Chapter Thirty-One
Arden had known Aunt Phi was dying almost from the moment he met her, but as soon as she collapsed in his arms, her face slack and her eyes closed, the world stopped.
He didn’t care about his wet, ripped suit or his scraped knuckles or Thaddeus Mayles and the threat of police—all he cared about was his aunt.
He scooped her limp body into his arms, one hand sliding beneath her knees, the other cradling her upper back, her head lolling against his chest.
“I’ll find the Ruteledges,” Oriana said, her voice breaking as she hurried past Arden, back toward the ballroom.
Arden briefly considered stopping her—he didn’t need the Ruteledges to tell him what was happening, that the time had come. He sensed it in his bones. But he let Oriana go—if there was a chance that they could help, that they could make his aunt even slightly more comfortable, he would take it.
He started toward the stairs, belatedly realizing that Mavis was there, at his elbow. “What can I do, Arden?” she asked him quietly.
Arden couldn’t bring himself to look at her—there was too much between them, too many questions and answers unspoken, and he worried they would all spill out, and with his aunt in his arms, her breathing stilted and heartbeat weak, he couldn’t allow that now.
“Go.” The word was wrenched from his chest. “Quickly, before Thaddeus returns.”
Mavis followed him up the grand staircase. “No,” she said quietly.
Arden shook his head. “Please, Mavis—forget the betrothal mark. I’ll handle that, I swear it, just leave now.”
She lingered on the steps while he hurried ahead, but by the time he reached the second floor, she was beside him again, her hand a featherlight touch on his back.
“I’m done running, Arden. So I’ll ask you once more—what can I do?”
Arden looked at her then. Even in the low light of the corridor, her emerald eyes blazed bright and defiant, her full mouth pressed into a firm line.
Rafe was right; she was too stubborn for her own good, but just then, Arden couldn’t bring himself to be anything other than grateful for it, selfish as that made him.
He couldn’t convince her to run, and by now he knew better than to try, so he gave her the only answer he could.
“Just . . . stay with me?”
Mavis held his gaze and nodded, and as he continued down the corridor that led to his aunt’s bedroom, her hand remained at the small of his back, the only anchor in the tempestuous sea that threatened to swallow him whole.
Mavis felt helpless as she sat perched on the small sofa in the corner of Mrs. Gellis’s room while Belinda Ruteledge and her sons checked the woman’s vitals and whispered to one another and a maid adjusted her pillow while Arden hovered nearby with his expression drawn and hands clasped tight behind his back.
Mrs. Gellis was still dressed in her crimson gown—Arden said she insisted on it—but Mavis had at least loosened the laces before tucking her into bed.
Helpless was a feeling Mavis tried to avoid at all costs.
After her childhood in the Low City, she had enough helplessness to last her a lifetime—several, in fact.
But even as the urge to run rose in her chest, Mavis stayed.
Every so often, Arden would glance her way, and when his eyes met hers, the tension in his shoulders would soften slightly, and Mavis felt like maybe she wasn’t entirely helpless after all.
Even though she couldn’t hear exactly what the Ruteledges said to Arden, their downcast eyes and the way Belinda Ruteledge gave Arden’s shoulder a squeeze before they left told her the prognosis wasn’t good.
The maid left too, with a bobbed curtsy and an offer to bring refreshments, which Arden waved away.
When only the three of them remained, Arden collapsed on the sofa beside Mavis, as if all the strength went out of him at once, and he buried his face in his hands.
Mavis didn’t know what to do, only what she wanted to do, so she reached for him and laid her hand on his back. “I’m sorry, Arden,” she said quietly, rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades.
“There is nothing to do but make her comfortable. We’re at the end, now.
They said she might regain consciousness before she goes, but she might not.
” He paused, shaking his head. “How awful am I for wondering if it might be better if she didn’t?
How can I possibly explain . . .” He trailed off, his words swallowed by a sigh.
He sat up slowly, turning his attention to her.
