32. Sound of Palatino #2
“You don’t stay married to a Sheffolk woman for fifty years without learning how to see through tradition.” One wrinkled hand lifts to grip a jamb, and he squeezes like the wood speaks to him. “Redford is nothing but… old pain.”
“Seems manageable enough.”
“That’s what I once told myself. But things here are strange; you’ve gathered that much, haven’t you?”
I have , but apparently, the correct reaction, one that everyone seems to have, is to turn the other way.
I’ve spent the last few hours mapping Francesca’s bruises in my head, yet here stands her grandfather mumbling like a toddler into his sleeve.
Say it out loud. The unwillingness to name the unease reeks of negligence.
Is it cowardice to tiptoe around the elephant in the room or confidence that everything will work out just fine? Considering he’s married to Sylvaine, I assume it’s the latter.
“It’s certainly nothing like what I’ve ever experienced before,” is what I say instead.
“Good, I would hate to think this place is going soft.”
Just when I think he’s going to leave me with that vague dismissal, he adds, “I’ve noticed you’ve spent a lot of time staring at her.” If the pause is meant to unsettle me, it doesn’t, and he faces me fully with an amused little quirk to his lips. “The statue, that is.”
Finally , we’re done following the blasted script. I staple impassivity onto my face despite relief striking behind my ribs. If he wants to begin the excavation, let him dig first.
“Some things here insist on being looked at, I suppose.”
“Hm, I’ve been visiting Redford since I was seven years old, but it wasn’t until after my eighteenth, I think, that she wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d feel her calling; I couldn’t even tell you why, really, just felt like she had something for me.”
My ego takes a hit. “Seems the Keybearer’s been flirting with others before me.”
He barks out another laugh, and when the sound dies down, his gaze cuts me with the kind of gratification men give when they recognise an old habit wearing a new face.
“Yeah, Sylvaine told me not to feel special either. Said that almost every Sheffolk suitor finds themselves drawn to it. Not all, but enough for the women to have kept count.”
That word makes static detonate inside my head. Suitor. Me . I had to have hallucinated that, but his mouth shaped the vowels. All five letters latch onto my neck like a mosquito bite I’m itching to scratch.
I give him nothing but a dry murmur. “Interesting, so that would mean everyone that looks would be looking for marriage?”
His left eye twitches like it wants to wink without being commanded.
“If that were true, the Keybearer would be wearing my ring by now, but alas, she never wanted me. Though, despite her interest in me having waned, I can’t shake the feeling—hypothetically, of course—that I walked away from her with something I shouldn’t have.
A kind of theft you’ve got nobody to report to. ”
Unless Sheffolk has a ghostly police force and Lady Redford herself presides over a jury of twelve deceased aunts, I doubt anybody would give a fuck about a statue’s contents being pilfered.
Nobody’s filing any reports, and the worst punishment I can come up with is eternal side-eye from a slab of stone.
I pretend to think it through. “Then—hypothetically, of course—that was incredibly disrespectful. Instead of leaving her hand empty, you could’ve at least left a calling card.”
A beat. “Empty, was it?”
“Hypothetically.” I shrug, and that grants me the briefest frown known to man before he pretends to consider the hole in the ceiling he’s never noticed before.
Brilliant .
If the old man’s banking on my patience to fray, he should’ve brought a blanket and urinary catheter. I grew up the twin brother of Kairos Atherbourne, who learned early he could weaponise my curiosity.
At age fifteen, I sat through his four-hour ‘seminar’ on how clouds are sentient beings who cry whenever planes slice them in half without apologising.
I stayed put, taking notes with my pen as I analysed his fake graph, while he promised to cite sources at the end.
Fucker didn’t even believe his own hypothesis; he just realised I’d listen if he kept building a system.
Even if it was utter bullshit, it was one I could dismantle.
Frank, bless him, has the only real piece on my board hidden behind his teeth, and that’s enough to fuel me for hours.
Despite my quiet vow, however, my body decides to stage a mutiny.
There I am, reaching to undo the top button of my shirt, not out of nerves, but just to give myself something to do.
Except my right cuff slides, and Frank’s eyes drop to the ink on my wrist. A black snake peeks out as though to say hello, drinking from the veins at my pulse.
“Didn’t think a royal would be one to mark himself.”
