Page 92 of Blackwicket

I stalked past the chauffer, who stood grouchy and red-faced, a tire iron in hand.

“You look full of angry bees,” he gruffed. “How’d this happen?”

“Victor,” I growled, storming to the stairs.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Thea stood in the foyer, the door left open so she could escape at any moment, draped in a black fur stole offering limited warmth over her thin satin gown, simple save for the ruching below her bust. Upon noticing my expression, she raised her defenses in anticipation of the snap of angry magic I aimed at her.

“How could you lead Jack back to William?” I seethed.

“Is he safer in this house with your pet Drudge? Those creatures nearly killed him!” She echoed my fury.

My skin tingled with the electricity of her temper, equal to mine. The house ought to have reveled in this display, yet it remained motionless as a dead rabbit.

“Who is he, Thea?” I demanded.

“Not Roark.” In so many words, she was telling me that not only was I wrong, but it was none of my business.

“Because Roark is dead, isn’t he?” It was better my magic hadn’t fully recovered from the ordeal with the door; otherwise, I might have been tempted to misuse it.

“I don’t know.” Each word was a staccato insistence.

“Was he my sister’s son?” I urged, eager to extract at least one honest answer.

“No more than Jack is mine!” Her voice rose, sorrow flickering in her dark eyes, “She loved that boy, but he wasn’t hers. She stole him.”

Thea wilted, her determination to stay proud and unbending crumbling as her shoulders drooped. She raised a manicured hand to her face, pressing her fingers above her brows to stifle her tears. I wanted more from her, the urgency for it burning, but in the presence of a woman overwhelmed by the same forces that had devastated Fiona, I reluctantly softened and allowed her a moment to breathe. When she finally looked up, her gaze drifted around the foyer.

“I lied to you,” she confessed, “About ever being in the house.”

“You’ve come here?”

Thea smiled, and it was the shape of a beloved memory. She swiped at her tears. “We practically lived here. Jack and me. Before Roark’s disappearance, before Fiona started blaming Grigori, and William began blaming her.”

A horde of questions crowded my mouth.

“Is Roark’s disappearance the reason Fiona killed Grigori?”

“Who knows why she did anything.” Thea took a deep breath, her sense of fragility lingering. “I stopped knowing her that day. She turned her back on us, on the people who cared about her.”

“She gave you her life,” I contended, Fiona and my Mother blurring into a single person, both having sacrificed everything to meet the relentless demands of being a Curse Eater for Nightglass—a woman who continually cracked herself open to sew everyone else together with her own sinew.

“And I gave her mine.” Thea pulled her stole closer, shielding herself from memories. “She needed me, and I stayed. Jack and I could have run, we had opportunities, but we’d built a life. Maybe not a life anyone else would want, but it was ours.”

I understood—the picture of my sister, hand on Thea’s knee, laughing in a moment of pure joy, the bottle of jasmine perfume on the dresser, half empty despite my sister favoringhoneysuckle, the red lipstick on the vanity, the same shade Thea wore, and the children’s clothes and toys for more than a single child.

She’d been more than a friend to Fiona.

“Oh, Thea,” I said gently, heart aching, suddenly wanting to know her—this woman my sister had loved. But it was all far too late for that. Our paths hadn’t converged in a manner that made trust or friendship possible. I distanced myself from these regretful new emotions by asking, “Did my sister steal Jack from Dark Hall?”

Thea cast a glance behind me, where Ramsey had been standing quiet as death, some ways away, leaving room for our animosity. He nodded to Thea, encouraging her.

“Jack belongs to the Authority,” she explained, voice dropping low as though not wanting to be overheard, “They traded him to William Nightglass.”

“For what?” I cried, voice pitching high in shock, the antithesis of secrecy.

“For access to curses.”