Page 50 of House of the Beast

Chapter

W hen I exited my room, I found Sevelie pacing around on the landing.

“Alma!” she greeted me, looking nervous.

I had little time to wonder why before the doorbell rang.

She jumped, then looked back at me again. “Alma, promise you won’t be mad.”

“Mad?” I repeated dumbly, and then froze. Horror unfurled in my stomach. Had she betrayed me? Had she ratted me out to the Inquisitors after all? “What did you do?”

“She can help,” Sevelie was pleading, even as she rushed down the stairs to the door.

I looked at Aster, confused and suddenly on edge.

“Are you sure you still want me to be nice?” he asked lightly.

Stubbornness won over my uncertainty. “Yes,” I answered simply, and followed Sevelie down the stairs.

I prayed with a pounding heart that she hadn’t done something stupid, something that would put my monster into a mood I couldn’t protect her from.

A maid was answering the door, bowing politely to whoever was on the other side.

I rounded the corner feeling sick to my stomach.

Would it be a member of the court? Or even my father?

The door opened fully, and Euphina stepped inside.

My footsteps faltered. This was the last person I had expected to see coming into Sevelie’s home. Sevelie had said that this would help—but how? My father’s wife hated me. Dread pooled in my gut. I did not know what Sevelie had been thinking, but she had made a huge mistake.

Despite the late hour, Euphina was impeccably dressed, her hair pulled into an intricate golden braid and wrapped into a bun at her nape. She glanced around the foyer with an air of distaste. When she saw Sevelie, who was hurrying to greet her, her eyes narrowed to icy slits.

“Well?” she snapped as the door closed. “You have used my son’s name against me, and if I find this to be a waste of my time, you will be sorry.”

“Lady Euphina,” said Sevelie, giving her a deep curtsy despite the rudeness of Euphina’s tone. “Thank you for coming at such short notice, and at such an inconvenient time. I promise this is no trick. Alma and I really need your help.”

“Sevelie,” I said as I joined them in the entryway, slowly, warily. “What is this?”

She turned to me. “If anyone knows about Lord Zander’s plans, it would be Lady Euphina,” she said in a hurry. “Euphina, please—we know he is plotting something on this Pilgrimage. He’s tried to hurt Alma, and she needs to know what else he’s prepared so she can keep herself safe.”

Horror filled me. She had told Euphina everything, just like that.

Who knew what she might do with this knowledge?

Euphina didn’t care for my father, it was true, but surely we could not trust her to have my best interests at heart.

I sent a panicked look at As ter, who tipped his chin at Sevelie as if to ask, again, Would you like this taken care of?

I quickly looked away.

Euphina gave a delicate snort. “Even if I know anything, which I am not saying I do, why should I tell you? You, of all people—I’ve seen the way you look at my husband, and your blatant disregard for me. Let me say that it does not leave me feeling particularly charitable.”

Sevelie went red. Suddenly she looked very small—a young girl, chided for her fantasies. But she kept her head high and said, “I know you have plenty of reasons to dislike me. But I’m not asking this for my sake—it is for Alma’s, and if that doesn’t convince you, then do it for Ephrem.”

The change to Euphina’s demeanor of cool superiority was instant. “What do you know about Ephrem?” she growled.

Sevelie stood firm in the face of her cold rage. “Cora, will you bring Six out?”

By this point, I had sidled up to my cousin’s fiancée and was now close enough to hiss in her ear, “Sevelie, this isn’t a good idea.”

“It’ll work,” she hissed back. “I remember the way Euphina was with Ephrem. She would do anything for him.”

“That’s my father’s wife ,” I said, struggling to keep my voice down. “She detests me. And from what I can see, she’s not very fond of you either. What makes you think she won’t just run back to my father and expose us all?”

It was too great a risk. If she tried to leave, I would have to stop her. I did not want to do it, and keeping her here would only arouse more suspicion, but what other choice did I have? I looked again at Aster, who was watching me intently, as if waiting for my signal.

“I know I’m taking a gamble,” Sevelie whispered plaintively, pulling me back to our conversation.

“But I’m asking you to trust me. The Pilgrimage is tomorrow, and there really isn’t much time.

