“Oh, but it does,” Emrys countered. “You are my brother’s only child. I would long for death if I had inadvertently killed you.”
I didn’t know what to say in response. I glanced around the room, looking at anything but him. My terrible, murderous uncle.
“Imonie told me a story about you.”
“Did she?” He sounded amused. “Which one, Clementine?”
“I prefer Clem.”
“Very well. Clem.”
I met his gaze, for he had not taken his eyes from me, as if measuring the depth of my guise. “She told me how you were abandoned on her doorstep one summer night. How she disliked babies but she came to love you both. One of you was quiet and intellectual, the other wild and reckless.”
“I take it you have discovered which one your father is?”
“Yes, I believe that I know,” I said, but I didn’t share my thoughts with him. “Have you spoken to your mother yet?”
“No. Why should I?” he countered. “Imonie fled with all the others and left me to my fate.”
“A fate you carved for yourself. In this very room.”
“That may be, but they say a mother’s love is unconditional.”
I fell silent, unwilling to argue with him. But my gaze wandered back to the suit of armor. The bloodstains marring the steel.
“You wounded Phelan twice on the new moon,” I said. “Why him? Why not Lennox?”
“Wounded, yes, but I did not kill him,” Emrys replied. “Nor would I have. I knew Phelan was important to his mother as well as the master of coin. To strike him would be to strike them both, which was quite effective in getting the court to return home, because here you all are.”
I was quiet again, pensive.
“Clem,” he said. “Clem, do you have no compassion for me? I have carried the curse that the entire court deserved to bear, living alone in this place with nightmares, unable to die, unable to leave. I carried it so the others could lead normal lives despite our collective treachery, and so they did for an entire century. Do you fault me for growing lonely here? For wanting to see the end?”
“I don’t begrudge your loneliness, uncle,” I said. “But nor do I have compassion for you.”
I began to walk around the bloodstain, my posture stiff, as if I expected him to interfere with my departure. He didn’t move, not until I was almost to the door, and he turned on his heel.
“Wait, Clem. There is one more thing I would ask you.”
I paused.
“I understand that you are close to Lady Raven,” Emrys began in a careful tone. “Does the heiress plan to harm your father?”
“If she did, I think he would have appeared in her dream last night,” I said.
“As you appeared?”
I nodded. “She dislikes him, but she has set her attention on others in this fortress. Besides, I don’t think you truly care about what happens to my father.”
Emrys went rigid. “What makes you say that?”
“Have you even spoken to him since he returned?” I asked. “Do you still judge him, resent him for being the one who escaped your fate? So close, you and he once were. So close that Imonie couldn’t even tell the two of you apart when you were boys. She said you would take each other’s punishments. That is how deep Ambrose’s love for you was. And I don’t presume to know what it’s like to share a face with another. But whatever it is you’re holding against my father . . . you should see it settled, before night falls. Because I think he misses you, more than he will ever confess. That’s why he became the warden of Hereswith—to be close to the mountain. To be close to you.”
I had shocked my uncle into silence. But he laid his hand over his heart and said, “As you say, then.” He granted me another bow, but I was gone before he could lift his head.
I returned to my bedroom and saw another note had been slipped beneath my door.
The paper unfolded like wings; I stared at the familiar slant of Imonie’s handwriting until the words seemed to melt away.
Do not trust your eyes alone.
41
Night arrived with a whisper of snow. It seemed like the fortress had carried Mazarine’s words from earlier that day, delivering them down the winding corridors and slipping them under doors like notes. The end draws nigh. Because all of us appeared in the hall that night, dressed in our finest and armed for the unknown.
Mr. Wolfe was present with Nura and Olivette, who was much recovered, although her arm was still bandaged. Mazarine sat at one of the tables loudly crunching her chicken bones, much to the countess’s chagrin. The countess sat at a table on the opposite side of the hall, close to the dais, of course. Lennox was at her side, pale faced and sullen, the wound in his shoulder bound in swaths of linen. His arm was in a sling. A rapier sat on the table between them, in addition to a crossbow. Phelan was pacing, lost in his thoughts. The duke stood in one corner draped in shadows, as if he was keenly uncomfortable witnessing a nightmare manifest. I caught a glimmer behind him, and realized it was a weapon of some sort, which he must have pilfered from the fortress armory. And then my parents and Imonie. Mama and Imonie took a seat before one of the hearths, but my father remained standing, his gaze expectantly fixed on the dais. Waiting for the throne and his brother to appear.
It seemed to take forever, but I suppose when you are waiting for something to happen, the minutes feel as long and heavy as years.
I stood between shadows and firelight, looking beyond the windows, where the snow froze like lace.
A bittersweet thought crossed my mind.
This might be the last waking nightmare I faced.
As soon as I came to terms with that truth, time flowed swift and true once more, and the throne materialized, limned in firelight. It quietly beckoned to us all to come, come and claim me until a door opened in the wall behind it, and Emrys stepped onto the dais, coming to a rest beside the chair.
This dream arrived gently. I smelled it first—sweet mountain wind, summer grass, cherry galettes still warm from the oven.
A mountain cottage unfurled around us, the walls made of stacked stone, lichens dangling from the thatched roof. The windows were open, inviting rivers of sunshine into the small, simple chamber. There was a kitchen nook with pots and herbs hanging from the rafters, and a worn table that held bowls of abandoned porridge. A few tattered pieces of furniture sat around a hearth. Books were stacked on a mantel, as was a vase of wildflowers.
I heard the sounds of children playing. Fighting, more like it. One boy laughed, the other began to sob.
And there was Imonie. She appeared in the kitchen of the house, and she was younger, but that scowl still marked her face. She cursed and set down a steaming pan of galettes, following the sound of distress to the back door.
“Boys? Boys, inside, now!”
Two auburn-haired boys spilled into the house. They were identical save for the objects they held. One wielded a wooden sword. The other one, the boy who was loudly wailing, held up a book with ripped pages.
“He tore the pages out of it, Mam!”
Imonie’s nostrils flared as she looked at the twin with the sword. Her wild one. Emrys.
“Is this true?” she asked him.
“Yes,” Emrys replied, solemn.