Chapter 26
Aoife had not slept. Every time her eyes closed, the banshee’s wail rose again in the dark, thin, terrible, and echoing as though the lament had lodged inside her skull. When dawn finally bled pale light into the room, she felt hollowed out, brittle as frost.
A soft knock preceded Clara, who slipped through the door with her usual practised quiet. She carried a dress box balanced against her hip, her expression composed in a way Aoife envied.
“Morning, miss,” she murmured, setting the box on the table. “We should start. Lord Halverton will send for you early.”
Clara lifted the lid. Sunlight struck silk the colour of a midsummer meadow and threaded with cheerful flowers.
Aoife recoiled. “I’m not wearing that.”
Clara paused, hands stilling on the fabric. “Lord Halverton requested this dress in particular. He’ll take it as an insult if you don’t wear it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Aoife sank onto the edge of the bed. “Nothing I do matters.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s the truth. I was an idiot. I thought if I tried hard enough, I could change him. I thought I could save my people. And now Cormac will pay for my arrogance.”
Clara straightened at that. “I’m certain Cormac wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
“Who should I blame, then?” The words came sharp before Aoife could stop them. She ran a hand over her face, breath uneven. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“I understand.” Clara’s gaze dropped.
“Please don’t do that,” Aoife whispered, reaching for her hand. “Your friendship is about the only thing holding me together.”
Clara looked up, the maid’s mask slipping for a heartbeat. “Then, as your friend, I’m begging you to wear this dress. Think of what he’ll do if you don’t.”
“I can’t.” Aoife shook her head. “And I won’t. There’s nothing more he can do to me. I’m never going to see my friends or family again. They’ll likely all be dead before winter’s out.” The words tasted like ash.
Aoife’s insistence landed heavily between them, and Clara’s mouth tightened.
“You think you’ve failed because Lord Halverton won’t change,” Clara said softly. “But you’ve already changed things here.”
Aoife gave a brittle laugh. “I haven’t changed anything. Certainly not you.”
Clara hesitated, then set the bright gown aside with deliberate care. Without explanation, she slipped out the door.
Aoife sat perfectly still. The room hummed with her heartbeat. She tried to steady her breathing, but every exhale shook.
When the door opened again, Clara wasn’t alone. Alton stood behind her.
Aoife rose. “Is something wrong?”
Alton stepped inside, closing the door before speaking. “Clara told me you don’t think you’ve changed anything here.”
Aoife gave the slightest nod.
He took a breath, considering his next words.
“I’ve been afraid in this house a long time.
” He met her eyes, and for once there was no pretence between them.
“All of us have. But when he brought you through those doors, you looked right at me. Not through me. And when he called you the wrong name, you lifted your chin and corrected him.”
Heat rose in her face. “That was hardly brave.”
“In this place, it is,” Alton said. “You don’t know how rare what you did was. There’s not one Morran member of staff who’s allowed to use their own name. The Eldrossi change them to their liking, and there’s not a one of us dared to contradict them. But you did.”
Aoife deflated. “It’s just a name.”
Clara touched her arm, shaking her head. “It’s not.”
Aoife looked between them, uncertain.
Clara drew a breath, choosing her words with care.
“When they take your name, they take the first thing you ever owned. The first gift your family gave you. It’s the word your mother whispered to you when you were new in the world.
And then one day a stranger decides it’s inconvenient on their tongue and tells you to answer to something else. ”
Her voice stayed soft, a steely strength threaded through it.
“You say it’s just a name,” Clara went on, “but every time you obey it, you make yourself smaller. You teach your own ear to forget who you were before you worked in their house. And after long enough…” she swallowed. “You forget.”
Alton nodded once, eyes lowered. “Most of us never hear our real names anymore.”
Clara’s fingers curled slightly.
“You looked Halverton in the eye and said your name mattered. And then, afterwards, you asked for ours. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone thought we might want them?”
Her expression flickered between embarrassment and pride.
“It wasn’t grand,” she said. “And it wasn’t loud. But it reminded us that we haven’t vanished. That we’re still people beneath all this.”
Aoife let out a slow breath. “I’m… glad, truly, if I could give you even that much.” Her voice wavered. “But it doesn’t change anything now, does it? Not really.”
“It does,” Alton said.
She shook her head. “Not enough.”
“It’s not just the names,” he said, stepping forward a little. “It’s the way you stood up to him. The way you put yourself between Halverton and your father without hesitating.”
Aoife flinched as if struck. “Don’t admire me for that.”
Alton frowned. “Why not?”
“Because yesterday,” she said, voice cracking, “when it mattered most, I failed.”
Aoife had played it out over and over in her head: what she could have, should have done differently. What had seemed like the right choices at the time now appeared to be the worst decisions she’d ever made.
“I had a chance to stand between Halverton and Cormac, and I didn’t.”
Clara opened her mouth, but Aoife pushed on, shaking.
“I’m the one who told him to whip Cormac. Me. If you’re looking for courage, you won’t find it here.”
Silence settled, sharp as glass.
Alton didn’t look away.
