Chapter 21 #4
Pressing a wry smile flat between his lips, Nic nodded. “Thank you, Silla. I should go.”
He made for the door, only for Silla’s fingers to close around his arm.
“Wait.” The word was a panicked hiss that shivered through his skin.
“Be careful, Master Nicholas. I know you think finding out all the answers will end this, but knowing is more dangerous than you can imagine. Please, take care. It would destroy your mother utterly if anything happened to you.”
She let go on the words, yet Nic could still feel the tight band of her fingers around his arm. “What do you mean?”
She threw open the door. “Go, quickly. I should not have said anything. Forget I spoke. I’m just a foolish old woman.
” For a moment it seemed she would say more, her jaw working, but she shook her head and resolutely held the door for him to leave.
“Please, Master Nicholas. Your mother will be back from her meeting with His Grace any minute, and it will best if you are not here. Go.”
“With His Grace?”
She shoved him out into the gallery, and before he could ask again what she had meant, the door slammed closed.
Knowing is more dangerous than you can imagine.
The words echoed inside Nic’s aching head as he made his way back across the gallery.
What had happened with Lord Francis to make her say so?
Or with the duke and Lord Charborough? Something during the negotiation process of his mother’s contract?
Or to do with the money that had disappeared?
In truth, any number of secrets might still be lurking, but after more than twenty-five years, what had made them matter now?
It would destroy your mother utterly if anything happened to you.
Nic paused at the end of the gallery. He needed the answers, but perhaps there was a way to get them without having to ask the questions. The archive hall would have a copy of his mother’s marriage contract, other documents, too, because ensuring the net held required keeping assiduous records.
A shrill cry cut through Nic’s thoughts, and as though he’d been waiting for something to happen, he was moving before he fully registered the sound.
He ran toward it, panic lodged in his throat.
Another body? It could be Leaf, or Dashiell, could even be his father—every individual fear had become an image upon translucent paper, their outlines merging to create something far more terrible than the sum of its parts.
As he sped back toward the great hall, the panicked scream came again, high-pitched and frantic over an undercurrent of fluttering wings. With the Brilliance headache threatening, the flurry of wingbeats buffeted his mind like a discordant gale, adding to the already fast-growing maelstrom.
Out of breath and with a hand pressed to his head, Nic slid to a halt in the archway to find echoes filling the hall, the air thick with hundreds of wings.
Diving and wheeling, they flew about, all black and deep blue and shimmers of gold.
On the floor, Lady Lisbeth knelt screaming, her hands over her head as the birds brushed by, each flail that attempted to shoo them only increasing their interest.
For a shocked instant Nic stood frozen while wings battered around him, until laughter drew his gaze upward.
Upon the railing of the upper landing stood the duchess.
She was dressed only in her nightgown, her hair hanging in loose golden tresses, arms spread as the birds flew around her.
“Fly free!” she cried, laughing as they swirled, no care for the distance down to the hard floor below. “Be free! Free!”
“Mama!”
Nic sprinted up the stairs, through the storm of echoes.
Feathers and claws brushed past his face but he had eyes only for her, thought only for the woman standing so precariously as though her life meant nothing.
At the landing he did not slow. He stepped onto the travel cage she’d used to climb up and lunged for her.
His arm slid around her waist and he pulled her back with more desperate fear than care.
Her laughter cut into a cry and they fell, footing lost, to land heavily on the boards in a tangle of golden hair.
There Nic lay winded, his head a throbbing wreck, but he held on to her, not yet willing to risk letting go.
And in his arms, the duchess’s laughter became sobs.
A sharp whistle sounded overhead, a two-beat command that sent every echo in the hall diving for the floor. The duke descended the stairs as noise became silence, became stillness. One of the birds settled on the floor by Nic’s head, tucking in its wings with a flutter and a coo.
“Your Grace!” Silla appeared, out of breath as though she’d chased Nic all the way, and finally he let his mother go.
Silla helped her up, leaving Nic to pull himself slowly to his feet, shoulder aching where he had hit the floor. Settled echoes scattered the hall, gently trilling “Free, free,” while from the stairs above the duke only watched.