If Euphina knows something about your father, Six can convince her to tell us—and convince her not to tell him, in return. ”

Typically, I wouldn’t have worried about Euphina confiding in my father, knowing how much she hated him.

But she was glaring at me with such animosity that I thought she might do it anyway, just to spite me.

I stared back, refusing to cower. We might have stood there forever, both too stubborn to back down—but then her eyes caught on something over my shoulder and went wide.

After a moment, she put her hands over her mouth and took a half step forward before suddenly freezing, as if afraid.

A strangled noise choked its way out of her throat.

I turned to see Six, dressed in new clothes with his golden hair tamed from its previous mess, being led down the hallway by Sevelie’s maid.

He almost looked like a normal boy, if not for the clockwork still ticking away where skin and flesh should be.

Now that I was looking for it, I could see the resemblance between him and his mother, in the color of their hair, the shapes of their noses.

But Six’s eyes were much kinder. I wondered where he had gotten that from, being born of two such ill-tempered parents.

Euphina took a great, shuddering breath, as if she had not tasted air in years. Then she broke like a dam, surging forward and dropping painfully onto her knees before the frightened little Thing, gripping his shoulders tightly.

“Ephrem?” she gasped. “Ephrem, is that you? It’s me—it’s me! It’s your mother!”

The poor kid looked terrified out of his senses. He clearly did not recognize her. He endured Euphina’s sobbing for only a second, and then he twisted away and came running to hide behind me.

She turned to me, shattered.

“I’m not Ephrem,” said Six in a small voice. “I’m Six.”

Euphina’s face went red with rage. Her hands curled into fists, shaking at her sides. “What have you done to him?!” she screeched at me.

“Nothing,” I answered calmly. “I found him with the Mother Meister. Who, by the way, tried to temper me so that I would follow my father into the umbral plane. I don’t know why he wants me with him, only that he does, and she said that if I were there, then he would not need Six.

I’d like to know what he needed us for , so I can protect myself. ”

Still shaking, Euphina stood. She took a deep breath to gather herself. Then she looked a long time at Six, and then at me.

“The Mother Meister?” she said.

“Yes.”

“How long has he been with her?”

I looked at Six, waiting for him to answer. “How long, Six?”

He shook his head slightly, unsure. “A long time. Years, I think.”

“Years,” Euphina repeated to herself, her breath catching in her throat. When she turned to me again, her eyes had hardened. “Very well. I will tell you what I know.”

***

IN MY FIRST YEARS AT THE AVERA ESTATE, I HAD FOUND IT EASY to hate Euphina.

She had hated me first, so it was only a natural response.

More important, she had hated me because of what my mother had done.

Taking sides was instinctual. My mother had been a kind and loving woman, and Euphina was cold and cruel.

There were times when I even wondered if Euphina had been happy at the news of her death.

Over the years, as I found out more about her thorny relationship with my father and his continued infidelity, I would from time to time experience something like sympathy.

Euphina must have been miserable in this family—just like me.

Despite our mutual dislike, there was a sort of kinship in that.

I could understand her contempt for my father, her utter coldness.

I had spoken to Aster about it once.

“Why does he... you know. Sleep with other women so much?” I had asked with all the finesse of a thirteen-year-old still uncomfortable with the concept of sex. “Euphina is beautiful and comes from a good family. You’d think someone like my father would be happy with her.”

“Men are greedy—especially men like him,” Aster answered. “They believe they are owed the world and see nothing wrong with taking what they like, whenever they like, and those who oppose them simply don’t understand.”

It was an apt description. “She should put him in his place,” I had grumbled.

Perhaps now, the sight of her dead son had finally convinced her to do it.

“Zander always spoke about his displeasure with the court,” Euphina was saying.

She had settled herself into one of Sevelie’s plush divans with such dignity that one would think she owned the place.

Sevelie and I sat across from her, with Six in between us, and Aster perched on the arm of the couch beside me.

“So your cousin’s bride gambled and won,” he had drawled as we crowded into the parlor. “What do you need me for, again?”

“Don’t be petty,” I murmured back. “You know if this goes south, you’re the only one I can rely on.”

That had seemed to mollify him somewhat.