Chapter 5
C HAPTER 5
AUDEN
This Lavinia Blackgate is not the one who lives in my memory.
That girl never would’ve smiled at me. Never would’ve admitted fault or started over. She certainly wouldn’t have apologized or tried to make me laugh.
Too sanctimonious. Too snobbish. Too thorny.
Too much of a Blackgate.
Even ten years ago, at age seven, I knew exactly the type of woman she would become. Several bouts of our animus relationship made sure of that. Lavinia Blackgate was destined to be arrogant and beautiful enough to believe she was entitled to everything she desired, and when she inevitably didn’t receive all she thought she was owed, she’d be propelled by vengeance at the smallest perceived slight.
And though the deaths of my father and hers had to have changed both of us in ways that we’re still processing and might always process, I can say that even with the distance, even with the decade between, this Lavinia Blackgate is not at all what I expected.
“Um, what do you remember about me from the last time you saw me?” Lavinia asks. Her accent, word choice, even mannerisms are still very American despite her upbringing abroad. “What… ten years ago?”
That’s a loaded question considering what happened on these grounds the last time she was here, and because I’m a nicer person than her younger self ever gave me credit for, I skip the worst and go for the most inane.
I point toward a swell of greenery at the very western edge of the manor’s manicured garden, before it sprawls into more wild, natural vegetation. “The last time we were together, you found a dead skunk under that bush and wanted to resuscitate it.”
Instead of a well-timed quip, Lavinia promptly trips over the lip of a star-shaped tile in her ridiculously high heels. She nearly falls into the approaching table but rights herself without my help—though perhaps taking my arm would’ve been advisable.
Still, gentleman that I am, I don’t comment on Lavinia’s regrettable choices as I pull out a seat for her. She thanks me, exasperation clear against her now-pink cheeks as she pins me with her sable-dark eyes. “You remember that, of all things?”
No, I think, I was simply kind enough not to bring up the worst of it .
Lavinia blinks at me, the blush delicate as she watches me, waiting—earnest and honest enough, it seems, though this is yet another unexpected expression coming from the thundercloud of a girl I once knew.
As I smooth my suit jacket and drop into the chair beside her, I feel the familiar heat of Ursula’s gaze on my profile. I meet Lavinia’s parted lips and wide eyes with the polite smile my grandmother expects.
“It’s seared into my temporal lobe.” I tap my temple for good measure. “Very memorable to have nearly had a skunk séance in my backyard. Went horribly with my grandmother’s choice of annuals that year.”
Went horribly with what came after.
I watch the memory soak into Lavinia’s mind, her full mouth quirking as if it isn’t sure if a frown or a grin is the appropriate answer.
“Are we retelling the skunk story?” Hex barges into our conversation, brandishing a half-eaten brioche roll, steaming and glistening with butter, from where he’s been relegated—the far end of the table. No doubt this is Winter’s doing. “I love the skunk story.”
“Oh, good,” Lavinia mumbles, snatching her water glass and touching it to her lips. “I’m infamous.”
“At Hegemony Manor, we’re all infamous,” Infinity assures Lavinia with a tip of their champagne, clinking Winter’s glass.
Ada lifts her own flute. “As we should be.”
“That skunk looked like roadkill. Bloody as hell,” Hex ruminates after downing the remainder of his bubbly. “I swear someone planted it to see what one of us would do with it. A little test for the kiddie set.”
“We’re not retelling the skunk story,” I announce tightly, Ursula’s astute gaze now burning a hole in the side of my face. Beside me, Lavinia is having a wordless conversation with Kaysa across the table, all dinner-plate eyes and delicately furrowed brows.
“Why not? Reanimating a skunk? It’s classic Blackgate.”
“Because it’s disgusting and we’re about to eat, Hex,” Winter snaps from her spot between Kaysa and Infinity. She reaches out to touch Lavinia’s wrist. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Lavinia assures her. Yet another polite aside from someone who used to relish in any chance to take offense and be absolutely ghastly about it.
Just then, the waiters arrive in a white-suited mob. We lose several moments to the delivery of our soup course—a delicate watermelon gazpacho studded with fragrant sprigs of mint. Ursula’s favorite.
When they’ve buzzed away, Winter leans into Kaysa, who, along with her sister, seems uneasy about the presence of non–High Family members. “Ursula takes care of the staff. You don’t have to speak in code. It’s fine.”
“It’s fine,” Kaysa parrots, very interested in her soup, raising a questioning brow. “What’s fine?”
“Seriously, you don’t have to play,” Winter assures her, fishing an unwelcome sprig of mint out of her soup with a swipe of her spoon. “We’re here to discuss Four Lines business.”
The Blackgates’ discomfort is palpable. We don’t know how careful they have to be, living abroad with the weight of their family’s legacy across an ocean. It’s probably not far enough, honestly.
Lavinia squints at Winter as if trying to read between the lines. “Okay. Sure. Thanks for reminding us about the staff.”
The sisters pointedly dig into their soup when Evander leans back in his chair, eyeing them both. “I, for one,” he begins, “think it would be quite useful to know how the American High Families are perceived over there.”
Again, the Blackgates exchange a look.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I assure them, though I’m not clear why I’m helping at all. “You didn’t come all this way to gossip about our European counterparts.”
Kaysa demurely dabs at her mouth with a corner of her cloth napkin, a lush green like the rest of the table treatment. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the Brits, it’s to have the utmost discretion.”
“This is true,” Lavinia adds, almost in a rush, a new blush creeping across the heights of her cheekbones. She clutches her water glass like a social life raft. “Mum doesn’t want us being the big-mouthed Americans.”
“A fact I’m sure our grandmother appreciates,” I answer. Ursula is now deep in conversation with the other elders, but one should always assume she’s paying attention. “Discretion is her favorite quality.”
