Chapter 3
Nyx
“If you don’t let me carry that bag, Nyx dear, I’m going to think you don’t trust me.”
I give Ivor a petulant look, adjusting the satchel higher on my shoulder before finally surrendering it to him.
The movement sends a dull ache through the bruise along my ribs, and I bite back a wince.
Even a day later, Shaw’s kick still lingers in my body, a deep soreness that seems to pulse all the way up into my skull.
Sleep had been impossible after he and his men finally left our home. Even when exhaustion dragged me under, it had been shallow and restless, my dreams tangled with the sound of splintering wood and Lyra’s frightened wheezing. By dawn, I had already made my decision.
While Lyra still slept, her coughs carrying faintly through the quiet house, I moved from room to room gathering what remained of our family’s valuables.
I searched every hidden place my mother had ever shown me: the loose floorboard beneath her dressing table, the false back of my father’s desk drawer, the hollowed stone tucked behind books in the library.
One by one, I collected my mother’s jewelry, my father’s pocket watch, silver hair combs, cufflinks, and every other piece that might still carry enough worth to matter.
Once everything was packed into the satchel, I charmed the clasp so only I could open it.
It had not been enough.
The banks would be kinder with our repayment. They might give us time to turn things around with our crops and our livestock. With their money, we could repay our debtors, invest in our lands, and slowly pay off the new loans.
If we could just get approved.
We’d met Master Elloway’s carriage outside the city gates, exactly as I had hoped. The banker had been making his rounds through the neighboring holdings, and I had taken our chance, stepping directly into the road with Ivor at my side.
To his credit, Master Elloway had not looked irritated by the interruption. The moment he recognized me, he had climbed down from his carriage himself, bowing his head with all the respect due the Nocturne name.
“Lady Nyx,” he’d said, his lined face full of concern. “Had I known you were coming, I would have received you properly.”
I had explained everything as plainly as I could.
The debt. The valuables. The need for a loan against our family’s remaining assets.
He had inspected each item carefully, turning my father’s watch over in his hands, studying the stones set into my mother’s rings.
For several terrible minutes, hope had begun to creep into me.
When he finally looked up, his expression had been gentle enough to make the refusal worse.
“Your family’s name still carries great honor,” he’d said quietly. “If respect alone could secure a loan, Lady Nyx, I would approve it this instant.”
The shame of standing there while he chose his next words still burns hotter than the bruise on my ribs.
“But no sum I could offer would solve this. The curse upon your lands has already reduced your yields for many seasons. Until that changes, repayment is impossible. To approve such a loan would only delay the inevitable, and place both our houses in jeopardy.”
He had bowed again before leaving, his apology sincere.
The satchel now bounces against Ivor’s side as we make our way back along the dirt path toward home. Not that I feel as stressed about our valuables being left in the open. According to Master Elloway, our family’s treasures are not worth the risk of investing in cursed land.
Although that is not entirely true. The pieces have value enough. The truth is that no one wishes to wager against the will of the gods.
“Just by that wrinkle between your eyes, I know you’re muddling around in that head of yours,” Ivor says, reaching over to brush a hand across my shoulder.
I blink against the sting behind my eyes. There is a painful familiarity in the gesture, one that reminds me too much of my father. My body feels starved for comfort these days, for the kind of reassurance that only parents ever seem able to give.
“I am,” I admit, glancing over at him. “But what else is there to do? If we cannot get out from under this debt, Lyra will…”
The words die before I can force them out.
Ivor does not need me to finish. He was there last night. He heard Shaw’s threat as clearly as I did. When those men return, they will not be interested in candlesticks and serving trays.
They will come for my sister and me.
“Do you know something?” Ivor asks, his voice low and thoughtful, the sort of tone that always means he is about to offer hard earned wisdom whether I asked for it or not. “Hilda and I have been propositioned by the Dowers at least twice this year.”
I blink at him, startled enough to forget my spiraling thoughts. “That cannot be so.”
He glances over, his pale blue eyes bright with amusement. “And why not?”
“Because the Dowers are dreadful,” I say at once, earning a bark of laughter from him. “And because they could have their pick of servants from half the holdings in this region.”
