“I…I’m not sure,” I whispered.
Alex swallowed, looking slightly green, then stretched out to tap on the door. “Father?”
“Yes. Come in.” The door muffled Gerard’s voice too much to be certain of his tone.
I pulled it open for Alex, allowing him to enter first.
My eyes instinctively looked toward the bookcase holding the specimen jars. The false front was rolled in place, hiding away all traces of Gerard’s experiments.
Gerard sat behind the desk, his palms spread across its surface. His eyes were dry but his lips had settled in a grim line. A roaring fire crackled behind him, filling the air with a heat so powerful it was hard to breathe.
He glanced up. “Verity.”
I held my breath, listening to the grandfather clock tick, counting the seconds of silence that went by, wondering how he was going to handle this, waiting for it to all break loose, like a summer storm, pure madness and fury.
Gerard’s face remained a placid mask, revealing nothing of his inner thoughts. The longer the silence went on, the greater my desire to let out a scream and demand answers became.
He sighed, as if the awkwardness of the situation pained him. “I need some time alone with my son, Verity. I think perhaps it best if—”
“I want her here,” Alex said, his hand clasping mine with resolution.
Despite the firm confidence of his voice, his fingers trembled and I folded my other hand over his, aching to offer support however I might.
Gerard’s eyes flickered from his son, to me, and back to Alex again. “Very well.” His voice was brisk and businesslike. “There is no easy to way to say this, but Dauphine is…dead.”
Hearing it a second time was no less a shock. I wanted to ask questions, but the sudden absence at my side stalled me.
Alex’s hand had dropped free of mine.
I knelt beside the wheelchair, pulling him into a swift embrace. I tried to remember condolences given out after Papa’s passing. Though Kosamaras had unlocked that missing section of my life, allowing me to recall everything in crystalline detail, there were none. None that mattered. Grief so terrible can’t be soothed away by words whispered in haste.
Alex stifled back a sob, covering his mouth as tears spilled down his face like rain. “No.”
“I…I’m sad to say it’s true.” Though Gerard seemed determined to keep a stiff upper lip for Alex’s sake, his lower one trembled. For one awful, sympathetic moment, I didn’t see the monster I knew he was. I only saw the man, small and alone. For all his faults—and there were many—he had truly loved Dauphine, in his way.
I sat back on my heels, unsure of what to do. “Gerard,” I began. “I’m so sorry. This is shocking news. I was with Dauphine only hours ago. She seemed fine and happy and…” I remembered the bottles shattering in the tavern’s fireplace with a wince. “What happened?”
His lips twisted, as if he was sucking at a piece of food wedged tight in the corner of his teeth. “She was poisoned.”
My gasp was loud enough to break through Alex’s misery, stirring his attention.
“What? That can’t be right. Who would want to poison Mother?”
Gerard traced a whorl on the desk with his thumb. “Apparently, while in Bloem, the girls visited a tavern.”
My mouth fell open.
I felt Alex’s eyes fall on me, rounded wide with concern.
Gerard glanced up, studying his son first, then me. “Someone tampered with the wine you were served.”
Trying to recall the afternoon was like wading through a thick sludge. The acidic taste of the alcohol still lingered in my mouth, coating everything with a tart sharpness.
Poisoned.
“The wine?” Alex echoed, piecing things together more quickly than I. “When Verity came in this afternoon, she was…not herself. Spacey and giggling and justwrong.I thought sheand Mother had only gotten tipsy, but if the wine had been drugged…how much did you drink?”
“I had a glass,” I murmured. “Maybe two. I didn’t like the way it tasted…the way it made me feel. I thought it was just very strong wine….”
