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When we pause for breath, she lets her head drop forward, burying her face against my shoulder. “Gods,” she sighs, her lips grazing down my neck, “can’t we do this forever?”

I laugh, feeling breathless and dizzy. “I wish we could.”

Slowly, slowly, we draw apart. As Camille steps back, I look at her guardedly. She smiles, and there is no artifice in her, nothing I need to earn or give. Her cheeks are flushed, her mouth reddened. I go into my room, my fingers at my lips, pressed down on the memory of our second kiss.

I fill my satchel with a change of clothes, my hairbrush, a velvet ribbon. The book of Caedmon’s sketches. I go downstairs, with Camille at my side. She waits while I put on my boots, tie up the laces.

She trails after me as I pace through the house for a final time. In the kitchen, I notice Alastair’s copy ofThe Neriad, left behind on the table. I pick it up, opening it to a random page. The margin is filled with more of the tiny, intricate pencil sketches. Leaves and seashells and wildflowers. A face, in profile: a girl with long hair crowned by flowers. My name, written between the lines of poetry, so darkly that the pencil has smudged.Lacrimosa.

I close the book, tuck it into the bottom of my satchel. We leave the cottage through the kitchen door.

Saltswan is solemn on the clifftop, the windows sheened gray by the reflected sky. I keep my hands in my pockets, clutching the folded telegram like it’s a talisman. I try to figure out what I’ll say on the telephone, how to explain this to Henry and Oberon.

Inside the house, none of the lamps have been lit. In the quiet front hall, the framed portraits watch us from the shadows. A taut red mouth here, a set of narrowed gray eyes there. There’s no sign of Alastair in any of the rooms we pass.

Camille leads me into a sitting room at the rear of the house. Here,on the wall between two ornate portraits, is a framed photograph of Alastair and Camille with their father. Camille is posed stiffly, in a severe, dark dress. Alastair wears a suit, a silk tie knotted tightly at his throat. Marcus Felimath has his hand on Alastair’s shoulder, and even in the grainy black-and-white picture I can make out the firm, hard way he’s grasped his son, the harsh press of his fingers.

I touch the edge of the photograph frame. Even though Camille and Alastair look unhappy, standing on either side of their grim father, it raises a little prickle of envy in me. I wish that Oberon hadn’t burned all the photographs of our parents. It’s as though my life is a book, and when I try to turn back to the chapters before my birth, there are only the barest lines of text.

Beside Marcus is an unfamiliar woman with elegant, aquiline features and long, dark hair. “Is that your mother?” I ask. I have never met Alastair and Camille’s mother, but I remember Alastair mentioning her briefly, saying she lived in another city and had little contact with her children.

Camille nods. “Yes. Her name is Romilly. I think this photograph was taken the last time I saw her; she has an apartment in Gardemuir now. She writes to us sometimes. But whenever we’ve tried to visit, it’s neverthe right moment.”

We’re standing so close that the backs of our hands almost touch; I reach to Camille, lace my fingers through hers. Romilly Felimath stands slightly apart from the rest of her family, her eyes focused on a point beyond the camera lens. She looks distracted, as though she is already somewhere else.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Camille, because it’s all I can think to say.

She offers me a wan smile. “All I remember of her was that she taught me and Alastair to play the piano.” Her smile dims. She looks at me, her expression starkly bitter, lit more by anger than sorrow. “I still don’t know if it would be better or worse if she had stayed, but I’ll not chase after someone who doesn’t want me. Alastair has alwaysbeen the only family I truly need.” She drags her thumb across my knuckles, then slides her hand from my grasp. Indicating the table below the photograph, where a telephone sits beside a stack of glossy architectural magazines, she goes on. “I’ll wait upstairs while you make your call. Come and find me when you’re done. And good luck.”

I set down my satchel and take the telegram from my pocket as Camille leaves the room. I pick up the receiver, cradling it between my shoulder and ear. I’m about to dial when a voice comes on the line. Alastair, in mid-conversation. “—I’ve done what you asked.”

He sounds bored, annoyed. I can picture him standing beside a window, his eyes on the sea, barely paying attention to the call. I need to hang up, but then, before I can move, he continues, “I know it was a mess, what happened in the mine, and with the Arriscanes, but I told you—I’m taking care of it.”

I clap a hand over the receiver, holding my breath. Alastair is talking about me—about my family. He’s talking to the Salt Priest.

CHAPTER ELEVENNow

I bite my lip until I taste blood, clutching my hand over the receiver to stifle any sounds. A shiver drags down my spine as I wait for the conversation to continue.

But the voice that answers Alastair—tense, angry, slick as poison—is not one of the Salt Priests. It’s Marcus Felimath. It’s been years since I’ve heard him speak, but his icy, arrogant tone is unmistakable.

“I gave you very clear instructions on how to deal with the Arriscanes, and you promised that you’d carry them out. Clearly, you have not done as I asked. How do you think that makes me feel, Alastair?”

There’s only silence from the other end of the line. Finally, Alastair answers his father. “Disappointed.”

“Correct. I’m disappointed.” Marcus bites out each word with disgust. “I don’t like to be disappointed. Particularly not by my only son. You said the Arriscane family’s debt would be handled in a matter of days. Now you tell me I’ll have to wait for the salt harvest.”

Alastair swallows audibly. “Well, I made a mistake.”

“There’s no such thing as a mistake. Only your carelessness.”

I listen, helplessly, as Alastair is berated by his father. Thinking of how he refused to forgive the debt. How he claimed he had no choice,that it was his duty. This is what he meant, that he’s answering to a man who speaks to his only son like he’s holding a razor at his throat.

“I’m sorry,” Alastair says, and his voice is so quiet, so small, it makes my chest ache. “I know this isn’t what you planned, but I will take care of it. I promise.”

“I don’t want your promises. I want you to do as Iask.” Marcus’s tone has gone calm—unnaturally so—like the lull before a storm. But I can sense the veiled threat beneath his words, the promise of violence. “Even your idiotic sister could do better.”

“No,” Alastair says quickly. “Leave her out of this.”