Home > Stolen Heir(32)

Stolen Heir(32)
Author: Sophie Lark

It’s no more than I expected—less, actually. Those are weak reprisals from two families that usually rule this city with an iron fist. They’re shaken and scattered, just as I hoped. Lacking in purpose and plan.

All this action is almost enough to distract me from the girl living in my house. The one who works on her ballet day and night, the scratchy strains of music from her dusty turntable drifting down the stairs.

I watch her more than I would ever admit. There’s a camera in her studio, the same as every room in the east wing. I can spy on her through my phone any time I like. She’s in my pocket constantly. The compulsion to pull out that phone is omnipresent.

But I want more.

I want to see her in person again.

So, about a week after I successfully frame Dante Gallo, I track her down in the little library in the east wing.

She’s wearing one of the outfits I ordered to Klara to buy for her: a blue floral bodysuit and a chiffon skirt, over cream-colored tights that are cut at the heels and toes so bits of her bare feet show through.

Those feet hang over the arm of an overstuffed leather chair. Nessa has fallen asleep reading. The book is open on her chest—The Doll, by Boleslaw Prus. Well, well . . . Nessa is trying to absorb a little of our culture. Klara probably recommended it.

Nessa has another book pressed between her thigh and the chair. Something old, with a worn leather cover. I’m about to pull it free when she startles awake.

“Oh!” she gasps, stuffing the books out of sight beneath a cushion. “What are you doing in here?”

“It’s my house,” I remind her.

“I know,” she says. “But you never come up here. Or, not much anyway.”

She colors, remembering what happened the last time I came to the east wing.

She doesn’t have to worry. That won’t be happening again.

“You don’t have to hide the books,” I tell her. “You’re allowed to read.”

“Yes,” she says, not quite meeting my eyes. “Right. Well . . . did you need something?”

Many things. None of which Nessa can give me.

“Actually, I came to ask you the same question,” I tell her.

It’s not what I’d planned to say. But I find myself asking it, all the same.

“No!” she says, shaking her head violently. “I don’t need anything else.”

She doesn’t want any more gifts from me.

I hadn’t planned to give her any. But now I almost want to, just to spite her.

“Are you sure?” I press her. “I don’t want you creeping around in my attic trying to scrounge up what you need.”

She bites her lip, embarrassed that I found out about that. That’s right—I know everything that happens in my house. She’d do well to remember it.

She hesitates. There is something she wants. She’s scared to ask me.

“Now that you mention the attic,” she says, “there’s a dress up there . . .”

“What kind of dress?”

“An old one. In a box, with a bunch of other fancy clothes.”

I frown. “What about it?”

She takes a deep breath, twisting her hands together in her lap. “Could I take it? And do whatever I like with it?”

What an odd request. She hasn’t asked me for a single thing since she came, and now she wants some moth-eaten old dress?

“What for?” I ask her.

“I just . . . like it,” she says lamely.

She likes it? She has dozens of dresses in the wardrobe in her room. Designer dresses, new and in exactly her size. Maybe she wants an old gown for her ballet.

“Fine,” I say.

“Really?” her face lights up, mouth open with surprise and happiness.

Kurwa, if that’s all it takes to get her excited, I’d hate to see her reaction to an actual favor. Or maybe I’d love to see it. I don’t even know anymore.

The peace offering seems to relax her. She sits up in the chair and actually leans toward me, instead of cringing away.

“Did you just come in from the garden?” she says.

“Yes,” I admit. “Did you see me out the window, before you fell asleep?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I can smell the katsura on your clothes.”

“The kat—what?”

She flushes. She didn’t really mean to make conversation.

“It’s a tree. You have it in the garden. When the leaves change color, they smell like brown sugar.”

She glances at my arms, bare beneath the sleeves of my t-shirt. Those expressive eyebrows of hers draw together, and her lashes sweep up and down like fans as she examines me.

“What?” I say. “Irish mobsters have tattoos, don’t they? Or have the Griffins evolved beyond that?”

“We have plenty of tattoos,” she says, unoffended.

“Not you, though,” I say.

“Actually, I do.” She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, turning her head so I can see. Sure enough, she has a tiny crescent moon tattooed behind her right ear. I never noticed it before.

“Why a moon?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I like the moon. It changes all the time. But it also stays the same.”

Now she’s looking at my arms again, trying to decipher the meaning of my tattoos. She won’t understand them. They’re dense, convoluted, and they have meaning only to myself.

Which is why I’m shocked when she says, “Is that from the map in The Hobbit?”

She’s pointing at a tiny symbol concealed within the swirling patterns on my left forearm. It’s a small delta, next to the barest suggestion of a line. Camouflaged by all the ink around it.

Nessa’s bright green eyes are scouring my skin, darting from place to place.

“That’s the edge of the mountain,” she points. “So that’s the river. And a tree. Oh, and there’s the corner of the spider’s web!”

She’s like a child hunting clues, so pleased with herself that she’s failing to see the outrage on my face. I feel exposed as I never have before. How fucking dare she spot the things I hid so carefully?

Worse still, she keeps going.

“Oh, that’s from The Snow Queen,” (she points to a tiny snowflake), “That’s from Alice in Wonderland,” (a medicine bottle), “And that’s . . . oh that’s The Little Prince!” (a rose).

It’s only when she looks up at me, expecting me to be likewise impressed with her observation, that she sees the shock and bitterness in my face.

“You must like to read . . .” she says, her voice trailing away.

The symbols from those books are tiny and obscure. I took only the smallest and least-recognizable parts of the illustrations, hiding them inside the larger work that means nothing at all.

No one ever noticed them before, let alone guessed what they meant.

It feels violating. Nessa has no idea how she’s blundered. I could strangle her right now, just to stop her speaking another word.

But she has no intention of saying anything else. Her face is pale and frightened once more. She sees that she’s offended me, without knowing why.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“How did you see that?” I demand.

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