“Pardon me?” Braeden said, looking back at Rowena in confusion.
“I was just saying that Biltmore must be a wonderful place to live,” Rowena said more loudly, slipping back into her Southern accent as she stepped into the room with Braeden. Serafina followed her into the room.
“The electric lamp isn’t working for some reason, so I lit some of the candles,” Braeden explained.
Serafina was surprised when Braeden closed the door. It was highly improper for a young gentleman to lead a girl away from a formal ball into a dark, private room and actually shut the door.
The sights and sounds of the grand ball disappeared. The Gun Room was a small and quiet place, the candlelight flickering on the dark woodwork all around and the glass cases filled with guns. Serafina noticed a table with a display of finely crafted hunting knives. She thought it was odd that one of the knives was missing. Mounted animal heads hung on the hunter-green walls, and there was a small, rustic fireplace in the corner, glowing soft and warm with embers.
“We can talk here,” Braeden said.
As Rowena turned to him, it seemed as if she had lured Braeden exactly to where she wanted him. She gazed into his eyes and moved closer to him.
“The truth is,” she said in a soft and vulnerable voice, “I need your help.”
She spoke the words with the most gentle, sweetest tone, and Serafina thought, That’s it, we’re done for! We’re lost! She’s tricked him, we’re all dead for sure!
Braeden looked at Rowena and said, “I’m not going to help you,” as he pressed the point of a wickedly long, sharp hunting knife against the satin brocade of her dress, just where he could push it straight into her side. “I know who you are.”
“Oh dear, you have a knife…” Rowena said in her sweet Charleston accent, raising her hands, feigning dismay and confusion as she slowly backed up. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“I know who you are, Rowena,” Braeden said, holding the knife out in front of him, his hand trembling and his eyes wide with the fear of facing down a sorceress who could throw a spell at him at any moment.
“Braeden, listen to me,” Rowena said in her normal voice.
“You can wear as many masks as you want, Rowena, but you’re always a monster underneath.”
“I’m not going to hurt you…” Rowena said, trying to calm him.
“That’s just what the cloak says!” Braeden shouted at her, pressing toward her with the knife in sudden panic, filled with more fear and agitation than Serafina had ever seen in him.
“Don’t kill her, Braeden, we need her!” Serafina shouted, but he couldn’t hear her.
“Please let me explain,” Rowena said, moving away from him as he pushed forward.
“Then spit it out,” he said, shaking the knife at her. “What are you doing here? What do you want?”
“Tell him the truth or he’s going to stab you!” Serafina shouted frantically.
“I came to tell you that my father is back and he’s going to kill you and your family,” Rowena said.
Serafina sucked in a breath of surprise. That definitely wasn’t the calm and reassuring explanation she was expecting.
But then Rowena’s words begin to sink into Serafina’s mind. She’d had her suspicions, but now she knew for sure: Uriah had come back. The storm-creech she’d seen in the forest had been him, his talons and scaly skin the remnants of his old owl form. The unhealed wounds across his face had been inflicted by her own panther claws. Uriah was the one bringing the storms, flooding the rivers, and tearing away the trees. He had come to wreak his vengeance on Biltmore.
“This is how you’re trying to win my trust?” Braeden said. “By telling me that you and your father are going to kill me?”
“I’m not going to wage my father’s war anymore,” Rowena said, her voice sharp. “I’m tired of the fighting and the blood, the endless cycle of hate and retribution.”
“Another lie,” Braeden said.
“I know that I tricked you, I attacked you, I harmed you in so many ways, but I’m through with all that.”
As Serafina listened to Rowena’s words, everything began to make so much more sense. Uriah had been the one who had inflicted the terrible wounds on Rowena the night Waysa found her and helped her. Uriah had punished Rowena for failing to kill her on the Loggia and for losing the Black Cloak to their enemies. He was the one Rowena was hiding from in the bog, who had been threatening her, attacking her, the one she’d been screaming at the first time Serafina came to her in spirit form. Serafina couldn’t even imagine what Rowena had been going through all this time. The girl had become a powerful sorceress in her own right, but it was clear that her father had been twisting her heart and her body for many years. He had a terrible grip on her, and probably always had. Serafina couldn’t even imagine her own pa doing that. It was threat, it was hurt, it was a thousand things, but it was not love.
“Then why have you come?” Braeden demanded.
“I need the Black Cloak,” Rowena said.
“I don’t have it,” Braeden spat back.
What surprised Serafina wasn’t Rowena’s trickery or Braeden’s fierceness, but the fact that Rowena hadn’t thrown a potion, cast a spell, or tried to outright kill him. So far, she had not only refrained from attacking him, she had told him the truth. This was the weariness, the loneliness, that Serafina had seen in her before. Much has changed, Rowena had said. Serafina realized now that she’d been talking about herself.
“You said that you don’t want to hurt anyone,” Braeden said. “But you want the Black Cloak. That doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m trying to help you, Braeden,” Rowena said, and even to Serafina’s suspicious ear it sounded strangely sincere. Rowena seemed to truly care for him.
“Help me?” Braeden snapped at her in disgust. “You killed Serafina!”
Braeden screamed the words with such powerful emotion that it broke Serafina’s heart. All the fighting and deception between them, but this was the offense that he could not forgive. You killed Serafina. The words were so final, so devastating to him. She realized now how deeply his heart had been damaged.
For as long as she had known him, he had always been the trusting one. He had defended his friend Mr. Thorne. He had trusted Lady Rowena when she first came to Biltmore. He had always been the person to open his arms to someone new.