“The tattoo needed nobody’s permission but mine.”
He smiles down at his shoes a little too easily, and I’ve the aching feeling I genuinely remind him of himself. “Does it drink from something in particular?”
“My silence, which unfortunately means he’s a well-fed little bastard.”
What little amusement he managed to scrape together after the day we’ve had evaporates in one breath. Nicotine haze just gone, and his eyes are clearer than before. I recognise that look—I’ve given that look before— he knows where to sink his teeth. Fuck .
“And silence is particularly important to you?” he asks, like he’s talking about the weather, but whether it rains or not would determine some life-altering event only he’s privy to.
I could overcomplicate this for him the way I did when my father first asked, but the notion doesn’t sit too well with me.
Stinks a little of the need to explain myself; how the unsaid roams around inside my head until I’m heavy with it, how I fold every observation into neat little napkins, trying to remind myself to hand them out only when asked, when needed.
I could tell him silence is my honesty, that strangers hiding behind faceless profile pictures call me callous because they don’t see the banquet happening inside, one where the snake feeds endlessly.
Can’t say all that.
“Yeah,” I answer, almost bored, “S’pose it is.”
He’s already digging, his hand darting to the inside of his suit jacket.
Out comes an expensive leather wallet, through which he frantically searches.
Something slips, and a photo rides the unexpected breeze coming through the windows before landing at my feet.
A breeze that smells like mildew. Frank doesn’t react, so I kneel and flip it over because my restraint only existed before I came here.
Francesca, at age who-the-fuck-knows, stares up at me with a smile showcasing two missing front teeth.
I feel this morning’s breakfast protest. The test wants this child dead.
This girl I’m complicating my life to protect, as though logic can become armour if I try hard enough.
This girl smiling as though she trusts the person behind the camera.
Trust . How absurd. When did that word last hold any true meaning for her?
It feels like Tommy’s leaning over my shoulder. If she could speak, I imagine she’d be saying something along the lines of ‘This is what matters, you idiot. Not your pride. Don’t fuck it up ’.
I brush the photo clean and hand it back without any flourish, yet Frank’s already pushing something else into my hand as he takes it back. A folded paper the size of my palm sits there, tea-stained and so brittle with age that I fear closing my hand would cause it to crumble into dust.
He tucks his wallet away and says, “I’ve carried that for thirty-seven years. Wrong hands. Wrong man. The longer I kept it, the worse the feeling grew.” The air creaks when he exhales, and I realise the door has opened slightly, beckoning him without much choice. “Maybe you’ll get it right.”
The ‘maybe’ doesn’t exactly sound like he has his reservations; he’s already decided he’s right.
Then he pats his breast pocket, right over his heart. “I should probably get back to Sylvaine. Delphine might be arriving soon, and she likes me better than she does her sister.”
The forced laugh makes me internally cringe. He gives St Nic’s one last glance, mournfully eyes his finished cigarette, and gives a polite bow before he steps outside. Tommy departs with him, leaving me standing in what feels like Fate’s Blessed Breath, but it smells of nicotine and old parchment.
I’ve gotten what I wanted: a chess piece, a direct lead from someone in the bloodline; even so, I can’t bring myself to unfold it.
Ridiculous. It’s just a piece of paper. But Frank has held it for thirty-seven years , and now it sits in my hand like a bomb.
Imagine he gave me the wrong thing, and it’s actually a grocery list from aeons ago.
I almost unfold it when footsteps break my contemplation clean in half. Instincts move me, and I stash the paper into my pocket just as the door swings open. Without any effort, the universe rewrites my priorities.
My brain flatlines.
I’m dead.
I know I am.
One moment, I’m standing there, counting down the seconds until I have to go and interact with other humans again, when it happens.
Francesca steps into the building, and I almost tell her to go back.
To fuck right off back into whatever haunted painting she fell out of. She’s watching me and… yeah. Okay.
No.
No, not okay.
What the fuck is this?
A dress , my mind supplies. But it’s not just a dress.
Those sleeves, those fucking medieval sleeves that drape almost to the floor, belong on an elf in Lord of the Rings , not in the twenty-first century.
It’s crushed, midnight blue velvet, almost black, really.
Her skin glows against it, that warm brown softness completely owning this relic