XLVIII
Heaton stepped in before I could answer, his body cutting a colder line between me and the Covington’s.
“You didn’t have to come, Vera.”
Vera shot upright.
The air around her rippled with static, the edges of her pomegranate dress blurring into gray smoke. Her eyes flashed with a century of unchecked temper.
“Didn’t have to?” she repeated. “It’s. My. Hotel, Dashwood.”
Victor lifted one elegant finger.
“Our hotel,” he corrected. “Joint inheritance. Do try to keep up.”
His grin widened as he glanced at me.
“Though if we’re being historically accurate, it was a man’s world, and I’m technically the only Covington who would’ve been taken seriously on paper.”
A bright blue spark leapt from Vera’s hand and cracked square into his chest.
Victor jerked back with a muffled curse, swatting at his lapel.
“Vera!”
“You insufferable little corpse,” she hissed. “Mention that deed again.”
Victor straightened, patting himself down with exaggerated dignity.
“You see?” he said to me, wounded but undeterred. “You’ll have to excuse her. She’s been bitter about 1922 for quite some time. The ink is dry, darling. I checked.”
Vera produced another silver flask from apparently nowhere and poured herself a fresh shot.
“The ink is a century old, Victor,” Heaton growled, his hand finding the small of my back, a grounding weight. “Your paperwork is as dead as you are. Stop posturing.”
“Death is temporary,” Victor argued. “A signature is forever.”
Another spark snapped from Vera’s fingers.
Victor ducked this time.
“Victor. Vera.”
A fresh voice crossed the room like a hand smoothing silk.
The woman walking toward us looked like a memory pressed between the pages of a book. Light blonde hair formed a soft halo in the lamplight, and her simple blue dress moved with grace.
The candles steadied, their flames stretching tall and amber. The discordant violin smoothed into a gentle, honeyed waltz.
“Heaton,” she said gently, as if his name deserved careful handling.
I felt it through the bond.
A sudden, violent collapse of his defenses.
Heaton didn’t soften. He practically dissolved.
“Kitty,” he breathed.
She smiled at him with such profound, aching love that my chest tightened.
Then she turned that gaze on me.
“Katherine Dashwood,” she said, voice warm and carrying the faint, sweet scent of dried lavender. “But please, call me Kitty.”
Her gray eyes rested on me with a kindness so genuine it felt heavy.
For the first time since I’d crossed the threshold, I didn’t feel like a phenomenon. Or a static-maker. I felt like a guest.
“I’m so pleased you agreed to come,” Kitty said. “We rarely get the chance to host properly anymore.”
Her eyes moved fondly around the ballroom.
“The glamour manages the setting, but the drinks are real. That much, at least, still matters.”
Her hand rose and brushed Heaton’s cheek, the touch so light it barely disturbed the air between them.
“It’s the least we could do,” she breathed. “For bringing our brother home.”
The word dropped into him like a hook.
His jaw hardened, and his face turned just slightly away from her hand, as if the gentleness of it burned worse than any accusation.
I opened my mouth, the word temporary already rising like a bruise.
“I’m just—”
Kitty squeezed my hand before I could finish. Her fingers were cool, but steady.
“Whatever you are,” she whispered, eyes flicking once toward Heaton, “you got him through the door.”
That only made the ache in the bond deepen.
Kitty tucked my arm more firmly through hers, all soft authority now.
“Come,” she said. “Sit. Drink. Before the house remembers it’s supposed to be dead.”
She guided me to a table laid with linen and crystal.
Ruby and Theo drifted in after us without a word.
Instead of taking separate seats, Theo sank into one and drew Ruby easily into his lap, as if that had always been the intended arrangement.
She folded into him with grace, one arm slipping around his shoulders while his hand settled at her waist.
The others followed more slowly.
No one reached for a glass.
A whole table of dead eyes fixed on the only heartbeat in the room.
Kitty folded her napkin with precise, quiet grace.
“Well,” she said at last, “we may as well begin with the obvious.”
A small, tired smile touched her mouth, but it didn’t soften the tension.
“We know your name. We know of the October legacy. Heaton told us that your father is missing. I imagine that is why the world has become . . . complicated for you.”
Vera leaned back in her chair, glass turning slowly between her fingers.
“Complicated,” she repeated. “How charming.”
Her eyes landed on me.
“So, tell me, October. Is that why you’re here? Looking for help from the very things your family spent decades trying to catalog, stun, and corner?”
“Vera,” Kitty said softly.
“What?” Vera’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “It’s a fair question. The Octobers rarely come to the dead unless they want something.”
The whole table seemed to lean in without moving.
I kept my eyes on Vera.
