Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
- MARCELLA -
“Girls, I hate to inform you of some rather unpleasant news. But, two ladies have fallen ill since our dinner last night. If you feel off at all over the course of the next twenty-four hours, please report to me immediately. Both girls have been taken to the infirmary and are under quarantine while our doctors tend to them. Please do not enter the infirmary, as we don’t wish to spread the sickness,” Lady Bethany announces the next morning.
I slowly set down my fork, the warmth draining from my face. When I returned to my room last night, as I crept through the window, I could have sworn I heard a woman’s scream.
I immediately flick a side glance to Lyra on my right. We have barely started breakfast, but my appetite immediately vanishes. Lady Bethany also told everyone we were sick. And we weren’t.
“Do they know what their illness is?” Stella asks from further down the table, her eyes wide.
“Not at the moment, no. Which is why it’s important to keep them contained in the event it is highly contagious.” Lady Bethany’s voice is tight with seriousness.
We all fall quiet, eventually returning to eating our meals. After we are led through an etiquette lesson and then dismissed for free time, half the women split for the gardens and the others for the library.
I pull Lyra aside after we walk to the gardens. “Did you hear a scream last night after I left?”
Her thin brows pinch. “No, why?”
I stretch my neck to look behind her and make sure no one else is within earshot before dipping my head to whisper, “As soon as I got back, I could have sworn I heard a woman’s scream.”
“And…” She sucks in a breath. “You think it was…what?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. But I find it wildly suspicious that no dinner bell rang last night, I heard a scream, and two women are suddenly sick. You do remember when she told everyone else we were sick, right?”
Her doe eyes round. “Yes, of course I do.”
I tilt my head to the side before straightening.
“Ahh, there you girls are!” Aelia bumbles through the path, a wide smile on her face. “I saw you two slip into the gardens, but then you disappeared!”
“I was just showing her the dahlias,” Lyra smiles back and motions behind us toward a flower bed bursting with light pink flowers. “She mentioned it was one of her favorite flowers.”
“Is that so?” Aelia looks at me, still smiling.
I’m not sure if Aelia’s genuinely this bubbly, or faking it. Either way, it makes me uncomfortable having someone so distant from me being so kind to me. Despite her not knowing my role here, it makes me feel like she wants something from me.
I pull up a smile to mirror her. “Yes, my mother’s, too. The soil in Millton is quite rugged. But my father, back when he was alive, used to travel to Everden to collect them and bring them back for my mother whenever he could.”
I’m not really sure what they were, but they definitely weren’t dahlias.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father…” Aelia’s smile falls. “It's been only my mother and me since I was young—my father passed when I was a child. My grandmother stepped in, too, when my mother had to work. But otherwise…” She shrugs with a sigh.
I nod. “I’m sorry to hear about your father as well.”
A corner of her mouth tilts up. Lyra leads us further into the gardens to show us more, and I ask questions about Aelia. From the outside, it might look like I’m trying to get to know her. But really, I’m trying to understand if she would be capable of being a traitor.
After we’ve been dismissed from dinner, as I take out my hairpins, a flash of memory sparks.
Of me removing them last time and keeping one to unlock a door.
Unlocking Cyrus’ office. Of scanning his desk and seeing an unfinished letter.
Scratch marks in the wood. The memory within a memory as I remembered the Dark Seer envisioning Cyrus’ assassination.
With a sigh, I look at myself in the mirror.
I need to speak with him.
I didn’t find any further information about Aelia earlier to tip me off as to whether she could be a possible assassin. But something about her still has me apprehensive. Even if Lyra tries to convince me she isn’t suspicious.
Lyra’s been questioning whether Cyrus’ Dark Seer actually interpreted the vision correctly.
In which case, it would be both a good and bad thing if the Dark Seer was wrong.
Good, because no one here is trying to kill the King.
Bad, I no longer would have a solid reason for Cyrus to pardon my brother.
Unless, of course…my deal with Lyra comes to fruition.
I slip off my heels, lowering my feet to the cold marble floors. And then I’m out of the room, creeping down the darkened halls. I have maybe an hour before I need to meet Lyra. And another two hours before I anticipate the bell ringing.
As I near the hallway to Cyrus’ office, a fall of footsteps catches my attention. I slip back, flattening myself into the corner that turns into a new hallway.
“There you are. I need you to do me a favor.” Lady Bethany’s voice carries from the other hall, and the footsteps stop.
