It was Helena. She had changed from her red dress into trousers and a coat, swapped her bird hat for a sensible cap that hid her hair. She lugged a canvas suitcase to the middle of the room, set it down on the desk above them, and popped it open. Then Helena began selecting specific eggs from the showroom. She took the rose-gold egg, then the diamond and garnet one. After a long deliberation she snatched up an egg of milky opal, and finally a plain egg of simple blue stone veined in gold.
“I fear all that time in this laboratory cost Mother her perspective. She should never have created you. And Father will never see you as anything more than your precious skins and scales,” she said to the eggs. “I promise I will return for the rest of you. Please be patient. Please, be good.”
She kissed the blue egg and placed it in the case, then paused to pick something off the floor. The black whistle.
Shit. Kane hadn’t realized he’d dropped it.
Helena held it up, looking around as she did so. Her eyes caught on the desk. She moved to block the door.
“Who’s in here?” Defiance laced her voice, as hard and glinting as the cut crystals of the eggs.
Kane grabbed Dean’s face and mouthed one word.
Go.
Then Kane stood up. Helena blinked, but the threat drained from her at once.
“Willard? How on earth did you find your way down here?”
Kane obediently shuffled out from behind the desk, meandering so that Helena turned away from the desk completely. It was not hard to feign bashfulness at getting caught. It was even easier to stay silent.
“I’m surprised you remembered how to get to Mother’s Nest,” Helena said, referring to the laboratory. Her amused tone turned sad. “I’m surprised you remember this house’s secrets at all, actually, after what they did to you.” She showed him the whistle. “Is this what you’ve been playing with?”
Behind her, Dean and Sophia crept from the desk to the stairs. Helena turned to see what Kane was looking at, but Kane grabbed at the whistle to keep her attention.
“Now, now,” she laughed, snatching it out of his reach. “I’ll hold on to this for now. We must be very, very quiet, Willard. Wherever did you find this? Not here, I assume. This metal is dead as can be.”
Kane couldn’t help himself. He frowned deeply as she strung the whistle onto a chain around her neck that also held a key. She dropped them both beneath her collar with a safe pat.
“Don’t be like that. I understand. I have treasures, too. See?”
She lifted the suitcase carefully, as though the eggs within might break open.
“I wonder, do you remember our family’s secret? Anyone who knows is bound to our family forever, Father says, which is why none of us are free to go into the world and make our own lives.” When she said this, she said it with the flat polish of a well-worn motto, though it was cold and not her own. “Come, let’s get you back to the party. I’m sure your mother is irradiating nearby guests with her worry by now.”
They advanced up the stairs and into the library, then into the corridors. The sounds of merriment could be heard again, and he saw the pale glow of the ballroom deep in the distance. Helena stopped and wouldn’t get closer.
“Willard, listen,” she said. “I need to say something to you in case I don’t get a chance after tonight.” She took his hands, warming them in hers.
“I’m sorry about what our family did to you. I understand what it is like to hate the life you are given, and the form you take, and I understand the determination to find a new life and to create a new form.”
Perhaps because of Kane’s furrowed expression, she whispered, “I know about your piano tutor. I know you wanted to go with him. I very much understand why.”
She hugged him. Kane didn’t think it possible for her voice to soften further, but it did.
“Maybe no one has ever told you this, and maybe no one ever will, and so I will be the one: I forgive you. Whatever sins they say about you, they are forgotten in my eyes. I see you not as what they made you, but as you wish to be. I hope you can forgive me, too. And I hope you can forgive Katherine.”
Helena collected herself, all shaking breaths and wet cheeks. She scooped up her belongings, kissed Kane on the cheek, and she was gone.
She’d taken the whistle, Kane’s only hope, but she’d also relieved him of something else. A heaviness in him that he didn’t know he harbored, a layer of leaden dread that had shaped itself around his heart. Teary streaks cooled his face, and he pushed the emotion down and away.
She had given Kane something, too. The answer to the question he had been asking this reverie since he’d awoken. And the answer was: Ursula was horribly, devastatingly, and dangerously wrong about the way this reverie should end.
• Eighteen •
BREAKING
The ballroom rocked with a waltz.
Kane’s eyes throbbed in the new brightness, searching for Sophia’s golden dress in the swirling crowd. He had to find her, to protect her. He had to find Ursula, to stop her. Dean was right; he couldn’t just keep running. He had to do something.
Dancers jumped out of his way as he pushed through the crowd. A hand found his and before he even realized what happened, a body was in his arms.
“Sophia is here, but don’t worry. She is safe,” Adeline whispered, grasping Kane’s shoulder with her other hand. A convincing smile brushed her painted lips. “Don’t look for her. You’ll twist it again if you don’t calm down.”
Adeline was breathtaking in a lilac gown. In some places it clung to her like wetness, and in others it drifted from her like steam. Her hair was in dual braids, like a crown, and from the choker around her throat hung a spiked pendant. It nestled in her cleavage, its spines dimpling her skin.
“One, two, three. One, two, three,” Adeline counted, guiding them in the turns of the dance. Nearby guests patronized them with bemused whispers.
Maybe if he kept his voice low, he could talk. “Helena is—”
“Don’t speak. Everything is being taken care of. We know Helena is playing the part of the youngest Beazley girl. We know what she’s up to. All we have to do is get Johan to meet her during the fireworks, so they can run off. Spin me on three-two-now.”
Kane spun her. They rejoined. Adeline’s eyes never left the crowd over Kane’s shoulder.
“Fortunately, Elliot appears to be playing Sir Johan. Go figure. Must be the jawline. I don’t know. That boy is prince-shaped all over, I bet. Anyways. Meet me in at the railing in a few minutes. Be sneaky.”
The dance ended and Adeline blessed Kane with a deep curtsey. She excused herself, grabbing a flute of champagne as she exited the ballroom. Kane took the long way around the crowd and out onto the patio where he found Adeline leaning against the railing, the champagne glass already downed.