“Technically, yes. Certainly, she can refuse particular matches, but—” Thessaly shook her head. “I keep coming back to what Cousin Owain said about using my skills. And what that means. Father’s certainly looking for another match for me, even though I can refuse and keep refusing.” Then she twisted, squeezing her hand. “Or make my own choice. If that?—“
“If that.” Vitus felt a lump in his throat. “If that goes how I hope.”
She shifted enough to kiss him on the cheek, then leaned her head back. “I was thinking, after Cousin Owain left, about why they asked me. Why they’d think I’d be any help in the first place. The Council. They’re scrambling, unsteady, he said as much. I can’t imagine that I’ll solve anything that all of them couldn’t. A fair number of them being creative and intelligent and good at solving problems.” Her voice changed. “Even if Aunt Metaia was excellent at it, everyone said so. The creative part.”
“It is curious. I’d have expected them not to say anything to anyone. Though I suppose if there is anything in the house, they’d need your help one way or another. You have found nothing at all?”
“Nothing I didn’t already mostly expect? Whatever is here, it’s going to be thoroughly hidden.” Thessaly sighed, then said, “The other part is that everything that’s happened, since, I feel like some of it is connected. But I have no idea what.”
“Would it help to talk it out in order?” Vitus asked. “I can do that. We can do that together?” The together part was what he’d like.
“Together.”
She said nothing more, so after another few moments, Vitus took a deep breath. “You became betrothed to Childeric in March, at the equinox. Between then and the summer solstice, she became concerned about the betrothal, and the way he treated you. Did she explain why? Did she see anything specific?”
Thessaly shivered, once. “She mentioned nothing specific. But there’s the change in her will. There’s how she talked about it, at the solstice. Something new happened, or she learned something. She must have.”
“Did your Aunt Metaia have concerns about the Fortiers for any other reason besides Childeric? That’s the part I can’t make fit.” Vitus considered. “Something she found out?”
“I suppose it’s possible she found something out. That she was paying more attention to them because of the betrothal. And then spotted something else. I don’t know what, though.”
“And you don’t know what— no, wait, we’ll come back to Dagobert in a minute. Then there’s the summer solstice, and someone kills your aunt, and there’s still no idea who or how. I mean, how they got her outside the warding.”
“No. I can only assume it was someone she knew, someone she trusted enough? Or someone who set up an illusion, a cover, but she was cautious. Especially here.”
“They’d have had to come through the portal, wouldn’t they? And then around the far side, until they could come down by theroad to the east?” Vitus had seen enough of the landscape now to fit that into place.
“Mmmhmm. And there’s not much on that side, a few cottages. I can’t imagine anyone would have come up the road, from the train. That takes ages.”
“And she’d changed, so it wasn’t something she noticed coming home, through the lawn.” Vitus considered what you might hear from the grass. “The barn’s in the way.”
“The more you lay it out, the odder it is. As if she was meeting someone, but not by the portal, where it would be easy. And she went out of the warding.”
Vitus nodded, moving to kiss her hair before turning his head back to keep talking. “And then Philip Landry turned up dead. There’s nothing directly connecting the two things, and yet, it’s suspicious, the timing.”
“It is. But I can’t imagine why he’d have wanted to hurt Aunt Metaia. Or why he’d do it like that.” Thessaly shivered. She’d seen Aunt Metaia’s body, just after they found her. She’d been on her back, as if someone had tended her, but her face had suggested she’d seen her death coming. Some form of magic, Thessaly had been told, but without any obvious signs of exactly what. Philip Landry was the most logical person to be involved, but it didn’t answer anything at all.
“All the Fortiers left the Council rites rather suddenly,” Vitus said. “Did Philip? I didn’t see him after that, but you often didn’t, even when he was there.” There were plenty of smaller conversations in the side rooms, people making their own arrangements in varying ways. “And it was rather a crush, so many people around. Henut Landry and Alexander were still there when you noticed the Fortiers were gone, but I didn’t see Philip. Mama didn’t mention him.” Vitus thought back to what she’d said. “That’s a mystery, then.”
“Does this bring us back to them?” Thessaly’s voice quavered, and Vitus tucked an arm more securely around her.
“You don’t enjoy talking about him, of course.” Vitus wasn’t at all sure how to weave his way through this. “Can you tell me why?”
“A few bad dreams.” She hadn’t really moved, but she somehow felt more distant. “About what he’d likely have done once we were married. Why now, I don’t know. And just remembering. It wasn’t, mostly, anything he said or did, not exactly. It was the look in his eyes. Controlling and expecting. Everything Aunt Metaia was worried about.”
“She loved you very much.” Vitus felt like it was a silly platitude, but it was also true, and maybe it would help to hear someone say it. “Should I keep going or do you want to stop?”
“We need to keep going. It will not get better, ignoring it.” There was the stubbornness, that sounded better. “Childeric got worse. Sigbert stayed more or less reasonable, but he’d not stand up to Childeric. No one told me anything at all, except Laudine. I don’t know, maybe that was Lady Chrodechildis’s doing? She’s still clearly the one directing the family. Only whatever’s changed for Dagobert, that includes Laudine.”
“And she left with the rest of them,” Vitus noted. “What’s different about Dagobert and Laudine? That’s what I wonder? Other than they have told you some things, they have made overtures, you’ve said. And the fact Dagobert was hurt, somehow, right around that time.”
“You’d said,” Thessaly now twisted so she could look at him again, “that he’d been reading about electricity. And that Childeric’s body, it had marks like lightning. I forget the name?”
“Lichtenberg marks.” Vitus nodded. “Was there anything odd between solstice and Childeric’s death? Other than Childeric being worse to you?”
“A lot of worse. There was that odd thing, them keeping me away from that corner of the property. But I didn’t see any obvious reason.” Thessaly frowned. “Is there a thing like a map of the estate in the Trellech Library, do you think? That would have buildings on it?”
“I suspect the Council has one, if you asked nicely for a copy,” Vitus said. “I don’t know about the library. I can ask, find a time when it’s quiet. Why am I asking? I don’t have anything like a good cause.”