“Yes?” a woman asks.
I slowly withdraw my dagger from underneath my skirts, edge the blade out, and angle it until I get a sliver of Lady Bethany reflected in the blade.
She plops one dress on top of several others draped over the lady’s maid’s arms. “Take care of these.”
“Right away. Do you need them by a certain time tomorrow?”
“No, I want you to get rid of them.”
In a small voice, the lady’s maid asks, “Just toss them in the trash chute? Or—”
“I want you to burn them,” Lady Bethany replies. Then flicks a hand dismissively while she turns away to walk back the way she came. “Leave nothing behind.”
The lady’s maid blinks, watching Lady Bethany leave before she turns and walks in the opposite direction. I slide my dagger back from the corner. As she passes the hall I’m in, I notice the dresses look darkly stained.
I wait in the silence. Making my move, I creep out from the corner and stop.
On the floor is a trail of small droplets. I crouch down, using the tip of my blade to inspect one. When it comes back dark red, like blood, I wipe it on the side of my dress.
They’re dead. I try to wave off the thought, but the truth is a quiet rumble of a warning. They’re not sick…they’re dead.
Trying to still my racing heart, I slowly push up to my feet. Staring down the direction where Lady Bethany disappeared to—toward the infirmary.
Before I know it, I’m following my painful curiosity. And as I make my way, catching up to Lady Bethany and following her at a safe distance, we reach the infirmary. I hide behind a curtain as she opens the door.
“Well?” she asks someone on the other side before a lady’s maid steps through.
The maid hands her several large glass jars filled to the brim with a dark liquid.
Lyra’s warning echoes in my mind. “Weeks ago when I went to turn you in for stealing that knife, I saw something. We were walking down a hall I hadn’t been down before. There were lady’s maids in a room stockpiling jars of blood. Our blood.”
I almost shake my head, not wanting to accept it. It has to be something else…right?
The lady’s maid and Lady Bethany walk away clutching the jars to their chests. As the door begins to slowly close on its own, I move quickly. Barely making it in time to get a glimpse into the infirmary.
Several maids are bent over two beds, scrubbing the darkly stained mattresses with brushes. The woman’s scream is a haunting ghost within my mind.
Sucking in a breath to steady myself, I make my way back to Cyrus’ office. Finding it, once again, locked.
“What are you doing here?” a deep voice calls behind me.
Swiveling, I find Devin with his smug expression eyeing me up and down.
“Isn’t it obvious?” I motion to the door. “I’m here to meet with Cyrus.”
“And it couldn’t wait until morning?” Devin tilts his head to the side.
“If the other women notice my absence, and especially if they see me slipping off into his office, surely there’ll be questions. So the night is as good a time as any.” I narrow my eyes.
Devin holds my glare, to the point that I drop my hand from the doorknob.
My lips turn up slyly as I dip my head. “Fine, you know what? I’ll just try again in the morning, as you say,” I head for the hall leading back to my room, “and I’ll be sure to let him know that I’ve been refused when I have very important matters to discuss with him—”
“Stop,” Devin hisses from behind me.
I can’t help smiling wider as I turn to look at him over my shoulder. Raising an eyebrow.
Devin rolls his eyes, mumbling under his breath as he walks toward the northern part of the castle. “Fine, come with me, you stubborn weasel.”
I snicker as he leads me down the hallway. Then through the throne room, to the door beyond. We weave through a labyrinth of hallways and corridors, until we’re ascending a grand, golden staircase, and arrive at a set of the most ornate double doors I’ve ever seen.
“Oh, and by the way…he’s in a mood tonight. So try not to mention Johanna,” Devin commands.
I squint at him as he raises a fist. “Johanna…?”
He knocks on it five times as I scan the landing around us. A sort of balcony is on either side, looking down the several flights of stairs we took to get up here.
The door swings open.
Cyrus stands on the other side, light hair falling in tight, dripping waves.
His torso is completely bare—wide-set shoulders framing a carved set of pecs and sculpted abdomen.
Still glistening with water. He’s pulling a towel over himself, and I don’t miss the elegant, naked muscle stretching from his knee up to his hip bone.
My mouth drops open before I snap it shut and look away.
In the corner of my eye, I see he shuffles partway behind the door.
“Mar-Marcella.” His voice is flustered.
Devin, without missing a beat, says, “She stated she had information that couldn’t wait until morning. Shall I escort her to your office?”