Chapter 12
“I murdered your parents and framed it as an accident,” Uncle said. Even though he seemed sad about it, there was a chilliness in how easily he admitted it. “I hoped you and Georgiana wouldn’t figure it out. Yet I understood eventually you would, and now here we are.”
I sat there, surprised that he simply came out and said it. A mixture of feelings coursed through me. “And Clara Ashcombe?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice steady.
Uncle sighed. “Yes, that was a difficult decision to make. You see, Clara Ashcombe had been helping your parents in their… experimentations, but she wasn’t there when your parents died, at least not at first. However, she stumbled upon me shortly after I killed them.
She made a deal with me that she wouldn’t say anything about what I’d done as long as I found the cure to Moonrot before she got so sick she couldn’t perform her duties on the council.
I assume she’d neared death to the point that she decided the agreement was void.
Mrs. Trent told me about the text she sent out to the council in search of your number, Darcy, and I realized what she was up to. ”
“So you killed her, too,” Lizzy said.
“I did it for Darcy. The council—well, they aren’t fully behind him.
If what I did to Darcy’s parents came out, I’d lose my place as regent, and if Darcy didn’t have enough of the council to back him, then he might not be king.
” He looked at me almost pleadingly. “In a few weeks when he turns twenty-eight and ascends the throne, this would all be over, but until then, I had to make sure you’d become king. Clara would have ruined everything.”
My stomach churned at the manner he justified his actions on my behalf. “You knew I wouldn’t keep it a secret if I found out.”
“You’re too noble,” he agreed. “So I took it upon myself to protect you. I went to a nearby airport and drove into town. It didn’t take me long to find she was staying at the Hearthside House Inn. I glamoured myself to appear as one of the workers and went to her room where I poisoned her.”
Just like that, he’d poisoned her. But Clara Ashcombe’s murder had only been to cover up the original murders he’d committed. My parents.
“Why?” I said, my voice carefully devoid of emotion. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill my parents?”
My uncle’s face filled with sad compassion. “Your parents weren’t as progressive as you or Georgiana,” Uncle sighed. “They held on to the old beliefs. That werewolves, vampires, and even witches constituted the wickedness of society, and that if they mingled with fae, it would decrease our power.”
“I know that.” I glanced at Lizzy, who sat very still.
While I was never as extreme as my parents, their attitude had affected my views of a potential relationship with Lizzy.
It had taken time to root out the lasting effects of their prejudice.
Lizzy had made me recognize the extent of my need to change.
She scowled. “That’s no reason to kill them.”
Uncle ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t have a choice. You see, your parents wanted to take away the magic powers of other magical races. In order to do that, they experimented with wild magic and—something went terribly wrong.”
Uncle was there through it all to guide us through the aftermath of my parents’ passings, and now, he was confessing to everything. I forced myself to ask the next question. “What happened?”
“The wild magic they tried rebounded and exploded.”
“You sensed their experiment,” I said, reimagining that night through Uncle’s eyes. My uncle possessed a strong ability to sense magical energy.
He nodded, his gaze sorrowful, his shoulders a little hunched. “I’d seen magical curses before, though none this powerful, this dark. I knew it would be bad. I knew people would die. A lot of people.”
“And you murdered them?” Lizzy gripped my hand, her blue eyes wide with horror.
He looked between us with something like regret and resolve flickering across his expression.
“Sometimes when the caster of a curse dies, the curse dies with them. The moment I felt the dark energy go out, I knew what I had to do. I phoned a former witch friend and purchased the thornlace potion. I understood that a fae coroner wasn’t trained to find minor signs of witch magic.
Using my powers, I traced the source of the curse to your parents.
So… you see, I had no other option. I needed to kill them to try to stop the curse before it was too late. ”
“You touched them with the potion,” Lizzy whispered.
“I put on gloves and poured some thornlace on them. One touch did it for both of them. After that, it was simple to use my powers to lift their bodies into their car and animate it to drive at a rather high speed for a bit. When my magic wore off, the winding, mostly deserted road I sent them driving on would do the rest.”