“Oh?” Kaysa asks, leaning in, brandishing her spoon with a grin. “Is that why your cousin here won’t put me out of my misery and confirm that Hegemony Manor is haunted? Inquiring minds deserve to know.”
“It’s not haunted,” Evander barks out gruffly.
“So you claim. But you can’t deny the general sense of malaise hovering over the building.” Kaysa waves a hand at the manor now, as if it’s a painting and not a nearly 150-year-old mansion. She waggles her eyebrows into her bangs and addresses the table at large. “And we all know what malaise means: specters, grays, ghosts—”
“There aren’t any ghosts,” Evander insists, and I’m quite amused that he’s entertaining this at all.
“I don’t know, man, you’ve got to admit there’s a whole Darth Vader vibe to the entire building,” Hex interjects from the table end, the first roll devoured, a second palmed in his hand like an apple. I realize he’s a football player but that doesn’t excuse him from eating like a goddamn bear.
“Especially as you approach on the highway,” Infinity adds. “Objectively. As a visitor. There is a certain Blackgate vibe to it.”
At the mention of her name, Lavinia wets her lips, looks her sister right in the eye, and announces, “My understanding is that there’s a ghost in the foyer named Imelda.”
“That’s not even remotely true,” Evander replies, punctuating the irritation in his tone by dipping his spoon decisively into his gazpacho.
I catch Lavinia’s eye. Maybe this version of her likes ribbing Evander as much as I do—as much as Kaysa apparently does. Both sisters have a playfulness that ironically was not present when they were actual children.
“Come to think of it, didn’t we have that maid named Imelda several years back?” I straighten, as if a memory is flooding in. “With the hair and the smile? Always wore perfume like peonies, before she fell down the stairs while carrying a teetering stack of your meticulously folded boxer briefs?”
Evander rolls his eyes and grunts out, “No.”
I rub my jaw. “It’s probably in your own self-interest to forget the woman who died under a pile of your underwear, though pretty inconsiderate, if I do say so myself.”
“Shut up, Auden.”
“I’m just answering our guest’s question,” I insist innocently. Then, I lean in such a way that I collect both Blackgate girls in my purview. “While I’ve never seen a ghost in Hegemony Manor, I must admit that every time I’ve been away and return, the foyer does greet me with a floral scent that is distinctly peony-esque.”
“I knew it,” Kaysa exclaims, and though he’s trying very hard to have all the personality of a secret service agent, there’s a softness at the corners of Evander’s mouth that tells me he’s actually maybe sort of enjoying this. Kaysa was happy to live in Lavinia’s skunk-reanimating shadow when we knew them ages ago, but now she seems to be the sister who prefers the spotlight. She taps Evander again with her elbow. “I demand a ghost tour after dinner. I want to meet every single one, starting with Imelda.”
“Are you serious—”
Evander is cut off by the elegant rise of Ursula at the head of the table.
The rest of the party goes silent as well—conversations stop mid-syllable, soup consumption mid-sip.
My pulse spikes because this isn’t the normal rhythm of our annual meeting.
Ursula’s speech happens after dessert.
Is this part of her plan?
It must be.
I know it, Evander knows it, Winter too. If the others suspect something, they don’t show it. Just as with everything Ursula Hegemony does, we follow along. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be until Evander inherits control of the Hegemony family titles and the corresponding influence.
Ursula looms over us with her usual aristocratic benevolence, smile drawn tight, as she addresses every turn of the head, steady gaze, bated breath. Even the ley line beneath our feet seems to halt, its power frozen in proximity to Ursula in High Sorcerer mode.
My heart kicks up a drumbeat in my chest.
“My friends,” Ursula begins, “we have yet to enjoy the main course but I’m afraid we must move swiftly to the business of tonight.”
Someone is staring at me, and I don’t have to check to confirm it to be Evander. While I watch my grandmother from my spot toward the center of the long table, I note a flash of crystal in my periphery. Winter, taking a steadying sip of champagne. At my side, Lavinia is still, as she soaks up the formal opening to the business of the Four Lines.
“I started this evening by calling you my unusual and unbreakable family,” Ursula intones in her clear, unwavering voice. “We are exactly that, even as we are tested. Even as the world grows more unforgiving to us. It is not the worst we have ever faced across the centuries, it is simply new, and change is always a threat.”
That’s an understatement. It’s been that way since Salem and only worsens with every passing year.
“Change is always a threat,” Ursula repeats. Strange, and throaty, as if she’s buying time, forgetting what to say next.
She starts again. “Change…”
The word dies on her lips.
As if a puppeteer has yanked all the strings, Ursula’s head snaps up as the rest of her sags. Her mouth is a gaping, silent vacuum, wide to the night. The muscles in my legs constrict, I’m ready to spring out of my seat, to run to her, to steady her, to—
She falls.
Slamming first to the solid wood slab of the tabletop, then all the way down to the stone tiles, grass, and the ley line buried deep beneath. The magic thrumming in the earth below us can do so much but it can’t do a damn thing in this one terrible moment.
Above, the chandeliers flicker. Every light in the house too. The mountain wind kicks up, the sounds of the night flooding in for one eerie moment until the winking lights snuff out completely. The three chandeliers crash to the table, shards of shattered porcelain and crystal flying through air filled with gasps of surprise and shrieks as Ursula’s magic fails.
Then I’m up—muscles firing finally—and diving to her crumpled form. Winter and Evander too, but I get there first.
I scoop my grandmother’s head into my arms. Her eyes are gone and glassy. Lips gagged open. I bend my ear, listening for breath I know isn’t there.
No sight. No breath. No mistake.
Ursula Hegemony is dead.