The Ones Who Undid Tomorrow (To Fall Through Time #2)

1. The First Death

W hen Dorian Nightbloom was twelve years old, he fell in love for the first time.

The object of his affections was Lady Selene Duskbriar.

She attended the same academy that he did.

He first met her during a dance lesson, and thought immediately that she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

He lacked the poetry to give words to his feelings until he was much older, but if he could go back to that moment with all he knew as a man, he’d describe her as sunlight given shape.

Her hair was the colour of moonlight and mist, her eyes grass-green.

She was as delicate as a duckling, as graceful as a swan.

He’d grow out of his crush enough to realise that it was just that—a crush. He’d come to understand that most of the young boys liked her precisely because she was beautiful and charming and not much else .

As he grew older, he didn’t like the way people would talk about her. They’d say her head was filled with little more than air, that she was nothing more than a pretty face, that she had no wit, no true talent.

Eventually, Dorian would be inclined to agree.

Selene seemed vain and vapid, obsessed with looks and parties—nothing to separate her from the other young women of society.

He’d court other women. He’d admire them for their intelligence and tenacity.

A long time would pass before he thought about Selene Duskbriar again, and in the strangest and most unpleasant of circumstances.

On the day of his father’s funeral, Dorian stood next to the coffin, trying to summon up something for the few mourners that had bothered to show. He would have another ceremony for his father back in Thornmere amongst his true friends, but society demanded that he host this one, too.

If Duke Drakefell came, he was going to lose it. He’d killed Dorian’s father, although Dorian had no proof of it at the moment. He would, one day. But if he came now…

Dorian might actually kill him. Or at least, try to. Soren was waiting in the shadows, of course. Dorian had told him to stop him if he lunged.

Soren had refused to promise him anything.

Dorian did not expect the Duskbriars to come. Even less did he expect Selene to arrive with a bouquet of wildflowers, setting them down on the coffin.

“I know he preferred wildflowers,” she said.

Dorian started to weep. He hardly knew that it was this gesture of all things that undid him. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to care—truly care—let alone show their caring in a way like this. He had no idea when Selene had ever spoken to his father.

“Lord Nightbloom—” she began, when he struggled to contain himself.

The tears came too thick and fast for him to prevent them.

Selene pressed a handkerchief into his hand, and turned him carefully away from her and the rest of the people congregating.

“What lovely frescos!” she said loudly to everyone around her.

“ Truly, I have never noticed them before. Perhaps the flowers have brought them out. The sun is shining so beautifully right now… a good omen, I’m sure.

Lord Gideon Nightbloom rests among the heavens. ”

The diversion was both welcome and skillful.

Dorian was far from a stranger to kind acts, but in that moment, he felt he’d never been more thankful in his life.

Selene’s head was clearly not filled with nothing.

Selene, he realised, was kind. And her ability to draw attention away from him (however mortified he may have felt) was skillful.

When he returned to Ebonrose Hall at last, he took the handkerchief she’d given him and placed it in his bedside cabinet. He did not expect to go looking for it again.

Dorian put Selene Duskbriar out of his mind. His father was dead, killed by Duke Drakefell, and Dorian had to ensure that his plans never came to fruition. It was the best revenge he could take.

“I could kill him right back,” Soren offered.

Dorian wanted Drakefell to die. It was easier than having him held accountable, although perhaps less satisfying. His father would have wanted him to face the King’s Justice, but his father hadn’t had to watch someone die such an awful death.

“Ask me again after we discover everyone he’s working with,” Dorian replied.

Soren never asked again. Not in that lifetime. There were so many suspects to work through, and it was so hard to rule anyone out completely.

It would take years. Dorian wasn’t sure that they would have that long. It was no easy task to fully investigate each and every one of dozens, even hundreds of potential suspects, and he wasn’t even sure of exactly what the Duke’s plans were. He knew the goal, not the execution.

A little over a year after his father’s death, Selene got engaged to Duke Drakefell.

Dorian went to the engagement party. He hovered in the gardens for ages, amongst the flowers his father loved so much, desperately hoping that it was all a mistake, a misunderstanding, that the Duke would ask, but she would refuse him.

