Page 129 of Summer of Sacrifice
His face turned stony. “We protect the duke.” Seleste nodded her agreement. “And pray to Hespa that the prince lives a long life.”
Seleste’s insides twisted with a coil of conflicting emotions.
“I don’t understand this!” Cal put his head in his hands where he sat at Dr. Orrin Pollock’s scattered desk.
Before they could even find someone and get them stationed at the Duke of Rochbury’s townhome in Merveille, word had spread through the city that he’d perished. Asphyxiation was the official prognosis by the coroner. When Cal questioned him—as Inspector Shelby—he’d learned what they both already knew. The duke had been suffering from spasming muscles for half a year. Over the last two moons, the spasms had increased, until, finally, his lungs seized unto death.
Cal had wanted to sound the alarm, raise suspicion, alert the king. But Seleste no longer thought that was necessary. Instead, she’d convinced him to return to their room at the inn to rest. Exhausted, he had. And Seleste had wrapped herself in magic and snuck into the duke’s townhome. There, she had found precisely what she knew she would: a large supply of crystalline sugar, reserved for the duke alone—his favourite addition to his tea. Crystalline sugar that was mixed with a crystalline poison. Strychnine.
She’d returned before Cal had roused from his nap. They’d broken into Pollock’s abandoned medical practice immediately upon his waking.
Alas, most of the day had passed, and all they’d found of note were a few letters. Still, Seleste was uncertain she should tell Cal what she’d found at the duke’s townhome. How would she explain? It didn’t matter, anyway. The letters had confirmed what she already knew.
Cal gripped one of them in his hand, the paper crinkling as he shook it. “This Nadja person was clearly at odds with him. Maybe even Achilles, too. I just— Pollock died before the others. It doesn’t make sense.”
It did, though, in a non-conclusive way that did conclude almost everything for her.
Throwing all caution and propriety to the wind, Seleste came forward and gently took the letter from Cal’s hand. Slowly, she pushed his hair back from his face. It was always so neatly combed unless they were making love. The sight physically pained her.
Cal took her hips in his hands, resting his forehead against her stomach. And she let him.
“Seleste,” he said, his voice muffled by her skirts. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
That she needed to leave. That they were not going to solve this to his liking. That she loved him more than anything in all the realms. That, perhaps, this was his destiny.
“I think Nadja and Achilles poisoned Pollock,” she said instead.
Cal looked up at her, still gripping her waist. How could she put this in a way that would help him lay it to rest?
“I can’t know for certain, but Nadja’s tone…” She shook her head, running her nails lightly up and down the back of Cal’s neck. “Her letter held a lot she was not saying. What if she and Achilles poisoned Pollock to stop him, but he’d already been slowly poisoning the others?”
His blue eyes were like a cloudless Summer sky. She could die a happy woman to look into them every day.
“Why was I not there, Seleste?” His voice broke, the weight of everything bearing down on him. “Why was I not on the list?”
For that, she had no answer. So, she shifted in his arms and sat on his lap. Then she kissed him with everything she had in her.
Chapter
Twenty-One
AGATHA
Agatha put a hand on Seleste’s shoulder, and Sister Summer recoiled.
“Aggie!” she clutched her chest. “You startled me.”
Sorscha let out an incoherent noise. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s noth?—”
Grimm charged through the door like a wolf into a hen house. Rather, he kicked open the door and charged in carrying four carafes of what smelled like coffee and tea. Gaius entered behind him balancing a tray of cups, while Arielle cradled too many wine glasses next to him. Laurent strolled in behind the three of them with four bottles of wine, their necks grasped between his fingers.
“Drink up, everyone,” Grimm said as the men deposited their bounty on the table and Seleste rushed to help Arielle. “We leave at dawn, and I’m afraid we have much to discuss. It will be a long night, my friends, and we are not leaving Anne alone in here.”
Dulci bustled in the still-open door with four boxes of pastries, Tindle on her heels with a tray of cheeses. Grimm caught sight of the pastry boxes and rushed Dulci, snatching them from her. He barely had them tossed onto the table before one was open and he was scarfing down a croissant.
“Did you not feed him in Achlys?” Winnie snorted at Agatha.
