A knot tightened in my throat. Olivian. He was definitely going to kill me.
But there was no help for it, so I took Kai’s hand and nodded, pointing my feet toward home.
The seneschal met us in the drive.
His face crumpled when Kai and I emerged from the marsh, but I could tell by the defeated set of his shoulders that he already knew. Of course he did. Nothing else could have cured the rot overnight except the one thing he’d feared above all else.
I raised my chin and headed for him, leaving Kai behind. By the time I reached Olivian, he was on his knees in the gravel, his throat convulsing. I couldn’t tell if he was crying. Rain coursed down his cheeks, soaking his beard, plastering his hair to his head.
“You promised,” he gasped. A dark abyss lay beneath the accusation. “Youpromisedme.”
“I know.” I got on my knees, too, ignoring the bite of gravel. “I’m so sorry.”
He looked wild, his face a tangled mess of grief.
I reached for his hand, then thought better of it. “But she asked me, Olivian. Shewantedto go. And I couldn’t keep her here anymore. I just...couldn’t. It wasn’t right. I loved her too much to make her stay.”
A sob tore from his chest. “I should kill you.”
I waited, but he didn’t move, and I could tell he didn’t really mean it. He just needed to vent his anguish, by any means necessary.
“I broughtsomethingback, though,” I said. “For you.”
He just sat there. The light had left his eyes.
I glanced back at Kai, who nodded his encouragement. I eased the dagger from its sheath and offered Olivian the hilt. Rain collected in the channel that ran down the blade.
The seneschal stared, seemingly devoid of even the will to take the knife and bury it in my chest.
Not that I would’ve let him. “Hold it,” I said. “And you can talk to her. Inside your mind.”
A glimmer stirred in his life-starved eyes. He palmed the dagger with one massive hand.
His gaze unfocused. Then his body jolted and his eyes slammed shut and he was weeping, truly weeping—great, wrenching sobs that wracked his frame. He curled forward until his forehead hit the ground.
“My sweet girl,” he babbled, between heaves. “My baby. My precious daughter.”
I knelt there, a wealth of feeling stoppering my breath. I had never seen anyone fall apart so spectacularly, and I couldn’t decide what to do. Eventually, I settled for an awkward pat of his back.
“Leave me,” he growled. “Leave me with her.”
I did.
I went to Kai, who brought me inside. We told the closest steward where to find Vick, then gave the man the keys to free him. Then my husband took me upstairs and undressed me in our room. We drew a steaming bath and washed each other with worshipful intention, which concluded with us making love on the bathroom floor amid a wonderland of reflections. I gazed into the mirrors the entire time. They showed me our joining from a thousand different angles, and it felt like glimpsing the future, like a promise that we would celebrate this way a thousand more times.
When it was over, Kai kissed me and said, “Hideous. Downright painful.”
“Awful,” I agreed. “It’s like you get worse every time.”
“Likewise. It beggars belief, honestly.”
I laughed. What a stupid joke, and yet I couldn’t imagine ever tiring of it. “I guess we’ll have to try again.”
His eyes glinted. “Poor us. Will the torture never cease?”
We stayed in Oceansgate until after Lunk and Miss Quist’s wedding.
They held their ceremony in the library, and this time, the whole household attended. Everyone except Olivian. The seneschal had kept to himself for weeks, haunting the halls with the dagger clutched close, a husk of a man who spent every waking moment conversing with his lost daughter.