A faint buzzing began in my head, growing louder as the truth settled like ice in my veins. All this time, I’d believed Moonrot was the consequence of someone killing my parents. But I’d been so impossibly wrong. It wasn’t born from their deaths.
The curse had been created because of my parents.
“But it didn’t stop the curse.” Lizzy whispered.
Uncle shook his head and sighed. “No. I was too late. The damage was already done.”
I was back at the night I’d found out the news of my parents’ death all over again. The initial belief that I was in a nightmare, followed by the numbing disbelief, the thought that this had to be a huge misunderstanding, and the horrifying realization this was terrifyingly real… and permanent.
My world was crashing to pieces. “You’re saying my parents created Moonrot.” I held Lizzy’s hand like a lifeline even though the buzzing in my ears and deadness in my chest only increased.
“All of the patients I’ve examined have the same magical energy of the curse your parents released.” Uncle watched me carefully.
“And do you have any idea of how to cure it?” Lizzy asked.
“No. Nothing any of the fae healers have done has worked.” He reached out to comfort me. “This is a lot, and I’ll step down from my position as king regent, and you can take the throne.”
I pressed the button so that the soundproof wall between us and the driver retracted. “Pull over.”
Pain showed on my uncle’s face. “Son, please.”
“Pull over now.”
The limo swerved to the side of the road, and I burst out of the car, walking out into the trees with no idea where I was going.
I heard Lizzy’s voice behind me. “I think we’ll walk into town. It’s not far. We’ll be in touch.” Her feet crunched in the snow. “Darcy… Darcy, stop, you’re going the wrong way.”
I halted and spun toward her. “Lizzy, do you understand? Your father is sick because of what my parents did. He may die because of what my parents did.” So many years they’d talked about public image and being good enough for the throne, and they’d been the greatest hypocrites of all. Agony slashed through my heart.
“I do understand. But Darcy, that doesn’t make it your fault. Maybe now that we know how it started, we can figure out how to fix it. Come”—she held out a hand—“walk with me. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”
I stared at her offered hand, knowing it meant more than a sign of comfort.
For all the times I’d pulled away from Lizzy due to her family, she refused to do the same to me.
I didn’t know what to say. Somehow I’d messed things up so badly I’d lost my chances with an angel.
I swallowed back the pain and took her hand, letting the warmth, the touch ground me. She led me toward town.
After a few minutes of silence, she said softly, “I wish there was something I could say to help.”
I shook my head. “You being here is enough.”
“How could it be enough after all you’ve done for me? You confronted your uncle even though you knew it might reveal a terrible secret. Throughout everything, you’ve only been thinking about how to help me and my father, no matter the cost to you.”
We continued to move through the trees toward town. With the branches above gently swaying and Lizzy’s constant presence, it restored some level of clarity to my mind and cleared out some of the turmoil.
“I need to make restitution for my parents. I need to tell the people the truth and save your father and everyone who’s sick with Moonrot.” I tipped my face toward the sky, letting the drifting snow land on my skin and cool the raging emotions inside of me. “There has to be a way.”
“But how do we find it? We’ve hit another dead end.” Lizzy’s voice was filled with frustration. “Everything we attempted has never worked.”
That wasn’t quite right. “I received a text from Charles about an unconventional remedy that he’d tried with Jane. She’d offered your father a tonic, and Charles used his healing power. It temporarily improved Mr. Bennet.”
“Yes, but it was only that—temporary.”
It was possible they’d been on the correct course. “Everything you’ve tried other than that has either been one or the other, right? A fae remedy or a witch remedy?”
“Right,” she said, her face lighting up a little. “But what Charles and Jane did was different. They united magic that isn’t usually combined.”
“If the curse went out to the pure-blood fae as a consequence because my parents tried to steal the magic of other races,” I said slowly, the idea taking hold in my mind. “What if the magic of the other races, combined into one remedy, heals those with Moonrot?”
Lizzy looked thoughtful. “That could be worth trying. It’s certainly not a method we or anyone would have attempted.”
I gave her a gentle smile. “Then how about we try something new?”