Page 68

“Well,” conceded Mordaunt, as one caught in a little white lie, “I did kill my father. My mother died of—causes.”

“Not natural?”

“No.”

On either side of the corridor, dark rooms lay like mausoleums. Elegant furnishings decayed within, encased in their white winding-sheets. Wallpaper peeled. Curtains rotted. Floorboards creaked under their feet. All was faded grandeur.

It pleased Aurienne to see it. Let the Fyren rot.

A mild sneezing fit accompanied this uncharitable thought. Aurienne could not abide dust.

They came now to the back of the house, in an area that seemed a little more lived-in and, happily for Aurienne’s sinuses, less dusty. They passed a grand piano, a room walled with portraits, another packed with silver vases and mirrors, and another full of marble sculptures.

“I am a great appreciator of beauty,” said Mordaunt. In the face of Aurienne’s raised brow, he added, “You look as though you doubt me.”

“Killing is the ugliest thing there is.”

“One must fund the beauty somehow.”

Aurienne made no comment save a judgemental tut. They passed a small armoury glistening with weapons, and a gallery of paintings of dizzying sun-filled landscapes.

“What are those?” asked Aurienne.

“Landscapes.”

“As seen in a malarial dream?”

“It’s called Impressionism.”

They passed a deep alcove. Immured by pink and mauve curtains, the alcove made a peculiar sort of tube.

“Is this meant to look like a colon?” asked Aurienne.

“A colon?” repeated Mordaunt.

Aurienne pointed at the pink frills and folds. “Villi. Mucosa. Submucosa. These pockets make compelling intestinal crypts.”

Mordaunt was both pained and offended. “What? No. That was a part of the viewing experience for my beautiful de Beauveau.Dusk Roses. I had to sell it.”

Aurienne peered into the colon’s lumen. There was a bare frame at the end of it. “Why?”

“You,” said Mordaunt. The word was potent with accusation.

“Me?”

“Twenty million thrymsas.”

“Ah.”

“Should’ve gone with the kidnap,” said Mordaunt.

“You were wise not to,” said Aurienne.

Mordaunt did not look convinced. Aurienne didn’t argue the point. He needn’t know what ravages she could’ve laid on him.Harm to noneheld until it abutted with self-defence, at which point Aurienne could be—well, rather harmful. A Haelan knew exactly how to keep people alive, and conversely, a few interesting ways to cause immediate death. There was a reason the Order’s tacn was an Aer.

“Also your fault,” said Mordaunt, with a gesture towards an arrangement of live vines, twining around a blank square of wall. “And that one, too,” he said, pointing at a trickling water feature framing nothing.

Aurienne made no apologies for the gaps in the opulence. In fact, she found them gratifying. She wished that she and Xanthe had pushed for thirty million. No, forty million and the entirety of Rosefell Hall. They could’ve used the property as an isolation unit after a bit of renovating.