11. Chapter 11
Willow
Christof kept dusting around me. It had become pretty obvious he was tasked to keep an eye on me when Liam wasn’t around because there wasn’t a speck of dust on anything in the mansion, ever. “I see we’ve moved down the family tree.”
The woman’s portrait was something of a dream.
Her beauty was not of this earth. She sat posed by a window, with her pale blond hair propped up tightly against her head, pinned back with pearls.
Her eyes, staring away from the painter, were coloured with so many shades of green.
She had a face full of soft, delicate features that reminded me of someone.
Whoever that spectre that had saved me that day was, they’d been attached to this portrait.
After days of searching through the mansion for her again, I’d returned to her, day after day—alas, fruitlessly, because not a shadow had flickered.
A spectre was only as violent as their death.
Whatever had happened to her, it had been painful, slow and agonising.
“Who is she?”
There was a little bit of hesitation before he answered, “His lordship’s mother. Lady Agatha Duncan.”
My feet slipped a small step back as his grandmother’s words came back to me. The woman in the portrait didn’t look like a loveless mother. She looked lost, terrified. The brush strokes bled with agony. Whoever had painted her had known her and her pains well.
But that night…she had warned me, she’d guided us to safety, she was part of the reason Piper and I were still alive. How could she be a loveless mother?
She’d also asked me to leave him—begged me to. Not to save me—it had been to save him from me. But if she’d wanted to hurt me like Cassandra, why had she helped me escape? To save Piper? Ugh. If I could gnaw through my own thumping brain, I would.
“Why is his mother’s portrait covered?”
Christof’s useless dusting had moved closer to me. “She had all her portraits burned sometime before she died. The children hid this one, and their father let them keep it after she died. His only condition was that it had to be covered.”
“He’s dead.”
“Logan respects the wishes of the dead.”
“The dead sometimes deserve some disrespect.”
“Something in your area of expertise, I assume.”
“No clue what you’re on about.”
“Mhm,” he hummed, brushing the duster over my head before moving to another vase.
“How did she die?”
“Better to ask your husband.”
With an annoyed sigh, I crouched down to the candles I'd been lighting for days under the painting. I took out the lighter I’d stolen from his office and lit each candle’s wick. When Christof was out of earshot, I murmured, “I hope whatever keeps you bound here sets you free.”
Some type of ruckus had gathered at the garden entrance, dragging my attention downstairs despite my severe persistence to avoid him at all costs. Each time I conjured his face, her face came up next.
Henry was pacing back and forth on the gravelled path while Logan and Arthur sat on the stairs side by side with their heads lowered between their knees.
It was way too deep into the night to be this awake and distressed.
The cicadas had already exhausted their song, and the moon hid behind a thicket of clouds.
“The Basilica can’t do the work of the royal guard,” Henry said. “It is absurd to think this Madness can evaporate by drowning the infected in saintly water. The parliament can’t just demote the royal guard to stand by and let this be handled by senile acolytes armed with water and salt!”
Arthur shook his lowered head. “This is just the exarch’s plan of paving his way into the parliament.
They won’t fall for his crap. Right?” he asked, staring at my silent husband.
“We can’t let them take control of the situation.
The infection will spread again the moment we stop hunting it down.
The clergy does not have the manpower to contain this, let alone take it down. ”
They’d appointed the clergy to handle the infected?
Henry wouldn’t stop pacing. “Does Ulric even know what he’s done in voting for this?
The exarch has been praying for the day worms will eat through his rotten heart since the moment Ulric sat on that throne three hundred years ago.
Does he know that if the exarch succeeds in handling this he’ll be dethroned and his crown will be put on the exarch’s head? ”
Arthur’s head fell even lower as he rubbed his temple.
“He probably knows that the exarch will fail. Ulric’s waiting for the infected to run down our streets because he knows Logan would rather die than let it happen.
He’s doing it to pressure Logan,” he sighed in defeat.
“He knows the only way for Logan to step up and assume control of the Madness is if he accepts his deal to take the thro—”
“Yes, Willow?” my husband said, interrupting his friend.
Two pairs of metallic eyes found me standing by the garden entrance.
I’d not spoken to him since that night with Irena. When he’d come home, I’d left. When he’d seen me, I’d pretend not to notice him. When he’d called for me, I’d acted as if I’d not heard him.
