost see the questions resting on her tongue.
Why were you in the harbor district that night?
What did you want from Saint? Why did the vampire keep you alive?
But she remained silent, and Will used his little free time to search the city archives.
He looked for everything he could find about the king.
Still, there was nothing about his coronation, no reports of public appearances, even in records so old that the paper crumbled between Will’s fingers.
Only the seemingly endless list of Red Hands made Will pause.
Vero Lancet died in the twenty-third year of his tenure, and Vincent Ormonde, second-born son of House of Ormonde, was appointed Red Hand by His Royal Majesty.
In his mind, Will tore down the dining room and rebuilt it, as he had so often over the past few days.
It was a black monster, darkly paneled and dominated by the long table at its center.
An immense painting had once hung behind Elodie at the head of the table, a depiction of the Wild Hunt, but now the space stood empty, throwing the room strangely out of balance.
He had enjoyed ample time to redesign the room in his imagination these past few days because Duke Wilkinson insisted on coming to dinner every evening.
As though the Red Hand meant to mock Elodie, Wilkinson had been appointed to the Senate.
If it hurt her, she did not show it. Nor did she reveal how she suffered beneath her fiancé’s casually delivered insults.
When he mocked her shallow life, her love of dresses, her invitations: “That is why you have not been appointed to the Senate. The Red Hand cannot take you seriously when you distract yourself with such useless things. But that is for the best. Now you need not fight for the position, because your husband will be a senator for you.”
Will had nearly torn the napkin in his lap, but rather than voice his opinion and perhaps be thrown from the house, he redesigned the dining room in his mind.
For that reason, today’s silence was almost a pleasant change as they waited for Duke Wilkinson.
Only Elodie was growing impatient. She was already dressed for the full-moon ball, and Will suspected Wilkinson was keeping her waiting for precisely that reason.
These balls were her arena, and therefore he had to humiliate her now.
As at every full-moon ball, she wore blood-red, tonight in the shade of half-congealed ox-heart blood.
What made it truly unique, however, was the white pearl embroidery, which formed small snowdrifts across her shoulders and gathered at her hip as though she had walked through a snowy forest. Even her hair, arranged by her maid into a tall, dark crown, was threaded with pearls.
At last, Elodie sighed and fell back into her chair at the head of the table. “Hedgefort, please find out what is delaying my fiancé.” The moment the butler left the room, she focused upon Will.
“What?” she snapped.
Will smiled but straightened. Complaining about her fiancé would not make things easier for Elodie, so he used the opportunity to ask something else. “Why does everyone compete for the Red Hand’s favor when they could simply kill him and take his office?”
Elodie’s hand froze halfway toward her wineglass. “What do you mean?”
“Your uncle became the Red Hand by killing his predecessor, did he not?”
“How did you come to that conclusion?”
Will adjusted his cuffs and trained his expression into neutrality. “Something the vampire said. Then I searched the records—”
“Vampires do not speak,” Elodie interrupted.
“This one did.” Will preferred not to mention that his blood was probably the reason. “But it made me think about your plans. Perhaps it is time you explained them to me. How many people know that one can kill the Red Hand and claim his office?”
Elodie pressed her lips together and was spared the need to answer when Hedgefort entered and bowed.
“Duke Wilkinson sends his apologies and requests that you depart for the ball without him.”
“It is one month before our wedding, and he believes he doesn’t need to be at my side!” Elodie snarled, but regained control the next moment. She exhaled audibly. “Hedgefort, serve dinner and call for the carriage. We will leave shortly.”
With one eyebrow raised, Will watched Elodie stare at her soup as though it were poison. The pea-foam soup glowed green in return.
“Will, I can practically hear your thoughts!”
He laughed but said nothing. As always, the food was magnificent, though visually peculiar.
“What would you prefer to discuss?” he said after a while, once Elodie had finally started eating. “The fact that you are sacrificing yourself for a fiancé who despises you, or your plan to commit high treason?”
Lightning flashed in Elodie’s eyes. “He does not despise me. He merely treats me as though I were still a child.”
“Whatever you say…”
Elodie ignored him. Instead, she set down her spoon and crossed her arms. Will braced himself. “What did you want from Saint in the harbor district?”
“Answers to questions you refuse to give. Because I am tired of walking blindly toward my destruction.”
“You still doubt me?” Coldness drew across her face.
Instinctively, he wanted to say no, but he paused and studied her again. There were two sides to her. The duchess sat before him now—stern and exalted, entirely in command of herself, at the center of her web. And at the end of one of those threads sat Will, dancing whenever she pulled it.
But there was also the young woman whose eyes glittered with curiosity and wit, whose passion was restrained only by tight corsets and iron will—the girl who dreamed, who longed for the world, who wished for a future.
But what remained of that little girl?
“Yes,” he said at last. “But I doubt your methods, not your goal.”
She sighed. “Killing the Red Hand is both the easiest and the most difficult path.”
Satisfied, he leaned back, touched his fingertips together, and watched her over them. “During a full moon.”
Elodie narrowed her eyes. “Exactly. During a full moon. That is what my father told me. According to him, a portal to the King opens then, and the true trial begins. He did not reveal what it entails. The court takes great care to emphasize that the Red Hand chooses his successor—often from the Senate—and so the most powerful mages prefer to kill one another rather than turn their attention toward the man himself. Meanwhile, my uncle watches it all from the safety of his powerful castle.”
The soup was cleared away, and the main course arrived. Fish marinated in beet juice, its flesh marbled purple, rested upon a cloud of white cauliflower.
“But how do you intend to kill the Red Hand at his own ball?”
Elodie laughed. “Inside his mansion, he is invincible.”
“The New Year’s ball! But you are getting married at the New Year’s ball.” He stared at her in disbelief.
“I will send the invitations shortly beforehand, and with luck, all my ‘useless pursuits’ will have paid off, and people will be willing to miss his ball for the sake of a scandal. The chance to see me married in your new ballroom should be enough to draw them here. And in this house, beneath the watch of my ancestors, I will have the advantage.”
Will swallowed. She said it so lightly, as though it were not the most deranged plan ever conceived. “I cannot decide whether to be impressed or deeply terrified. There are still so many uncertainties.”
Elodie leaned toward him. “That is where you come in. Be your most charming and mysterious self, and they will all come to witness your magic. I want you to finish the small parlor on the evening of the wedding—with magic.”
“I…”
Elodie frowned. “I need you. My uncle is just as obsessed with your secret as everyone else.”
He struggled for words, incapable of denying her request and yet not brave enough to confront his magic. As though she could read all of that in his face, she took his hand and entwined their fingers like lovers.
“Will,” she whispered, searching his face for something he could not name. “Have I ever told you how grateful I am for you?”
“You pay me to be here.”
“Is that why you are still here?”
He resisted confessing how badly his reputation had suffered in the Capitol. But that had long ceased to be the reason he remained. “No. But do not force me to say it while you still call me a mistake.”
The storm in her eyes glittered, and the girl who saw wonders looked back at him. “Perhaps I should not be so harsh with my mistakes when murder and betrayal trouble me so little.”