“Beatrice, tell me your truth,” I say. “Be brief, but don’t leave anything out.”
All eyes turn to Beatrice. She swallows, placing her trembling hands on the stone table. She keeps her eyes locked intently on me as she wrings her fingers together.
“I was posted outside your door,” she says. “I’d been there for about an hour when Oskar arrived. He said I was being dismissed and that he would take over watch. I went straight to Amelia’s quarters from there, and I remained until I left to feed. That’s when you found me.”
I shift my attention to Amelia.
“True?”
“Beatrice arrived about twenty minutes after sunfall,” Amelia says. “She mentioned she’d been relieved by Oskar. She was with me until the second hour, when she said she was going to feed.”
“Oskar,” I say.
The old man, my longest friend, sits on the opposite end of the table at his usual place. He sits with relaxed posture and his eyes keep flicking to the heavens. In the moments before he speaks, I scan over his entire appearance. Where I had to search for Beatrice’s emotions, Oskar’s are written plainly over his face.
He’s confident, comfortable, unbothered.
Innocent, I tell myself.He’s clearly innocent.
“Beatrice speaks the truth,” he says finally.
Something jolts in my chest, sharp as a wooden stake through the heart.
“After our meeting, I went to your quarters,” he says. His eyes are on mine, steady and unrelenting. “I dismissedBeatrice. I told Grace she was to retrieve her father’s belongings from the human world.”
Something violent and scalding crashes through my insides. It’s impossible to think, to feel, to do anything but stare at my oldest friend. He’d taken the words from our meeting and used them to mislead Grace. My Grace. I want to lunge across the table and rip his head from his body.
Instead, I force myself to swallow, to take a deep, heaving breath.
“Why.” I meant to ask it as a question, but it comes as a sharp command.
“I told her Cora believed it would help the curse,” he says. His face remains soft and warm, but something in his eyes flickers with darkness. With cruelty. So brief it would have been easy to miss.
At some point, it seems Oskar started a game, and I’m at the center of it. How many times did that flicker of evil cross his expression, and I was too naive to notice?
Whatever his plan, it’s clear he wants to relish this moment. He’d like to drag it out, make me beg for each parcel of information. He’s going to hold his words close, so I must do the same.
I tuck my emotions into a careful box in the back of my mind and harden my stare.
“Where is she now?” I ask.
All the other members have fallen perfectly still at the table. Beatrice’s eyes have fluttered shut, and a tear streaks down her cheek. Amelia has her hands pressed to her temples. The two younger men are silent, but their eyes flick from each other to me to Oskar. Cora is too deep into her spell to realize what’s happening around her.
“Hard to say,” Oskar says.
He smiles. He fucking smiles at me.
It’s not mocking or taunting. It’s gentle and kind, as if he’s done nothing wrong.
Maybe he hasn’t, I remind myself.
It’s a useless, pathetic hope.
“Oskar,” I say. My voice booms through the silent courtyard, and his eyes spark. I’m giving him exactly what he wants, but I can’t control myself for another second. “Tell me where she is or I’ll rip your fucking head from your body.”
“Go ahead then,” he says. He rests his elbows in front of him, leaning toward me. “Rip my head off, Master. See where it gets you.”
I suck air into my lungs, clenching and unclenching my fists.
