The creature had no face.
But a moment later, Kelsea realized how ridiculous that was. She had been fooled by the firelight, by her own overstimulated imagination. This was no monster, only a woman, wearing a long black dress and a lacy veil that covered her entire head. The woman tried to scramble backward, but Kelsea straddled her, pinning her down.
“Lady Chilton, I presume,” she panted, exploring the veil with her hands. “And what do you want with me, that you stalk me around the house?”
Finding the edge of the veil, she jerked hard, tearing the lace away and revealing the woman’s face to the light. But now it was Kelsea’s turn to scramble backward as fast as she could, her breath tearing from her throat in a single harsh rasp.
The face beneath the veil belonged to her mother.
Chapter 12
The Mistress of the House
Hell? Hell is a fairy tale for the gullible, for what punishment could be worse than that we inflict upon ourselves? We burn so badly in this life that there can be nothing left.
—Father Tyler’s Collected Sermons, from the Arvath Archive
“It was Mace’s idea,” the woman said, as though that explained everything.
They were sitting in two high-backed armchairs, facing the chamber’s empty fireplace. It was cold, but Kelsea had taken the Red Queen’s superstitions to heart, and refused to light a fire. She didn’t understand Row Finn’s long game—not yet—but if he was truly free, Kelsea could only be a threat to him now.
The torchlight was very dim, but Kelsea could not stop staring at her mother, hoping to find a flaw in her appearance, something that would indicate that the entire thing was a trick. But she found no such reassurance. The woman before her was older than the portrait Kelsea had seen in the Keep, fine lines bracketing her mouth and eyes. The black dress and veil, indicative of mourning, aged her further. But she was unmistakably Elyssa Raleigh.
“What was Mace’s idea?”
“Why, to get me out.” Elyssa gave a tinkling laugh. “So many people trying to kill me. It was almost exciting.”
Kelsea looked to the door, almost in desperation. She had ordered Elston to fetch Mace on the double, but she had done so through a closed door, and now she worried that Elston might have misunderstood her words. When Mace got here, she thought she might throttle him. All of the guilt Mace had dispensed when Kelsea kept things to herself, and here he had been holding the biggest secret of all in his hands.
“Carroll and Mace were the best of my guards, the smartest, you know—” Elyssa paused, her doll’s mouth turning down at the corners. “Mace told me Carroll is dead.”
“Yes,” Kelsea replied automatically, but a moment later she realized that she had never seen his body, either. Was he still out there somewhere too? Were Barty and Carlin? How could she take Mace’s word about anything now? For years, Kelsea had wanted so many things from the woman sitting before her, love and approval and vindication and, later, a chance to scream into her face. But now that the moment was here, Kelsea didn’t know what she wanted, except to wish that she were not in this room. She had gotten used to hating her mother, had grown comfortable with it. She didn’t need the status quo shaken up now.
“They both had the idea, but Mace was the one who snuck me from the Keep. All those hiding places he has, you know. He moved me here.” Elyssa frowned again. “It’s a dull life, so far from the capital. Mace visits whenever he can, and I have my business—”
“What business?” Kelsea asked sharply.
“Dresses,” Elyssa replied proudly. “I’m one of the most sought-after designers in the Tear. But I have to work from here, send someone to take measurements and orders.” Her mouth drooped. “I can’t go anywhere.”
Kelsea grimaced. Any number of harsh phrases came to her lips, but she held them in. She would give this woman her full, undiluted opinion, but only after she got the whole story.
“But I am so pleased to see you!” Elyssa exclaimed, putting a hand on her arm. Kelsea tensed, but Elyssa seemed not to notice, too busy examining her, eyes roving over her face.
“And so pretty too!”
Kelsea recoiled, almost as though she’d been slapped. All of those days in the cottage when she had stood by the window, looking out and waiting for her mother to come . . . she had been so sure that her mother would be wise and kind and good, that she would praise Kelsea, as Carlin did not, praise her for all the things she had learned, all the work she had done. Even if Kelsea had been pretty, that was not the praise she waited for, because even in her youngest years, she had already known how little it truly meant. For a moment, she hesitated on the point of telling Elyssa that this beauty wasn’t her own, then swallowed the words.