Page 29 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

He laughed then, running a hand over his mouth, likely talking himself out of shooting me. I noticed the hollowing of his cheeks as he bowed his head to refocus himself, the dark hue gathering beneath his eyes. He appeared unwell.

He pointed at me, the motion emphatic.

“You threatened the Drudge with a trip to Dark Hall. So I’ll ask you again, Miss Blackwicket. Can you access it?”

I’d trapped myself, and there was no more safety in completely lying.

“Not anymore. That threat was empty.”

“But you’ve been there before.”

“When I was a child.”

“Your mother took you there?”

“No. She forbade me from going. I snuck in.”

“Did your sister?”

“She never showed any interest. She was always afraid of it.”

“Because of the Fiend?” he asked. “But you weren’t afraid?”

The Authority’s ignorance continued to both astound and enrage me.

“The Fiend doesn’t bother people who don’t keep curses, Inspector. It feeds on broken magic. If there is none, it’s harmless. ”

In truth, the Fiend was horrifying, a smoky horde of hellish faces and grasping ghostly limbs.

When I’d first encountered it I’d been sure I was dead.

I’d huddled and cried for my mother as it rolled over me like fog, chattering my name.

I’d emerged unscathed and never saw it again, not until I’d taken Thomas.

“Eleanora, if you could access Dark Hall as a child, why should I believe you can’t now?”

His use of my given name was always jarring, and I fumbled.

“There’s not a Narthex anymore, Inspector. It was closed the night I left this house.”

“The one in the parlor.”

As usual, he showed his hand when it would do the most harm, overpowering my senses with a resentment so strong I could taste its bilious bitterness coating my throat.

“Yes,” I grated. “If you already know the answers to your questions, why are you asking them?”

“I didn’t ask you about the Narthex. You supplied that information yourself, and you expect me to assume there’s not another Narthex somewhere in this house.”

“If there were, there wouldn’t be nearly so many curses here.”

“I imagine it’s less lucrative to feed them to the Fiend.”

“We don’t sell magic!”

“Yet, your and your sister’s friendship with Nightglass…”

His words were severed by a spasm taking over his body, every muscle tightening, as if a seizure was pulling him inward, dragging his eyes shut amidst an onslaught of pain. It lasted for seconds, yet the torment lingered in the tension that kept his shoulders from straightening.

I made to approach. “Inspector?”

He raised a hand to prevent me from coming nearer.

“I’m fine, your sympathy isn’t required,” he said, the aftermath of the fit making his tone brittle .

“I was offering medical attention, not sympathy,” I replied. I’d once been happy to imagine the Inspector suffering, but seeing it in person wasn’t as pleasant as I’d dreamed. If I’d been a witness to the outcome of what I’d done to Brock, I wondered if I would have experienced the same concern.

The Inspector’s chuckle was unexpected, breathy, and humorless. “Neither are needed.”

“Did the Drudge…”

“I’m well.” At last, he was capable of his previous intensity, shoulders leveling. “As much as this conversation has been eye-opening, I need to excuse myself to rest. Being in this soggy little town is a drain on my soul.”

“I don’t think you should stay,” I said, hoping my warning wasn’t received as a threat. “I can’t guarantee this won’t happen again.”

He began his trudge to his room.

“Drudge don’t scare me anymore than they scare you,” he replied. “I was caught off guard today, I won’t be next time.”

I was going to let him go, but as he passed, the question burning inside me spilled.

“Do you really believe the Brom are stealing magical children from Dark Hall?” I asked, giving proper reverence to the weight of the question.

He paused, weary, his energy diminishing even as we stood there.

“Was Isolde Blackwicket born here?” he asked in return, and he wasn’t inquiring if she’d been born in Nightglass, or in Blackwicket House as Fiona and I were.

This was my mother’s secret, the shame of a family that didn’t belong to her, given to me and my sister to keep. But she wasn’t here, and the storm this would bring couldn’t hurt her.

“No,” I said, the word hushed .

He examined my face, eyes lingering once more on my lips as though looking for the trace of a lie there.

“Yes,” he replied, then surprised me with a shift in his tone, made soft by his peculiar exhaustion. “Miss Blackwicket. I want you to consider the possibility that the clothes and toys in the wardrobe weren’t meant for just one child.”

Dread draped me in an oily shroud. I glanced at the open door leading to the suite of rooms, once a haven, now destroyed and soiled by the implication that my sister had turned Blackwicket House into more than a waystation for cursed Brom.

“She wouldn’t.” I said it with conviction, permitting myself to reject the possibility without being sure. I owed Fiona that much. The Inspector didn’t refute me.

We went our separate ways in resigned silence, until Inspector Harrow’s voice carried the short distance across the hall.

“Eleanora.”

I glanced back from where I stood, staring into the room Fiona had made her own. The Inspector leaned against his door frame, preparing to close himself away.

“I’ll find out what happened to Fiona,” he said. “But you need to mind yourself and the company you keep. You should know better than anyone that there are monsters in Nightglass far bigger than those you harbor here.”