Page 47 of House of the Beast

Chapter

A s soon as Sevelie’s door opened, I quickly pushed inside and clamped a hand over the mouth of the maid who had answered it to muffle her scream.

I was caked with blood and grime, and I didn’t need her drawing us any attention.

Ignoring the poor girl’s look of terror, I jerked my head for Six to follow.

Once he had scrambled through the door, I kicked it shut, and only then did I let the maid go.

“Goodness!” she screeched, jumping back. “Lady Alma—is that you?”

“Alma?” said Sevelie, poking her head down the stairs. “Are you back? How was your—Lady’s tits, what the fuck happened to you?!”

She rushed down in a flurry of lace skirts and hovered her hands over me anxiously in the entryway. “Are you hurt? Oh, heavens, we need to take you to the Disciples, you’re covered in blood.”

“It’s not mine,” I said, exhausted. Our journey back from the abandoned school had been taxing.

Taking a carriage was not an option, and I hadn’t wanted anyone on the street to see me and start asking questions.

So I had waited until dark, and then relied on Aster to guide me between the shadows the way we had done when we were young, ducking into alleyways and behind walls with Six in tow until we finally made it back.

“Then whose—” began Sevelie, before clamping her mouth shut. “Never mind. I’d prefer if you washed it off before you told me. What is that behind you?” She leaned over to examine Six, then straightened in surprise. “Alma—is that a Tinkerer’s Thing?”

“I’ll leave you to deal with this however you see fit,” drawled Aster, brushing past Sevelie unseen to climb the stairs. Though he’d gotten me safely back, he clearly still had no interest in the care of my new ward. “You know how to find me later.”

Unhelpful bastard.

“This is Six,” I said to Sevelie, which wasn’t an answer—but she hadn’t really been asking the question, anyway. She already knew. “I’m taking care of him for now.”

“And House Goldmercy is all right with this?”

“House Goldmercy does not know, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”

“Wonderful!” she said, sounding strained. Her posture was stiff, her eyes nearly wild. “Anything else?”

I hummed in thought. “I think he could use a bath too.” His gray smock was covered in dust, and he had been quite liberally spattered with the Mercyguard’s blood during the fighting.

Sevelie looked more harrowed by the second. “With the helmet and all?”

“Can you take it off?” I asked the now trembling Six.

He clung to the helmet with desperate fingers, as if afraid one of us was going to rip it away. “No!”

“Why not?” said Sevelie in what she probably hoped was a patient tone.

Six curled in on himself, looking ashamed. “The Mother told me never to take it off. She said that nobody should ever see my face.”

I felt another pang of pity. Whoever told Olissa Goldmercy that she was good with children must have been as deluded as she. “Your Mother is not here,” I said bluntly. “And you need to be cleaned up. We won’t get mad at you for it, I promise.”

Six hesitated a moment, but it seemed he wasn’t one for refusing orders.

He undid the clasps fastening the helmet to his neck, and then slowly pulled it off.

His hair was a filthy, tangled mess. Some of it lay flat against his head while other parts stuck out at wild angles.

Under the grime, it looked like it could have been dark blond in color.

As he glanced up, I saw that half of his face was that of a regular boy’s.

The other half was clockwork. Metal was embedded into skin and flesh, clicking and whirring in time with his breath.

There was a gasp from beside me. I turned to Sevelie, ready to reprimand her for being rude, only to see that she had turned as white as a sheet. Her eyes had gone wide, and her hands shook. For a long moment, all she did was stare.

Then, in a small voice, she said, “Ephrem?”

***

AT THE ESTATE, IT HAD BEEN TABOO TO SPEAK OF MY DEAD HALF brother—the first child of Zander Avera, the apple of Euphina’s eye.

But the staff talked anyway, in quiet whispers behind screen doors, or with their heads bent close as they moved through the halls.

Ephrem Avera had been an absolute gem of a boy, they’d murmur to each other.

A perfect son in every way. He had been kind and clever and naturally gifted with the sword—everything that I was not.

Euphina had doted on him, and from the sounds of it, she had good reason to resent my taking his place.

Because Ephrem had never been chosen by the Dread Beast. It had been a blow that my father apparently never recovered from, and when Ephrem died not even a year later in a tragic accident, Euphina had blamed my father.