“What did she mean? When she said it was always you.”
A lump rose in Mavis’s throat, but she swallowed past it. “Just before we heard Oriana scream, she said she believed you never stopped loving me—well, not me. She meant Arabella, but I think in that last moment, she realized the truth.”
“The truth,” Arden repeated, like he was tasting the phrase for the first time. “I’m not sure I know what that is anymore.”
A fist clenched around Mavis’s heart, and she went still, her hand ceasing its circles on his back. For a long while, she said nothing, but finally she gave him the three words she knew were long overdue.
“I’m sorry, Arden.”
It was the second apology she’d given in the space of a few hours, the second time she meant it in longer than she could remember.
She wasn’t sorry for anything that happened five years ago—she meant it when she told him that she had no regrets about surviving however she could—but there was no denying that the Arden sitting beside her was a changed man from the one she met in Strall.
He was harder, more jaded, less open, and she’d caused it. That, she did regret.
“Do you remember what you said to me, the night I found you again in Montenari’s?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “Truth is an illusion. All that matters is what people believe. You were right.”
Gods of Old, had she really said that? Before she could take the words back, he continued, dark-blue eyes rimmed with red but unwavering on hers.
“I might not know the truth when it comes to you, Mavis, and maybe I never really will, but I believe that underneath all the lies, all the illusions, all the aliases and artifice, is a woman who is brave, and beautiful, and unfaltering in her loyalty to those lucky enough to earn it. A woman who might never be called nice, but one who is kind and would walk through an inferno to protect those she loves. A woman who deserves to be loved just as fiercely even if she doesn’t see it.
I believe that I love you, every facet, every version, every angle. And do you know what else I believe?”
Once again, his words unraveled her, but this time she didn’t fear the unraveling. She welcomed it.
“What?” she whispered.
Arden took her hand in his, pressing his palm against hers and lacing their fingers tight. It didn’t feel like a vise, Mavis thought, but like a current.
“I believe you love me too, no matter how many times you try to convince me you don’t.”
Mavis closed her eyes tight. When she opened them again, she saw their bound hands, felt his warm strength pouring into her.
“I won’t drag you down with me, Arden,” she said quietly. “When Thaddeus returns—”
“Fuck Thaddeus,” Arden interrupted, the words a growl. “You can’t drag me down anywhere—without you, I can only ever exist in the pits of the underworld. Tell me I’m wrong, Mavis. Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll pretend to believe it.”
Mavis should have done just that, but she couldn’t lie to him. Not about this. Not anymore. Instead, she lifted their joined hands and brushed a kiss over his scraped knuckles and murmured the truth against his skin.
“I love you, Arden.”
She loved him.
It wasn’t that it surprised him to hear it—he meant it when he told her it was the truth he believed in regardless—but hearing those murmured words from Mavis leveled him all the same.
It wasn’t the first time she’d told him that either.
She’d told him she loved him plenty of times as Arabella, and a few days ago just before she’d come apart in his arms, but this was the first time she sounded nervous. Vulnerable.
He knew then without a shadow of a doubt that he had finally peeled away the last piece of Mavis’s hard-won armor.
She was showing him the soft, tender heart of her and giving him the power to crush it—crush her.
He would rather swim across the Icaring Sea in the dead of winter than do so, but knowing he could humbled him.
Mavis trusted so few people in this world, and he was one of them.
That was an honor he would endeavor to spend the rest of his life living up to.
Arden was so caught up in Mavis that he didn’t notice his aunt stir until she cleared her throat, the sound thin and weak but unmistakable.
When he tore his gaze away from Mavis and looked at his aunt, he found her watching him through tired, hazy, dark-blue eyes.
Small and pale, she all but disappeared in the large bed, but even on the edge of death, there was still a cool defiance etched in every line of her face.
“I must confess,” she said, her voice rasping. “I did not expect to find a con artist waiting at my deathbed.”