“Well, now you wound me.” He presses a hand dramatically to his chest. “Here I thought my carriage driving alone made me irresistible.”
Despite everything weighing on me, a small laugh escapes.
It is true enough. Ivor had once been one of the finest carriage men in the county.
Even now, with his shoulders bent by age and his hair gone nearly white, he still carries himself with a certain sharpness that hints at the capable young man he must have once been.
But there is no carriage left for him to drive.
Selling ours had been one of the first desperate measures after my parents died, and part of the reason we now walk this long road instead of making the journey in comfort.
His smile softens. “Truthfully, it’s Hilda’s bread pudding they want. Mrs. Dower had it at your mother’s Solmara feast years ago and has been trying to lure her away ever since.”
I study him, unable to quite understand. “Then why stay?”
Once I speak the question aloud, I can’t stop considering it.
I know how little we can offer them now.
A room. Simple meals. A house that grows colder and barer with each passing season.
They could live more comfortably elsewhere, with proper wages and fewer worries.
There are days I think the kindest thing I could do would be to release them from us entirely.
Ivor slows, then steps into my path so I am forced to stop.
The breeze stirs the edges of his coat, carrying with it the familiar sharp scent of spearmint soap and fresh earth. It’s a smell I’ve associated with safety since childhood, since scraped knees and thunderstorms and all the moments he was there to quietly set things right.
“Because,” he says, fixing me with a look so earnest it makes my throat tighten, “your parents were good people. You and your sister are good people. Hilda and I would rather spend what years we have left beside people of character than serving spoiled little lords who have never suffered enough to learn gratitude.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he raises a hand.
“No, let me finish. Your family name still means something. Do not mistake hardship for disgrace, Lady Nyx. There is a reason Valtor cursed your house.” His voice lowers, as though even here the god might overhear us.
“A curse from that creature is no mark of shame. It is proof your mother stood for something worth punishing.”
I know he’s right. My mother’s refusal had been brave. Noble.
“Always something brewing in that head of yours,” Ivor murmurs, tapping the center of my forehead with one finger.
I swat his hand away, and this time my laugh comes easier.
“You know the crop yields have been worse this year,” I say, the humor fading.
“Even if we had secured the loan, what then? We couldn’t repay it.
The eastern fields barely produced enough barley to fill half the granary.
The lower orchards gave almost nothing. If the autumn harvest is as poor as summer’s was… ”
I don’t finish.
I don’t need to.
Ivor’s expression turns solemn. He looks out across the rolling fields stretching beyond the road, all green from a distance. Healthy enough to fool anyone who doesn’t know better.
“I know,” he says quietly. “The farmers know too.”
That startles me. “They do?”
He nods. “They aren’t blind, child. They see what the land gives. They know what your family has already sacrificed to keep food in their homes. Not one of them believes you’ve failed them.”
A lump rises in my throat.
I think of the tenant families scattered across our lands. The children who once played in our gardens during festivals. The men and women who danced in our ballroom during Pantheora. The faces that had filled our home with laughter before grief hollowed it out.
“As the heir, it is my responsibility to keep them fed,” I whisper.
“And you’re trying.” Ivor’s voice is firm enough to stop my spiraling thoughts. “That’s what matters. No one expects miracles from you, Nyx. They expect honesty, effort, and heart. You have all three.”
We continue on for a while in silence. Me, wishing to be as hopeful as he is, but having too much knowledge to do so. The path ahead bends, cresting the familiar hill before the manor.
I draw a slow breath, trying to let his certainty steady me. There has to be another answer. Some solution hidden in my mother’s journals, or buried in old records, waiting to be uncovered.
I am beginning to turn that thought over when the roofline of our home rises into view. A faint echo of screams rolls toward us, and I can only just make out several figures at the base of the stairs leading to the house’s front porch.
And with those figures, I clearly see the lilac kick of Lyra’s skirts, creating a wave of color in the air. One of the men is lifting her off her feet.
“Lyra!”
The pain in my ribs flares white hot as I bolt forward, gathering my skirts in both hands. Logic vanishes beneath the thunder of my pulse.