I knock back the glass of whiskey in my hand and immediately hold it out to Carter for a refill.
The burning ache of humiliation in my chest hasn’t abated since I left the Carrenwell gardens an hour ago. When I came straight to Carter’s room, he read my emotional temperature quickly and summoned Naima and Bryce for backup.
They sat me down at the table in the room, and Carter has been monitoring my liquor intake as they listen to me rant.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk this much,” Naima says, playing with the belt of her robe.
Carter smirks at her. “Consider yourself lucky.”
I ignore their jabs, the seething anger too much for me to hold in. “I told her about Holly and she used that to manipulate me. She lied to me about what she wants out of this, and if I don’t know her motivation, I don’t know how to trust her. I poured my heart out?—”
“To get her to share with you,” Carter reminds me.
“I told her about the worst thing that ever happened to me,” I say. “I told her about losing Holly, and she offered me the one thing she knew I wouldn’t be able to resist—a sister who could be saved. She played on my sympathies.”
“Like you played on hers,” Naima says. “You’re just mad you got outplayed.”
Iammad I got outplayed. But I’m furious I got outplayed by someone who understood how to hit me in the place where it hurts most. I grossly miscalculated when I showed her so much of myself early on.
Can I really blame her for using it against me when I was such a fucking sap?
“You know I’m always the first to gloat, Hen,” Bryce says, leaning forward to pat me on the shoulder. “But this is a time I really don’t want to say I told you so. You deserve better. Especially when it comes to Holly.”
I clink glasses with him and knock back the rest of my drink, savoring the burn in my chest.
“All right. I’m cutting you off after this one, so enjoy it. Tomorrow is a big day and we can’t have you slow and hungover,” Carter says, filling my glass one more time.
It’s more ceremonial than anything. It’s hard for the Deathless to get drunk, or rather to stay drunk, because of how quickly we process alcohol. I’ll sober up in an hour or two if I don’t keep drinking, and while I don’t get hungover like I did before my first death, I do sometimes get hungry for blood if I’ve pushed too hard.
That’s very unappealing since I’d rather shrivel up and die than be hungry for blood right now. Because it won’t be a general craving I’m trying to sate. It will be a specific one. Nothing has ever tasted as good as Harlow’s blood.
I take a slow sip of my drink, trying to savor it, instead of just using it to blunt the ache in my chest.
Naima sighs. “Look, you need some tough love. Your ego is bruised and you want to use it as an excuse to act out, but whether or not your wife used you like you were using her, you don’t get to act self-righteous just because you lost. If you could have done the same to her, you would have in a heartbeat. And let’s not forget the bigger issue here—Kellan knows you’re twice-blessed, and his sister, your wife, does not.”
I stare into my glass and refuse to look at her. At first, I had been entirely focused on Kellan knowing that secret, but after our talk in the garden, that was all but forgotten in the wake of Harlow’s cruelty.
“Divine deliver me,” Naima mutters. “Why don’t you actually talk to her, Henry? If what you learned from her brother disturbed you so much, why don’t you speak to her tomorrow before the events start?”
Bryce tucks his long copper hair behind his ears, then smacks a hand on the table. “That’s it! Naima is right. You should confront her with it before the evening starts. She won’t be able to avoid you for the rest of the night, so you can really make her suffer for it,” Bryce says.
Naima rubs a hand down her face. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No, he’s right,” I say, spinning my glass on the table. “If I talk to her before tomorrow’s events, I know exactly how to get the truth out of her, now that Kellan has been so forthcoming.”
She can be cruel. Fine. I can be cruel, too. It will be good to clear the air before the rest of the festival. If we’re going to have a prayer of pulling this off, I need her to be honest, even if I have to force her to do it.
I stand, gulp the rest of my drink, and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
Tomorrow, I’ll bring her back to the garden and confront her there with evidence she can’t charm her way around. She’ll be forced to surrender this game she’s been playing with me. Either we’ll move forward with the clear understanding between us, or I’ll take her down along with the rest of her family.
57
HARLOW
Carrenwell House is the absolute last place I expected Henry to want to go during our only free time on Descent day. That said, there is hardly a more appropriate place for me to begin a journey into darkness.
It’s midafternoon, but the eclipse has made the day so dark, the only light in the garden is from the glowing sunstones that line the paths. The lights cast his face in sinister shadows, and my stomach twists.