“You did what no one else dared when you stood between Halverton and your father, Aoife.” Alton’s voice stayed low, steady, matter-of-fact, the voice of a man who had lived a long time in fear. “You were struck down for it. Anyone would hesitate after that. It’s how people survive in this house.”
Aoife’s breath caught. “Exactly. That’s exactly the point.” She pressed a trembling hand to her temple. “He’s succeeded in shaping me into someone else.”
Neither servant spoke.
“I knew he’d try,” she whispered. “I expected it. He changed my clothes, my posture, the way I speak. I let him change those things because they didn’t matter.” Her voice cracked. “But yesterday… when Cormac was on his knees… I did nothing to stop him. I played the lady, the dutiful fiancée.”
Her gaze dropped, shame hollowing her tone.
“I swore he’d never get into my head. I swore he’d never change me. But he did.”
Clara took a half-step closer, but Aoife shook her head sharply.
“He’s won, and I have nothing left.”
Alton didn’t argue. He simply absorbed her words quietly, painfully, with understanding.
Aoife wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, angry at herself for crying at all. “He’s won. Don’t you see? Whatever fight I had, he’s taken it. And I can’t even face him without shaking.”
Clara exchanged a look with Alton, one that wasn’t pity but recognition.
“You think he hasn’t done the same to all of us?” Alton said. “He breaks people by inches. Not all at once.”
Aoife closed her eyes. That was precisely what terrified her.
“But,” Clara said gently, “broken people still choose how they stand.”
Aoife gave a hoarse laugh. “Stand? I can barely breathe.”
Clara hesitated a moment, then reached into the wardrobe. “Then let us help you do it.”
She drew out the midnight-blue gown, dark as storm light, embroidered with quiet threads of silvered flowers.
Aoife stared at it, uncomprehending.
“You were right,” Clara murmured. “You shouldn’t wear the dress he chose. A small act of defiance is exactly what today needs.”
Alton nodded. “You don’t need to be brave. You just need to show up.”
Aoife’s throat closed again, not with despair this time, but with the flicker of a stubbornness she’d almost forgotten.
The day was coming whether she rose to meet it or not.
Aoife exhaled, slow and shaking. “All right,” she said. “Dress me.”
Clara’s shoulders dropped in relief. Alton slipped out of the room as Clara prepared her. It felt different today. The dress wasn’t a fashion statement; it was armour. It was defiance and a refusal to bend.
When the last pin was set, Aoife stood before the mirror. The girl who looked back at her was pale, hollowed and exhausted, but upright.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said.
Aoife followed Clara out of the room with the faint, unsteady sensation of walking through fog.
She found Halverton in the corridor outside the breakfast room, shrugging on his coat. He turned at the sound of her steps, and his face lit with bright, unsettling delight.
“There you are.” His eyes swept her from head to toe. He pursed his lips but made no comment on the dress. “The village will see today what I have made of you.” He stepped close enough that she felt his breath against her temple as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “A perfect lady.”
Aoife kept her face carefully still. She felt nothing. Or she felt too much.
“This colour suits you,” he said cheerfully, missing the point. “Far better than Florence.” Halverton adjusted her sleeve as though arranging a doll for display.
She recoiled inwardly at the touch but forced herself to remain neutral, to keep the mask on.
She looked up at the footman, James, standing at the breakfast-room door, hands clasped behind his back, wearing the same expression she had just adopted: bland, composed, opaque. Behind him, the butler. Not revealing a thing.
In this house, she was far from the only one playing a part.
Halverton turned, barking an order at James. The man moved instantly, bowing his head, expression flat as a shuttered window.
It was brutally clear.
This was not power.
This was a performance. It was no more real than the visiting minstrel shows she’d enjoyed as a child.
Halverton wasn’t a tyrant ruling through fear. He was a puppeteer whose strings worked only because every person around him allowed the illusion. He needed obedience the way the rest of them needed air. His authority existed because everyone had agreed, consciously or not, to play their part.
Without the cast, the play collapsed.
Her heart raced, a thrill running up her spine.
If his power relied on performance, then power lived not in him, but in the people he believed were beneath notice.
Players on a stage.
But players could be removed.
Players could change the show.
She drew a breath, the first steady one of the morning.
He cannot be changed.
But he can be undone.
And she, the ornament he was so proud to display, was the one piece he would never suspect.
An idea flickered to life, dangerous and impossible.
Halverton pulled on his gloves. “I am going to speak to the captain. The entertainment starts in one hour. Do not be late.”
Halverton sauntered off. Aoife stared after him.
Her mistake had been believing she could change Halverton. Believing that pleasing him, softening him, flattering him, could save her family or her people. Appeasement had not bought safety. It had only brought pain.
Whatever change would come, it would not come through him.
It would not come through survival on his terms.
If the empire would not act, and the system was rotten to its marrow, then the only way to survive winter was to remove him from the equation entirely.
Her heart beat hard.
She had one card left. One advantage he did not know she held. And as the morning light struck the embroidered flowers on her gown, the shape of an idea formed, dangerous and fragile. She had one card left, and an idea of how to play it.