Arden tensed, but Mavis set her hand on his arm. “It’s all right.” She turned toward his aunt. “I know who I am, Mrs. Gellis, though I am sorry—”
“Yes, yes,” Aunt Phi interrupted, before breaking off into a cough. “I may be dying, Miss Lindcourt—or whoever you are—but my memory is intact.”
A flush worked its way up Mavis’s neck. “Mavis Hale.” She said the name slowly, as if savoring the taste, and Arden wondered how long it had been since she’d introduced herself using it.
“My name is Mavis Hale. I grew up in Strall, in the Low City. My mother worked in a button factory, my father didn’t work at all, unless you count a career of losing at cards.
And yes, I am a con artist. In part because I had few other choices, but also because I’m very good at it, and I enjoy it. Or rather, I did.”
At that, Aunt Phi raised her eyebrow. “Not anymore?”
Mavis shook her head. “It’s lost its appeal. Which is just as well, since Thaddeus Mayles will have me arrested at any moment. You can rest assured, Mrs. Gellis, that I will pay for my crimes.”
Arden didn’t realize he’d tightened his grip on Mavis’s hand until he saw his aunt’s gaze drop to where they were joined. Her lips pursed.
“I do not wish to spend my remaining time talking about that lout,” Aunt Phi said with a sniff before looking to Arden. “When I brought you here, I hoped to salvage the Ryskamp legacy, but you seem determined to make a ruin of it.”
Arden waited for that familiar spike of shame, but it didn’t come this time. “When you asked me what the Ryskamp legacy entailed, do you recall what I said?”
Her lips twisted. “Power. Influence. Strength. Magic.”
“If that is my legacy to ruin, so be it, but I’ll build a new one in its place. A better one.” He squeezed Mavis’s hand. “We’ll build it together.”
His aunt’s eyes softened. “It will be a difficult road, for both of you. Luster society will shun you, any children you may have will be Lacks. The Ryskamp magic will die with you, Arden. Can you live with that?”
Mavis began to pull her hand out of his grip, but Arden held fast and didn’t hesitate.
“Yes. Should I bring children into this world, I would rather them have Mavis’s wit, her stubbornness, her eyes, than my magic.
” Mavis’s hand relaxed in his again, but Arden kept his attention on his aunt.
“And I know I’ve failed to meet your challenge, Aunt, but that’s all right.
I don’t want your fortune, not anymore. My only regret is in disappointing you. ”
For a long while, Aunt Phi didn’t speak, the only sound in the room her slow, rasping breath.
“Miss Hale?” She looked to Mavis. “I’ve changed my mind—you may tell my foolish nephew what I think of him after all.”
Mavis frowned, bemusement creasing her forehead, then understanding dawned, and she gave a small, thin smile as she turned toward him. “Your aunt told me that you’re a good man, Arden. And a credit to her in every way.”
Arden’s throat tightened and his eyes stung, but he refused to let a single tear fall. He owed that much to his aunt.
“That is quite enough sentimentality,” his aunt said, shifting uncomfortably as she smoothed the quilt out around her.
“Loath as I am to spend another moment thinking about Thaddeus Mayles, the Ryskamp name will have enough scandals to weather in the coming days without my future niece being arrested. You do intend to marry her, don’t you, Arden? ”
“As soon as she’ll have me.” Arden glanced at Mavis, whose smile widened.
Before she could reply, Aunt Phi spoke again. “Then as far as I’m concerned, Miss Hale, you are a Ryskamp, and whatever else people might think, I will not have it said that we Ryskamps do not protect our own.”
Mavis shook her head. “As much as I appreciate that, Mrs. Gellis, it’s Thaddeus’s word against mine, and without my bracelet . . .”
“And here I thought you were witty and stubborn—don’t make a liar of my nephew so soon after he made a speech worthy of one of Ms. Symone’s novels. Now, I do hope Oriana hasn’t left yet. We’re going to need her. And, Mavis? Call me Aunt Phi.”