“I didn’t pick them,” I admitted, and she let out a little laugh, surprising us both. “Could you get me something to drink?” I asked. “I’m so thirsty.”
She was gone for a moment, then returned with a pitcher and a crystal tumbler. The sound of the water spilling into the glass was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
Camille helped me sit up, positioning pillows beneath my bruised back to help keep me upright. The pain began then—not a slow creeping of awareness, but a bolt down the spine, a series of tremors racing along every nerve. My fingers balled into fists so tight Camille had to hold the glass for me, slowly pouring that blessed water into my mouth as though I were a baby bird.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I began, sinking back into the bedding. Sitting up, even for a short moment, proved too taxing. “Where’s Alex? Where is his…” I trailed off before I could say the horrible idea aloud.
Camille ran her fingertips over my face and my stomach tightened at the gentle touch. It all but confirmed what I feared.
“He’s in the next room, resting.”
My heart skipped a beat; certainly I’d misheard her.
“His body?”
She shook her head, frowning.
“But…I saw him fall. There was no way he could have survived that. No way he could have—”
“That wasn’t him on the floor. He was on the balcony.”
“He’s alive?” I asked, needing clarification, needing to hear her say the actual words aloud, as if they were some sort of magic spell binding him here, assuring his continued existence.
“He’s alive,” Camille repeated, and tears pricked at my eyes.
“So Viktor…”
He’d been the one to fall.
Alex had somehow, wonderfully, impossibly survived.
She bit at the corner of her lip. “The boy on the ground? Or the other one in the study? The authorities don’t know what to do about them. No one knows who they are.”
“Alex’s brothers. They’re…theywere…triplets. Julien and Viktor.”
She licked her lips. “They’re dead too.”
I nodded.
Camille touched my hair again. “What happened here, Verity? When I arrived, there were no groundsmen to open the gates, no footmen to greet us once we made our way through. I came in and found that horrible old woman standing over you, about to…She was about to kill you, Verity. If I’d been just seconds later…” She swallowed and shook her head, the sentence too painful to finish.
A flash of red echoed through my mind as I remembered Marguerite’s confession.
“What happened? To Marguerite?”
“There was a poker on the floor. I picked it up and…struck her.”
I inhaled sharply, pain spiking along my ribs. “You killed her.”
Camille looked away uncomfortably. “I…I did what I had to do.”
Her words and tone reminded me so much of Viktor, I felt sick, the room swimming before me with a queasy ache.
“More water?” she asked, and I nodded.
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked after several shallow sips.
“Almost a day. The healer said you broke your wrist and cracked two ribs, but she was able to set everything. It will take time, obviously, but you’ll recover.”
