“From when George and I tried to climb the rocks!”
“—from when he tried to climb the rocks with George.” Signa wrapped her hand around the ledge and hauled herself to her feet. Across from her the woman trembled, boots slipping from her hands. One of them hit the ledge before slipping into the sea.
“If you think this is a joke—”
“I assure you I don’t,” Signa promised, watching as black tears rolled down Henry’s waterlogged face and he smiled, skin pulling around the barnacles in his cheek.
“Tell her that I miss her.”
Word for word, Signa did as the spirit instructed. She no longer had any awareness of her surroundings as she held the woman’s hand and relayed every message, letting the woman cry until the words were gone and the skin around Henry’s face began to smooth as the barnacles fell to the pier with a quiet clack.
“He’s ready, now,” Signa told the woman as the sky grew dark around them. “It’s time to say goodbye.” There was a sense of relief with those words. Relief that Henry wouldn’t spend years haunting this beach, watching his mother grow old and pass on before he did. He wasn’t yet caught in a loop of his death like the poor spirits of Foxglove, lost in a middle land between life and death where he would eventually lose all sense of self. He’d just needed a person who could help him, and now both he and his mother could finally be set free.
Signa held on to the woman as Death swept around them. And though she could not see him, she knew he was there when the child looked up and smiled, extending his hand.
Seconds later Henry was gone, and despite the night’s chill and the woman who sobbed in her arms, Signa had never felt so warm.
THIRTY-TWO
BLYTHE
IF IT WAS DISCOVERED HOW BLYTHE SPENT THE MORNING OF HER father’s sentencing, Byron would have had her locked away in the bowels of Thorn Grove for all eternity.
“I may not be a gentleman,” said William Crepsley as he opened the carriage door, “but I know a lady like you shouldn’t be here alone.”
“I’m not alone at all, Mr. Crepsley. I’ve got you here.”
Blythe wasn’t permitted to attend the morning’s trial, but she refused to spend hours holed away in her room, waiting for Byron to return with the verdict. Being alone didn’t suit her these days; she found her mind too full for comfort.
Everett had motive, yet she needed more evidence if anyone was to believe he was involved. Eliza was ill enough that she was taking something from an apothecary she’d once loudly condemned. Signa suspected Byron and had made sure Blythe knew it before she left. And Blythe was once again seeing things. There was no time to sort out any of it.
Blythe had already spent hours in the library this week, trying to identify what herbs Eliza was taking. She’d been able to make out only mugwort—usually used to alleviate cramping during a woman’s cycle—and tansy, used for many things, including relieving headaches. Blythe had tried to research more the night prior, but each time she pulled the pages closer to the candlelight to read, the flame would wink out. It took several attempts at relighting it for Blythe to understand that the snuffed candle could be no coincidence, and to abandon everything as she fled the library.
Which led her to where she was now: in desperate need of a backup plan.
Wisteria Gardens loomed over her, massive and lovely. It looked even more elegant in the sunlight than the first time she’d seen it and seemed much more sprawling without the mass of bodies making their way inside.
Blythe hadn’t allowed herself to think too long on her plan, for fear she might talk herself out of it. When Byron headed off to the hearing, she’d washed up, changed into a pretty gown of dusty rose, and snuck out of Thorn Grove. William hadn’t given any protest. Even if he’d thought her destination strange, he didn’t voice that opinion when she pressed three silver coins into his palm. Not until now, when it seemed he was realizing just what he’d gotten himself into.
Blythe faced him and said without the slightest hint of jest, “If my uncle finds out where you’ve taken me, he’ll have you gone from Thorn Grove by morning. So let’s both play our parts and keep this adventure between you and I, yes?” William was a kind man, though kindness did her little good these days. She turned back to Wisteria without waiting for his response, ensuring that her dress and gloves were both smooth before she made her way toward the palace.
Blythe hadn’t been to enough palaces to know how they operated, but it seemed that there should at least be a valet, or someone ready to greet her. As it was, no one approached as she climbed the stairs to the ornate golden doors and knocked.
A minute passed, then another. Blythe bit back her frustration. She hadn’t spent all that time readying herself—and doing it alone, given she no longer had a lady’s maid and was too stubborn to ask anyone else for help—nor had she paid Crepsley and forced him to risk his position just for Prince Aris not to be home.
She scowled and knocked again, harder this time, and longer. So long that she gave up on the knocker entirely and beat against the door until her knuckles ached. She was just about to pull her poor hand away when the door swung open.
Prince Aris didn’t look nearly as surprised to see her as Blythe did him. She stumbled back as his hulking figure observed her from the threshold. “May I help you?”
The answer caught in her throat, so she asked instead, “Why are you opening your own door?”
Prince Aris leaned against the frame and crossed his arms. “Is a man not allowed to answer the door of his own home?”
“No,” Blythe said hastily, then grimaced. “I mean yes, he is, of course. It’s just that you’re a prince. My father never even answers the door of Thorn Grove himself.”
“Is that so?” Again, Blythe was struck by the oddity of his eyes, such an impossible shade of gold. They were as unnerving as Signa’s. “I sent the staff back to Verena. So many people aren’t needed to care for a single man.”
“You sent all of them?” she pressed. She’d never heard anything so absurd.
When Prince Aris cocked his head, Blythe feared he would shut the door in her face. It wasn’t as though she was making pleasant conversation by continually insulting him, but nerves were getting the best of her. To her surprise, it seemed that the corners of the prince’s lips quirked. Then, as if deciding he didn’t care for it, Aris abandoned the expression.
He was every bit a prince as he assessed her—like a predator before its prey. A boot ready to squish an insect beneath it. Blythe could imagine how many people had shrunk back from those eyes; there was a second when even she felt the urge to. But she would be damned before a prince made her feel less than, and so she squared her shoulders and stared right back at him.
He ran a hand down his jaw, smoothing out the tension of his clenched teeth. “I kept a cook, the butler, and someone to care for the horses.”
Though Blythe couldn’t place why, it felt as though she’d won some miniature battle that was warring between them, and victory had her puffing her chest as Prince Aris extended a hand into Wisteria.
“Shouldn’t the butler be answering the door?”
“Have you come all this way to offend me,” he asked, “or do you intend to come inside?”
All at once, Blythe’s heart was in her throat. No matter how many scenarios she’d envisioned for today, none of them had been of Wisteria so empty, or the two of them so thoroughly alone. A single butler, a cook, and a groom she’d likely not see in a palace this large meant nothing. Anyone who discovered her whereabouts would surely assume that Blythe’s visit could mean only one thing, though she couldn’t let that sway her. Not with the stakes being what they were.