32. Sound of Palatino #3
Someone died in that dress, probably Lady Athena as she mourned her poet. It has to be her because my palms are sweating like I’m seeing ankles for the first time, and I’m on the verge of writing a sonnet about it.
That dress is something you wear to a funeral where you’re the one in the casket, for sure.
Or haunting a moor. I look at her collarbones again.
Definitely haunting a moor. The gold trim around her waist should wash her out.
It’s too ceremonial, making it seem like it was designed by Henry the Eighth’s court seamstress or some shit.
I’m waiting for Pascoe to stroll in to tell her the pyre is ready.
That the mob is ready with their pitchforks and accusations, seeking justice against the local witch.
She catches me staring at the trim and starts fidgeting with it like she’s expecting me to laugh.
It’s uneven at her waist now that she’s tugged it.
I have the dumbest urge to fix it for her, but my thoughts are tick-tick-ticking in warning not to touch.
I need to say something, but my mouth is full of teeth, and my brain is glitching, and Francesca Sheffolk is being so unfair standing there in that dress.
Her hand goes to her chest, and I’m only now realising she’s slightly out of breath.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah.” Because what else could I possibly say?
She smiles, and something inside me kneels. Is it because Frank slapped the word ‘suitor’ onto my forehead? Because my body seems to be auditioning for the role without informing me. The door shuts behind her, and I think my sanity doesn’t make it in time because I feel it get locked outside.
“I’ve just come from Susannah’s office; she let me stay there because I told her I needed to hide from Gran for a bit, which was a lie because I really just needed to snoop through her things, and I’m trying so hard not to feel too bad about it right now.”
My mouth aches with the need to smile because she’s rambling, fidgeting with that heirloom around her neck where it lay pressed against blemish-free skin. Seems the foundation came in handy for the bruises.
“Does this have anything to do with your send-and-delete spree?”
Her mouth makes a small ‘o’. “Well, no , but I’ll get to that in a bit, I promise.
It’s just that I asked Susannah about where we get extra staff for events as big as this one, and apparently we don’t hire them individually.
We go through an agency called Staffed Ltd.
, and temp workers get dormed four to a room, right?
” I nod because she’s waiting for one. “ Right , I’m assuming you heard about the mess in dormitory 4A.
According to the report, all occupants—three of them—got high on that preposterous mix, but the roster says there was a fourth occupant named Abe Williams, except Abe was also listed in 10B.
Susannah had a post-it pinned to her desktop calling it an admin hiccup that needs to be ignored, but listen to this?—”
“Francesca,” I interject quietly, and she stills for only a fraction. “ Breathe .”
Her eyes dart to my mouth, eyeing it traitorously as though I were the one to steal the air from her lungs. Then she gives a shaky little inhale, hold, and then exhale. It’s unnervingly and indecently pretty.
When she picks up again, I can barely hear her, and I’m scolding myself because I should be listening better.
Every few seconds I lose my place in the story she’s drafting because she looks up at me like she’s waiting for me to commend her sleuthing, and each time I nod in approval, she gives a pleased laugh.
I almost die. I’ve fuckall idea why Abe suddenly has a whole chapter dedicated to him and why she’s doing— did she just say she went through security footage?
—whatever it is she’s doing. I should be asking questions, grasping at the pieces of information she flings at me, but I can’t function.
All I want to do is ask her if she slept well, the kind of asinine small talk I’ve always avoided.
Either you slept or you didn’t; nothing to it.
Now I’m swallowing the words because this time I want to know because it was my arms around her waist, my chest her mattress, and my heat her furnace. I want the data of it. The truth of it.
Did she sleep better because I was there? Were her thoughts, at any point, occupied by the journal—that rogue piece of me—I’ve given her? I picture her turning it over, tracing the penmanship with a finger, knowing it came from my hand.
Fuck, what a thing to care about.
“Abe stayed in 10B because it was closest to the kitchens,” she emphasises, taking two steps closer, hands trembling with excitement.
“But George—one of the unfortunate smokers—swears they had a fourth occupant… came in while they were high, got pissed they messed with his things, packed up and then just left.”
The actual content of her words catches up to me and bites my ankles, so I drag myself out of the coffin of wanting her. “Hold on, how do you even know all this?”
She looks beyond pleased that I’ve asked. “I spoke to George, obviously; he’s in the infirmary. He said the fourth roommate’s bags were there when they moved in late last night, but he wasn’t. He only ever saw him once, when they were high out of their minds, and then he vanished.”