Maybe, just maybe, she was smart enough to see him for who he was.

But how could she? How could anyone?

Of course she accepted. Dorian hovered in the shadows the night of the ‘soirée’, his gaze following her. When she stepped away from her friends to refresh herself, he moved into her path. “Selene,” he began. “ Lady Selene—”

She stared at him, green eyes bright. “Lord Nightbloom?”

Her face looked like she had swallowed sunshine. Dorian hardly knew why he had stopped her. What did he hope to achieve? Was he going to beg her not to marry him—to tell her what the Duke had done, to believe him, a relative stranger, over the man she loved?

Was he going to crush that light out of her?

No, he realised. He couldn’t.

“Congratulations,” he said, kissing her hand.

It was the first time he’d touched her since his father’s funeral.

And now she was going to marry the man who killed him.

Dorian hated to think of her with him, both hated the fact that the Duke got to be with her—and was likely experiencing a happiness Dorian would never know himself—and also the fact that Selene would have to endure him as her husband.

He might be wrong, but he doubted the Duke was a good man behind closed doors.

They were married within the month. Dorian tried his best not to watch her at the wedding, tried his best not to let his gaze go to her during every society event afterwards.

He rarely succeeded.

Only a few months into Selene’s marriage, her grandmother died, and, most unexpectedly, the Duke decided to move into Nocturne Hall, the remote estate on the border of the Ashvold mountains. It was a decision that baffled all society.

Except the Nightbloom household.

“He’s planning something,” Dorian told Soren.

Soren was in agreement .

The decision to move to Nocturne Hall made no sense for a man like Duke Drakefell, unless he had something to gain from its location. The estate was isolated, its lands bleak and cold even in summer. That the Duke would take up residence there only deepened Dorian’s suspicions.

He and Soren spent weeks tracking the Duke’s movements, attempting to discern his intentions.

Reports from their informants in the area confirmed an increase in mining activity beneath the estate.

Nocturne Hall sat atop a warren of abandoned tunnels, remnants of an age when the mountains had been rich with silver veins.

But those veins had been exhausted long ago.

Whatever the Duke was searching for, it wasn’t silver.

“He’s expanding the tunnels,” Soren said one evening as they huddled by the fire in the forest. “I scouted near the mines, and there’s fresh excavation deeper than anything recorded. I think he’s trying to open a path underneath the mountain, directly to Ashvold.”

Dorian’s stomach dropped. If that was true—and if the King of Ashvold was burrowing through on the other side, if he’d been doing it for years—then he could invade the country overnight. Haverland was not equipped for an invasion from the north. All its defences were planned around the sea.

“We need proof,” Dorian said. “We need to be sure—”

“We will be,” Soren insisted. “No one can be careful forever.”

They moved that night. Under the cover of darkness, they slipped past the outer watch and into the mine’s entrance, keeping close to the cavern walls.

The deeper they went, the clearer the signs of recent work became.

Timber supports lined the passageways, reinforcing tunnels that should have collapsed years ago.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and iron, and the distant sound of tools striking stone echoed through the labyrinthine corridors.

At last, they reached a chamber where maps were strewn across a crude wooden table. Dorian swept his gaze over them, his heart hammering. The tunnel was nearly complete. A thin layer of rock was all that separated Haverland from a direct invasion.

“We don’t have time,” Soren whispered. “This could give way any day now.”

Dorian clenched his jaw. “You have to go. Take this to the King.”

Soren hesitated. “And leave you here alone? If they break through while I’m gone—”

“I’ll be careful,” Dorian said firmly. “We need reinforcements, and you’ll get there faster alone.”

Soren’s reluctance was evident, but after a long moment, he nodded. “Fine. But don’t do anything reckless.”

Dorian watched as Soren disappeared into the darkness. Alone now, he turned back to the chamber and the looming tunnel. He would keep watch, but for how long, he didn’t know. The mountain trembled faintly beneath his feet.

He set up his watch near the mine entrance, shrouded in the shadows of the jagged rocks. Exhaustion gnawed at him, the weight of weeks spent tracking and hiding pressing down on his limbs. He thought of Ebonrose, of Ariella’s laugh and Rookwood’s bread. What he’d give for a taste of it now…