Some members of the household, however, blamed Euphina.

My father’s wife was the daughter of an old family in Kugara—one that had wealth aplenty but no connection to the elder gods, for they had served the Despot Queen quite closely at the time of her demise.

Though House Carrine had been quick to drop their allegiances and had contributed heavily to the court’s coffers after the establishment of our modern era of divinity, some people never really quite forgot that they had once been devout followers of the old Kugari religions.

So, there was talk. Particularly among the more devout faction of attendants working at the Avera estate, most of whom now favored Kaim, who was born of two of the Four Houses.

They whispered that the Beast had not wanted his power tainted by Euphina’s bloodline, had seen fit instead to strike down a descendant of the peoples that once burned their dead and then prayed to them.

Some even speculated that Euphina had done that to my half brother’s body, and that was the real reason that his coffin in the mausoleum was empty.

She had cremated him, and my father’s story of his remains never having been found was only a cover.

Only, according to Sevelie—we were looking at his body right now.

“Is that really you?” she said now, taking a hesitant step forward. Her eyes were wide and desperate. “Do you—do you remember me, Ephrem?”

Six looked around uncertainly. “Are you talking to me, Miss?”

The look on Sevelie’s face shuttered. Her mouth went tight. “Cora,” she said, her tone sharp and musical again. “Tell the cook not to serve dinner just yet. I’d like to ask my cousin about her day first.”

The maid who had opened the door for me curtsied readily. “Of course, my lady.”

“Thank you.”

With steel in her eyes, Sevelie ushered us into the parlor, closing the door behind us with a bang.

She turned on me, the force of her displeasure sending Six skittering to take shelter at my back. “Explain.”

A terrible thought occurred to me. If my father could persuade the leader of one of Kugara’s Four Houses to do his dirty work, what were the chances that he had done the same to Sevelie?

She was already enamored with him; it would have been easy to get her to listen to his plans. And here I was, living in her home.

I squared my shoulders. “Tell me first that you weren’t a part of this,” I fired back. “Tell me my father hasn’t roped you into this plan.”

“What?” said Sevelie, her brows furrowing. “Lord Zander? What does he have to do with this?”

“Promise me first.”

Sevelie puffed herself up and gestured at the blood on my clothes. “I don’t have anything to do with—whatever horrible, unspeakable thing just happened to you. All right?”

“If I find out you’re lying—”

“I’m not,” she snapped. “I promised to be honest, and I meant it.”

I stared at her, and she stared back, unflinching. There was indignation in her gaze, but also a mote of hurt at being accused.

It seemed she was telling the truth.

Exhaustion hit me then. The restless energy that had kept me vigilant on the long journey back to Sevelie’s home drained away, leaving my mind sluggish and my bones heavy.

“I don’t know anything about Six other than that I found him under Olissa Goldmercy’s care,” I said, going to one of her fancy velvet ottomans.

I would have been more careful about the dried blood and filth I was no doubt tracking onto her furniture, but it was clear I wouldn’t be allowed to wash until she was satisfied with my explanation.

I might as well make myself comfortable.

With hesitant steps, Six slunk over to stand behind me again, as if using me as a shield against the world.

“And where is she now?” said Sevelie, planting herself on the opposite armchair.

I paused. The burden of my own actions weighed heavy in my gut still.

But if I didn’t tell her, Sevelie would find out one way or another.

The death of a House leader could not be hidden forever.

And she had promised to be honest with me.

I owed it to her to do the same. “She’s dead,” I said shortly.

Sevelie’s hand went slowly, almost absently, to her mouth.

Her gaze fixed on a spot on the carpeted floor as she seemed to contemplate a great many things at once.

Though my mind buzzed with apprehension, I waited patiently for her to get her thoughts in order.

“If she’s dead, then how is the Thing still moving?

” she finally asked, a hint of hope in her voice as if wondering whether I had been mistaken.

“I don’t know,” I repeated again. “But he spoke to me, and I thought he might testify on my behalf, so I brought him here. I didn’t want to leave him alone.”

“Testify?” said Sevelie in a voice that suggested she didn’t really want to know the answer.

“Yes,” I said anyway. “I killed the Mother Meister.”

She looked at me, pleading. “Explain why you did that, please.”