Page 62 of Blackwicket

The woman offered a self deprecating smile, shrugged one shoulder.

“A girl’s gotta make a living.”

The Inspector draped his jacket across my shoulders, instructing me to keep my red-stained sleeves out of view. I drew the lapel tight, fingers tucked inside. It smelled of Inspector Harrow.

“Cora, when the undertaker arrives, tell him the Authority will be demanding a full inquest, then make yourself scarce.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, whisking herself and the bloodstained coat away.

With a firm hand at my back, Inspector Harrow guided me from the scene of my father’s death and towards the place I’d never thought I’d be eager to return to. Blackwicket House.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The ride to Blackwicket House was mercifully silent, and I spent it trying to determine how deep the pain had rooted. My father had always been the absent kind, and my dependence on him had eventually become nonexistent. When I’d told him I never wanted to see him again, I’d meant it. Yet now I was forced to face the uncomfortable fact that while Darren was alive, I’d been able to pretend someone out there cared about me, at least a little. Not in the right way, but in some way.

I was aware of Inspector Harrow next to me. When we’d last sat here, he’d pulled my magic free and swallowed a piece of it whole. It felt like a lifetime ago, a thousand years between that moment and this one. I couldn’t look at him.

I didn’t wait for him to open my door when we arrived, exiting right away, still wrapped in his suit jacket. Blackwicket House welcomed us both, the state of me sending a buzz through the foundation. For a fraction of a moment, I wasn’t completely lost. The house needed me.

“I’ll check around,” Inspector Harrow said, closing the door behind us. The lock clicked on its own, giving him pause. I awaited a reaction, but he chose to say nothing.

“No. You have questions, and I want to answer them.” I removed the jacket from my shoulders and handed it back to him.

He took it, his regard trailing from the sleeves of my blouse to my neck and cheek. All the places where blood remained, drying.

“You should clean up,” he said.

“We talk now. I don’t want this conversation hanging over my head. I’ll never sleep.”

To indicate my will, I rooted myself to the spot, my insides trembling with resurfacing emotion.

“Very well.” Inspector Harrow donned his jacket, abandoning his attempts at feigning care. “Did you murder Darren Rose?”

“I didn’t,” I replied, in the same stiff tone I’d used the first time he’d asked me if I’d killed Brock Moftan. Only now, I wasn’t lying.

“But you fought with him before he died.” It wasn’t a question. He was already aware of what others had heard.

“Yes.”

“About?”

“Are you honestly here to bring the Brom to justice, Inspector?” I threw off the balance by asking my own question, a prerequisite to my answer. If I were going to divulge everything, I wanted some assurance it wouldn’t be brushed aside.

“Justice.” He repeated the word with some curiosity, as though he’d never felt the shape of it in his mouth, “There’s no justice for what the Brom are doing. What they’ve done. There’s only retribution, and yes, that’s what keeps me in this godforsaken town.”

Retribution was enough of a promise to encourage my decision to give to the monster that would bring down William, the Brom, even if it meant feeding it my hand, perhaps much more besides.

“William Nightglass paid a visit to me this afternoon.”Inspector Harrow became perfectly still. “He came under the pretense of saying goodbye to Fiona but stayed to threaten me and promise me the world.”

I briefly detailed the fraught exchange, excluding his leering to save myself the shame.

“William paid my father to entice me to Nightglass,” I said, when I’d finished the whole terrible, foolish tale. “That’s why we were arguing. He said he’d done it for my well-being. Apparently, I was never good at hiding from anyone but myself.”

The Inspector was silent, studying the parquet tiles as he absorbed the information, filing it away in whatever perfect system he kept in his mind for tracking the wrongdoings of the Brom. When his gaze found mine, as cold as it had ever been during interrogations past, he asked, “Was Darren really your father?”

My breath collapsed from my lungs. I couldn’t take offense. I knew why he was asking.

“He was.”