“ Vanished , she says. And this doesn’t strike you as, I don’t know, an unreliable perception ?” I drag a hand across my recently clean-shaven jaw. “Francesca, those three were chemically compromised. They could’ve hallucinated the entire thing.”
“Wait,” she mumbles with a frown, almost irritated with herself. Something shifts in her eyes. “Urgh, dom ; I should’ve started with that. I never told you what was found when they did air testing.”
My throat narrows. “What?”
“Formaldehyde.”
Philip could’ve run me over with his car, and it would’ve hurt less. I close the gap without thinking, hand to her waist, drawing her to my side, then angle towards the windows to take a quick inventory of the shadows. Nothing but landscaping gravel and excessive topiary.
“Once is an accident,” I murmur, and my right hand rises slowly, stopping just shy of cupping her throat. Even through perfectly matched foundation, I know what lies there. “Twice is a coincidence.”
Her head leans back against nothing, elongating her throat, and for a second I forget to breathe. Our disparity in height gives her a fragile appearance, but that isn’t what kills me. It’s the trust in her stare, a mirror to the image in Frank’s wallet.
I watch her mouth frame each word. “You don’t believe in coincidences, Eric.”
“Correct. But you’ve learnt something from me, darling. I know you have.” She arches a brow. “Three times—now that makes a pattern. And you’ll give me one, won’t you?” I feel her inhale, eyes on my lips. “Go ahead.”
She holds her theory behind her lips like a cherry stem, testing to see whether she can accomplish the knot before showing it to me. With bated breath, I wait.
“I think the formaldehyde had nothing to do with their weed. I think they were truly smoking. That’s all. They must’ve panicked about the smell of it, and the fourth roommate happened to have a candle.”
“Yeah?” I ask, plucking it from her like a confession.
She nods. “Hm, poisoned themselves. And when the fourth came back, he panicked, packed his things and fled. Then I thought of you, how you ‘detest unsourced stories’ , so I dug deeper.”
The brat shamelessly mocks me with my own words. I ought to be irritated, but hearing my words in her mouth only makes me want to feed her more. Loyal servant on my wrist might just be out of a job soon.
“Good girl.”
It’s indecorous, the way she takes the praise.
What she does isn’t mortal, and if you’ve never seen a ghost preen, you wouldn’t understand.
She feeds on it, feeds on me—and I let her.
I cradle the back of her skull, fingers coming through until I find what I’m searching for: the little ridge that was swollen last night.
It’s subsided, but my fingers stay there, feeling how heavy her hair is.
Fuck—has it always been this long? Strands spill over my hand like ink, dragging down past her back until they brush her thighs.
She watches me watching her, lashes low. “I watched the footage. It shows that Abe Williams slept in 10B, and whoever warmed his pillow in 4A is the man who attacked me last night.” That sentence shouldn’t be said so calmly, yet she maintains her composure.
“You recognise him?”
“No, that’s the problem; he gave every camera the back of his skull. Turned his head just right, like he knew the angles.”
My suspicions were correct then; he’d been lying in wait. Inside. He knew the cameras. He knew her fucking home . Rage tries to jump the gun, but I collar it. No way I’m repeating Milan’s mistake. Space. I need to step back, need the sting of cold air between us to soothe my anger.
The face on my watch informs me the hour is worse than I thought.
No time. “Tomorrow, we’ll circle back to this.
One crisis at a time. Your grandmother’s expecting me soon to meet the main branch of your family.
” I flick my eyes to my watch again. “Tonight, we smile for pictures, but you need to stay close to me. I don’t care if you drag me to talk with every single person; I’ll be there. ”
“You’ll hate every second; it’s a dull affair.”
“I hate most things, so that’s irrelevant. Are we clear?” I urge, but she hesitates. “Francesca…”
I step further back because I need to see her face properly.
Need to catalogue the alert she’s wearing like a second skin.
She crosses the gap I made between us, pressing her warmth into me and reminding us both of what I’ve wordlessly vowed.
Lace-gloved hands grip the lapels of my jacket, no asking, no pleading.
Higher they go, on my collar, then my neck, until I have no choice but to follow.
My forehead comes to rest against hers, and her eyes shut, blocking out the room.
Blocking out history.
All too willingly, my arms slide around her. Right forearm to her shoulder blades, left wrapped around her hips and lifting slightly so that her weight leans into mine.
Softly, she leans in, and I rasp, “You’ll stay by my side; are we clear?”
Only then, only after I’ve folded her into me, does she speak. “Crystal.”