I shivered, pushing away the image of the bodies—the pain on those people’s faces.
“What if the middle is what’s needed?” She widened her eyes at me. “I think that’s what she meant: you need to give up control sometimes to be able to keep it at others. Time where your magic is free. Time being yourself. Sitting with your thoughts and feelings rather than regulating them for other people. Time fucking the brains out of Bastian Marwood.”
“I let go.” I frowned at her perfect fingers squeezing around mine. “That’s exactly what the drink is for.”
“No. Drink isn’t for ceding control—it’s for running away. Drink lets you pretend there’s nothing to let go of.”
A low sound escaped me. No playful clutch of the chest required this time. She’d landed a direct hit.
If I felt it so deeply, it had to be true. And I didn’t want it to be.
Drink was an old friend—an older one than Ella. It had comforted me in the early days of my marriage when I’d discovered just how disappointing every aspect of married life truly was. It had kept me warm in the bitter winters. And it had pushed away the darkness that had threatened to sweep in as the estate’s situation had grown more desperate.
Drink had got me through unCavendish, and Robin’s arrival in Lunden. Without it, I wouldn’t have survived.
I pulled my hands away and shrugged. It was a moot point. “My magic is blocked right now, anyway, and I plan to keep it that way.”
“But your mind is still there. You can’t block that, however much you might wish to.”
Kaliban’s words came back to me, echoing Ella’s. Your mind is who you are.
“Why do you—?”
“Katherine Ferrers, if you’re about to ask me why I care, I’m going to be forced to murder you.” Despite the dangers of wrinkles, I found Ella giving me the sharpest frown I’d ever seen. “I care about you, you massive idiot. And…” Her throat bobbed as she looked away, interlacing her fingers. “We all know the stereotype of someone who drinks too much. A man who gets loud and aggressive, who turns to violence and hurts others. Or who takes his carriage out and crashes it into someone… But my mother wasn’t like that.”
My breath caught. She’d told me of some happy childhood memories with her mother—there’d never been a hint of anything to turn the corners of her mouth down like this.
“She was a delight at parties, witty and beautiful. And outside parties, she was always kind and sweet to me, careful to make sure the nursery maid and, later, my governess were there to look after me in the evenings. She never harmed anyone… except herself.” She frowned down at her wringing hands.
It was my turn to reach across and squeeze her fingers.
She looked up, eyes gleaming, making my heart ache. “She died in her sleep, far too young. I was fifteen.”
No fights. No carriage accident. No tumble down the stairs. Simply there one day and gone the next.
She’d missed her chance to see Ella grow into the wonderful woman sitting before me.
My eyes burned as I pushed stray hair from her cheeks so it wouldn’t get caught in the tears trickling down them. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not telling you this for my sake, Kat.” She caught my wrist and leant closer, piercing me with the intensity of her stare. “I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
A chill rushed through me.
I’d always known she wasn’t just worried about her “hard work” being undone. But this? That she was afraid for my very life? I’d never imagined that might be the price.
When I began drinking, I’d had a miserable, small existence. A couple of months ago, I’d told Bastian my life wasn’t worth saving, but now…
“There.” Ella’s voice cut through my racing thoughts. Her smile was like the dawn, a slow brightening. “You see it.”
I opened my mouth but couldn’t find the right words. There was too much in my head—Kaliban would’ve been deafened.
Instead, swallowing, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Ella. I didn’t… I never thought…”
She laughed softly at my mangled attempts at sentences. “I know. I can see the cogs turning. I’m afraid I may have overloaded the machinery.”
I rubbed my forehead as a fresh ache throbbed to life. “I feel like it’s broken, completely.”
“Well, I think I need to let this pretty little contraption process all this.” She rose and planted a kiss on my brow, then nodded towards the book with my notes tucked inside. “You know, you could use some of that paper to write your thoughts—it might help.”
“They won’t make sense.”
“Does that matter?” She spread her hands as she backed away. “It’s just for you.”
I was still giving her a bemused smile when she blew me a kiss from the doorway and disappeared.
The blank pages peeked out at me from the book. I did have plenty of paper—this wasn’t like at the estate where I had to scrimp and save to afford just a handful of sheets. And the pens in Elfhame were incredible—instead of constantly dipping in a well of ink, they were filled with the stuff and could write for hours.
I grabbed the one I’d bought from the shop next door to Ariadne’s—paid for with my wages from Bastian. Weighing it in my hand, I eyed the paper.
I could give it a try.
So I took a sheet and removed the lid from my pen.
Where was I supposed to start?
Ella had suggested my thoughts, but that didn’t seem quite right—there had been a trigger for them. So I began with what she had told me and then all that had come to me after that, and the next thing I knew, I was turning the sheet over and writing on the back. Soon, I reached for the next page and another and another.
And then I found myself writing about how I’d once been a pot-bound plant, confined to a small existence by other people’s rules. But now—now—I had space to grow.
Maybe I even kind of liked the person I was becoming.
Good gods. No wonder Ella was worried for me.
Yes, there were awful things, too, but did I really want to numb the rest just to escape those? There had to be a better way.
My eyes were full of tears—the good kind—when there was a knock at the door. I had no idea how long had passed, but a stack of pages sat on the low coffee table and my hand ached. Ella’s chest of beauty alchemy still sat to one side.
I chuckled as I went out to the antechamber. “You were so excited you forgot your—”
But when I opened the door, it wasn’t Ella.
Pasty-faced and glowering, in the doorway stood Robin.
74
Kat
I blinked at Robin. Not once had even a mention of him appeared in the stream of thoughts I’d inked on the page.
He stomped past me—I barely got out of his way in time.
Out in the corridor, Urien caught my eye. His gaze skittered to the floor. “I’m sorry. He was escorted from Dawn’s side, and as you’re his wife, I couldn’t stop him.”
Before I could reply, he strode off down the hallway.
His wife.
His possession.