She was glad for the excuse of toffee in her mouth as she pondered what her future would be like at Thorn Grove. Perhaps this journey was little more than a cruel trick; perhaps she’d arrive only to find Death had already staked his claim upon everyone there. Maybe this was his next move in an elaborate game of chess, and she was stuck playing a pawn. Or… maybe he really was trying to prove himself to her.
“It’s my turn to ask a question,” Sylas said. “Do you know what you’re getting into by coming to Thorn Grove?”
She knew so little about the place, and though his question was unnerving, it didn’t change her answer. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
Sylas faced the window next to him, where distant paved streets gave way to a glistening ocean. It made her wonder: Would there be an ocean close to Thorn Grove? Or perhaps there’d be a forest, or nothing but sprawling, rolling hills.
“Your arrival is what Lillian would have wanted,” Sylas said eventually. “She wasn’t someone who could refuse an orphan.”
Orphan. Signa hated the word—hated how it was something that, to most people, defined her and her situation so thoroughly. “What about the estate itself?” she asked, hurrying to change the subject. “Has it been there long?”
“Thorn Grove is a beautiful place. I’m told it’s been passed down for many generations.”
Signa tried not to grimace as she polished off a tart. Places that old were likely crawling with the very spirits she was trying to avoid. “And Mr. Hawthorne is a businessman?” she asked rather than let her thoughts linger. “Does he work in banking?”
She was surprised when the corners of Sylas’s lips quirked. “Not banking, no. The Hawthornes own the most popular gentleman’s club in the country. Its members are dukes and earls. Princes even, so I’ve heard. The wealthiest and most affluent people only. It keeps him a busy man.”
At this, Signa scrunched up her nose. The idea of a club for only wealthy gentlemen seemed ridiculous. “Do they have a club for women as well?”
Lines of confusion etched into Sylas’s forehead. “For women? Of course not.”
“What about one for all people, then?”
Even more lines. “There’s not one of those, either.”
“That’s a shame.” Signa rested her head against the window. “Were they more inclusive, the Hawthornes could be twice as wealthy.” Her words came easier, for it was comfortable in this compartment, even with Sylas. He was rude, certainly, but not cruel. And over the past hour, his brooding had undergone significant improvement. “Is that your business, too, Mr. Thorly? The club?”
His eyes shifted to the trolley cart, skimming over the remaining items. “No. I used to work in the garden, but it was closed after Mrs. Hawthorne’s death. Since then, I’ve been tending to the horses.”
Signa looked to Sylas’s boots—too fine a leather and not nearly so worn as she would expect of someone who spent his time in a stable. The leather of his gloves appeared new, too, as did his coat, with its polished silver buttons and tiny ruby cuff links. It didn’t seem as though he’d have any reason to lie, and yet Signa found it difficult to believe that Mr. Hawthorne would send a stable boy to retrieve her. For now, she made no comment, deciding it was better not to sour the mood.
“Why would they close the garden?” Signa plucked another toffee from the trolley and leaned back against the velvet seat cushion. Though excitement burned in her blood, the sugar was making her tired, and her eyes would drift shut anytime she looked out at the ocean.
“Because that’s where Missus Hawthorne would often spend her days. She’s buried there, beneath the flowers.” There was something calming about the evenness of his voice. No surprising inflections. No emotion seeping through. Just a steady lull that she found herself relaxing into.
“Was her death a pleasant one?” The question hung oddly upon her lips, and she wished at once that she could take it back. Pleasant was a word few would associate with death. But Sylas, fortunately, understood what she was asking.
“I presume you’ve seen a flower wilt, Miss Farrow? That’s what watching Lillian was like. She was like a beautiful flower, cherished by everyone who knew her. Even the illness loved her so greatly that it gave her little reprieve. It wanted her to itself, and so it stole her life suddenly.”
“And what was that illness?”
His brows lowered. “It was such a mystery that the doctors could never give it a name. One day Lillian was fine, healthy, and the next she was vomiting blood. A few days later she lost her ability to speak. Her mouth had festered with the disease, and eventually she lost her tongue to it.”
Signa turned to the window again, though she could see Sylas fidgeting from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” His words sounded genuine. “Such conversations are not suitable. My apologies.”
He couldn’t see that Signa’s hands were fisted tight, buried in the folds of her dress. “I take no offense, sir,” she said. “It’s just that I sometimes find myself wondering why death is so needlessly cruel.”
Something twisted in the lines of his forehead. “I think, for someone in as much pain as she was in, death might have felt like a reprieve.”
Signa tried to find some truth in the words. But all she could see was the blood on Aunt Magda’s lips and the hollowness of her eyes as she fell. All she could think of was how her aunt’s hatred had kept her from journeying to the afterlife and had tethered her to Earth for who knew how long. “Perhaps,” she said, voice barely a whisper, “but I don’t believe that makes death any less cruel.”
“And why do you say that?”
She folded her hands upon her lap, trying not to let the bitterness creep into her voice. “Because death is only a reprieve for the dead, Mr. Thorly. It cares little for those it leaves behind.”
FIVE
THERE WAS SOMETHING STRANGE ABOUT THE MAPLE LEAVES. THOSE that lay scattered across the lawn of Thorn Grove were deeper in color than any Signa had seen before—some of them rich as coffee, others the burnished red of dried blood.
The pitted roads their second carriage had traveled upon since arriving by train morphed into manicured cobblestone, so white and pristine it looked as though someone had dropped to their knees and scrubbed each stone. Tall, manicured hedges lined the endless stretch of road that led to the estate, some of them twisted into elegant spirals or trimmed into the shapes of horses or swans.
The exterior of Thorn Grove was grand—a massive brownstone manor like the kind she imagined her parents had once owned, situated upon rolling hills that were fading to yellow to welcome the shift into autumn. There were windows at least three times her size, pointed red rooftops protected by sculpted winged beasts, and finely lacquered carriages pulled by muscular horses that trotted through an iron gate strung with jasmine and ivy.
Dozens of people meandered across the lawn. Gentlemen and ladies in their finest suits and most eye-catching bustles filtered in and out of the manor with flutes of champagne balanced gingerly between fingers and laughter upon their tongues.