“I’m here because of my last name, yes. But I didn’t come because I think you owe me anything.” My palms pressed flat against the table. “And I’m not here to drag anyone anywhere.”
Vera’s hand paused over her glass.
“I came because Heaton said you were curious,” I continued. “And curiosity has a way of turning ugly when people are left to imagine the worst. I thought it might be better to let you see me for yourself.”
Victor made a low, appreciative sound into his glass.
Vera ignored him.
“And what exactly are we meant to see?” she asked. “A harmless little girl in borrowed silk?”
“She’s here because I allowed it,” Heaton said, voice a low, calm threat.
Vera turned to him slowly, her smile all teeth.
“And you’re here, brother, because I allow it.”
The room grew colder.
The glamour twitched, gold light shivering to reveal a flash of charred brick before the illusion smoothed itself clean again. Kitty went still, a silent plea for caution hanging in the air.
“You want to know if I’m a threat,” I said, cutting through the static of their standoff. “Fine. Ask. I’m tired of being discussed like a piece of furniture you’re deciding whether to burn.”
Victor sat up straighter, suddenly fascinated. Vera turned her glass once between her fingers and set it down with a precise little clink.
“All right, October. Let’s not waste each other’s time.” Her eyes sharpened. “Did your father supply the hunters with the toys they used to tear holes in us? Yes or no.”
The directness landed like a slap.
I didn’t look to Heaton for rescue. I couldn’t.
“Yes,” I said.
Above us, the chandelier gave a single, dry crackle.
“But I didn’t know,” I added, voice tight. “Not really. He was obsessed. Secretive. I thought he was just mad. I never believed any of this was real.”
Vera laughed once.
“No. Of course you didn’t.”
Heaton shifted in his chair, one hand curling around the armrest.
“Vera, that’s enough.”
“Why?” she snapped. “Because the truth is ugly? Because you brought a living weapon into our home and expected us to play nice?”
Vera gestured wildly at me.
“She sits there with October blood and good intentions, and we’re supposed to forget what that name has done to us?”
The bond tightened hard between us. I felt the urge in Heaton before he could act—the glacial edge of a ghost one breath away from ending this conversation for everyone.
So, I stepped in first.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” I said quietly.
The flames on the table shrank to tiny, frightened wicks.
“Believe what you want. Part of me wishes I were still ignorant, too. It would be easier than finding out my dad wasn’t crazy.” My throat tightened. “Just monstrous in ways I didn’t understand.”
Kitty’s face softened. Victor took a long drink, his amusement tempered by a rare moment of somber recognition. Vera stood and crossed to the sideboard before anyone could stop her. For one wild second, I thought she might throw the decanter through the nearest mirror.
Instead, she poured.
Too much.
Amber liquor struck crystal and climbed the sides.
“Clever little tools,” she whispered to the glass. “Always with the inventions. Always thinking they can pull the strings. Make the dead dance.”
Her eyes drifted across the room.
Ruby was still folded sideways in Theo’s lap, one pale hand lost in his dark hair while his mouth hovered near her temple.
“Rubes,” Vera said, voice gone thin and strange. “Won’t you dance with me, then?”
Theo’s whole body tightened.
Ruby brushed her fingers over his cheek, a small mercy, then unfolded from his lap like a leaf caught in a draft.
Vera took her by the wrist and pulled her toward the ballroom floor.
Their waltz was fractured at the edges, crooked with drink and grief and memory. But Ruby followed, steady and wordless, and after a few turns, an old rhythm found them both.
Grace returned by degrees, held together by habit, by history, or because some wounds only knew how to move in circles.
“Well,” Kitty said at last, smoothing an invisible crease from the table linen, “that went marginally better than expected.”
Victor barked a laugh.
“She’s worse with tequila,” he added brightly, leaning back as if the explosion were mere entertainment. He glanced at Theo. “Extra spot on that dance card, Valentine?”
“Piss off, Covington.”
Victor pressed a hand to his chest. “You see how they treat me? No gratitude for my efforts to preserve morale.”
“Heat? For old times’ sake? I promise not to lead.”
“No.”
Victor sighed theatrically. “You make this courtship feel so one-sided.”
Then he looked at me. He didn’t ask, but the invitation was in the elegant curve of his posture. I felt Heaton’s focus sharpen, a cold point on my skin.
Victor’s brows lifted. “Am I about to be sent into the void for asking?”
Heaton lifted a hand in a loose, permissive gesture.
“If she wants to,” he said.
But I could feel the tension vibrating through the bond.
He was letting the leash go, but counting every inch of rope.
I gave Victor a small, defiant smile.
“One song.”