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Chapter 45

Nora

The Holtzfall family cemetery stood at the edge of the woods. Deep enough into the immense gardens that the mansion was no longer visible. The manicured lawns and carefully pruned rosebushes gave way to towering oaks and gnarled brambles. It felt right. To stand here amidst the wilder part of the garden, filled with wilder emotions.

Constance’s body was wrapped in a shroud the color of new leaves, and lowered into the earth as the family watched. All of them wearing mourning clothes in Holtzfall green. As if they were unified.

Uncle Prosper and his wife stood like pillars of grief over their daughter’s grave. Prosper was drunk, as always, but on a day like today, Nora couldn’t hold it against him. Clemency, next to them, looked strangely out of place without her matched set.

Modesty clutched a green embroidered handkerchief to her face, dabbing at her eyes prettily. On the other side of the grave, Nora was aware of Lotte and Grace, even as she fought to avoid her cousin’s gaze.

Nora had draped a gauzy forest-green veil over her head, held in place by a crown of green chrysanthemums. It fell down to her waist over a green velvet dress. She knew what the papers would say. That she was drawing attention to herself at someone else’s funeral. That she was hiding her lack of tears while Modesty wailed for the cameras.

And she was hiding. But not her lack of grief.

The gap in her memory yawned like a chasm, but the other side of it was clear. The naked hurt and accusation in Lotte’s face as she realized that Nora had manipulated her. The accusation.

And the fact that it was all true.

That Lotte had seen her for who she really was at her worst.

Well, the damage was done now. Since Lotte already despised her for it, she might as well actually do it.

Oskar Wallen could blackmail her grandmother all he wanted. He would threaten to smear Grace’s name in the papers, no doubt. Because he wouldn’t know how valuable Lotte’s parentage actually was. Why there had never been a child of a Holtzfall and Rydder before.

Barely anyone knew. That Lotte’s mere existence could end the centuries-old alliance between the Rydders and the Holtzfalls.

Two gravediggers placed a sapling over Constance. It had been planted the day she was born, as was done for all of them. It was the same age she was to the day. Over time, its roots would grow deep and wrap themselves around the body, as trees had for generation upon generation of Holtzfalls before her.

Another newly planted tree set a few feet back marked Nora’s mother’s body. Tiny sprigs of new green growth had already started to spring up in the few short weeks since they’d last stood here, burying Verity Holtzfall. Behind that, Nora’s grandfather’s tree stood a few feet taller. And behind that was the uncle she had never met, Valor Holtzfall, dead in his own trials. They went back and back, taller for every generation before, until the tallest among them blended into the edge of the ancient woods.

Distantly, Nora became aware that her grandmother had stopped speaking. The weighty silence that followed was gradually filled with the sound of shuffling feet as the Holtzfalls began to make their way to the house.

The headlines had run this morning.

Innocent Heiress Brutally Killed by Savage Grims!

Constance Holtzfall Slain in Final Act of Virtue!

Killing Our Children! Isengrim Must Be Stopped!

It occurred to Nora that if the Grims actually wanted to attack them, this would be the time. With every Holtzfall in the same place. No doubt that was why everywhere Nora looked, there was a knight. They flanked them like a military formation as they moved back toward the house for the wake. Behind them, the two gravediggers worked in tandem silence, covering over Constance’s body.

Nora had skipped her own mother’s wake. She hadn’t wanted to listen to them all whisper about the passing of the heirship. She had stayed by the graveside.

Theo beside her, long after everyone else was gone.

But this was probably exactly what it had been like. Tiny canapés and champagne and gawkers from the outskirts of the family swarming around one of the Holtzfalls’ many receiving rooms.

“Is that really you ?” Freddie Loetze was suddenly there, offering Nora a champagne he was holding. “Or did you send a double in your place under that veil?”

Nora ignored the champagne and the temptation to throw it in his face again. But before she could make her escape, she caught sight of the rolled-up newspaper sticking out of his pocket, with her face on it. She grabbed it, moving out of the way before Freddie could snatch it back.

Constance Holtzfall KILLED by LAO Bomb!

The headline was pointed. And the article below stopped just short of accusing Leyla and Nora of conspiring in Constance’s murder. How, it exclaimed, had the Grims got into LAO if not with help from someone in the know? Who would want to kill poor innocent Constance Holtzfall, other than a rival, jealous heiress? And everyone had seen Honora Holtzfall question the new governor about the Grims that afternoon before the attack.

“Modesty.” Nora closed the gap between herself and her cousin. Modesty was perched on a settee. She had dropped the act now and was laughing into a fizzing coupe of champagne surrounded by other 1st-circle cohorts. She tossed the paper on her cousin’s lap. “I saw the most flattering pair of silk gloves in Muirhaus the other day. I should buy them for you. It would prevent you from leaving your fingerprints all over things like this.”

“That’s so thoughtful,” Modesty simpered, pressing her fingers to her chin to show off her rings. “But I am simply loath to hide my favorite pieces of jewelry. Perhaps you should get them yourself, since you have nothing to hide.”

Even if Nora could prove that false insinuation had come from Modesty, proof didn’t matter in the circles they ran in. Nor did it to the public of Walstad. Perception did. Nora couldn’t retaliate either. That would only look like petty jealousy over her cousin having two rings to Nora’s zero.

There would be another trial.

If Nora were a patient person, she would have waited. She would have waited for another chance to prove that she was worthy. She would have waited for August to come to her with an answer from Oskar Wallen as to whether this twisted branch of her family had plotted her mother’s death.

There were a hundred things she would have done if she were a patient person.

“Fine then, a duel, for the truth.” If the gloves were off, then they were off. And she had the needling satisfaction of watching Modesty’s face drop at the challenge. “Tonight, at the Clandestine Court.”