“You should let me help.”
My husband finally turned to glance at me over his shoulder, his eyes falling down my lightly-clothed body before he got to his feet.
I stepped closer. “I can help. If you just let me see one of the infected, at least.”
Arthur shook his head, pointing for me to get back inside and mouthing, Not a good time.
Logan must have noticed me staring at his friend because he glanced between us with a pointed frown. He angled his whole body in my direction to cover Arthur as he took a smooth drag from his cigarette and commanded me, “Go back inside.”
“I think I’ll stay right here until you hear me out.”
He crossed the space between us in very few steps. Setting the cigarette between his lips, he shed his jacket and threw it around my shoulders. “I think I paid for a few dozen dresses for you to wear.”
I pushed my arms through his jacket sleeves. “You paid for this chemise, too.”
He took another drag of his cigarette, rolling his eyes down my body and then reaching for his pocketbook, pulling out a few sterling bills and shoving them in the jacket breast pocket. “Put on a dress.”
I lifted a palm up in his face. “Throw in some more and I might even put a corset under it.”
His eyes gleamed under the lantern light as he put the pocketbook back in his pocket. “Just the dress is fine.”
“You’ll think about it?” I asked. “My offer.”
Say yes, say yes. I had this itchy notion that this Madness was somehow related to the dead red maidens. Even if it was a very, very loose thread to grasp, I had to grasp it. I had nothing else right now. And Ethel’s life hung on it.
He blinked slowly as his eyes paced between mine. “Why do you think we need your help?”
“Because you need to burn them.”
He stuck a hand in his pants pocket, brows furrowing as he waited for me to elaborate.
“Parasites, viruses, bacteria; none can inhabit and control the human body the way this ‘infection’ does. It is simply, biologically impossible. And we saw it that night how that vampire turned in a matter of seconds after the bite—the time of exposure is unexplainable. Where are the symptoms? Why is the body not reacting to it? Fighting it? Biology might not allow it, but chaos can. It could well be nature turning on itself, but what if it is not? Why’s the exarch so sure he can fix this with holy means? Maybe he knows something.”
Cicadas echoed loudly across the dry parterre, awake again and curious. I could taste the coming summer thunder on my tongue from how thick the static was in those few empty, silent moments as he took everything in.
“And you’d accept pointing fingers at your own kind?”
“We aren’t all saints.”
He released a slow sigh. “What would Agnes say if she knew one of her witches was working with a vampire, maybe against one of her own?”
“I’d tell her you held a gun up to my head and forced me to do it. That everyone is right in what they say about you.”
“And what do they say about me?”
I plucked the cigarette from his hand. “I’ll come up with something if the situation truly requires it. I have a very rich imagination.”
“And in return?”
“In return what?” I asked, handing him the cigarette and trying not to cough as I blew the smoke out of my lungs.
“What is it that you want in return?”
I was a little struck by his reply, my mouth opening and closing without words for a few moments.
“Freedom to snoop around. You know I am up to something. And I won’t involve you.
I won’t ask you about anything, or for your help.
I won’t put you in a position where you’d be an active participant in my investigation.
It’s probably in your best interest that you don’t know what I’m doing, right? ”
He blew a cloud of smoke above us. “Something Agnes asked you to do?”
“Something I need to do.” Yes, Agnes had sent me here, but I accepted it to save Ethel. This was personal. No matter who was involved.
I reached into his jacket pocket, grabbing his pocketbook and pulling a few bills from it before sticking it back in his pocket. “In case you want me to put on drawers, too.”
The tip of his tongue was pressed against his fang as he stared down at me. “Why do you like provoking me?”
“Why do you like me so heavily dressed in this blistering heat?”
He tipped his head back, giving me a dark look. “Why do you like walking around the house half naked?”
I bit down on my half-victorious smile. “You’ll think about it. Say it.”
He exhaled another dark cloud of smoke. “I’ll think about it.”
“You’re sort of easy.”
He leaned in closely, murmuring against my ear, “And you have five seconds to get your ass back inside and put some clothes on if you don’t want your friend Arthur to lose an eye tonight.”
I got on my toes to peek over his shoulder.
Surely not.
“Five, four—”
I turned around and ran inside.