Page 74

Chapter 68

Nora

Mercy Holtzfall’s eyes drifted to Nora’s new ring for just a moment, a small flicker that Nora had learned from years of lessons to recognize as pride passing over her face. Once, she might have reveled in that, but now all she felt was apprehension. Once, she might have believed that her grandmother would never hurt her. But she had taken her memories. She had protected Modesty, knowing she had murdered Constance. And she had tried to kill Lotte on the road here. Nora had no doubt about that now.

“We’ll speak in my office.”

Nora hesitated. Mercy raised one hand, clicking her fingers. As casual as if she were calling for more ice in her drink. And as if from thin air, bronze and iron charms clamped themselves to Nora’s wrists and ankles, shackles without chains. The charms forced Nora forward like she was a toy soldier being marched by an immense child’s hand.

Mercy took a seat delicately in the office chair that had been in the family since the days of Capability Holtzfall. The charms forced Nora into the chair across from the desk.

“Well.” Nora didn’t bother trying to move her arms, even though the charms had positioned her to perch like an awkward doll across from her grandmother. “These won’t go with any of my outfits.”

Her grandmother didn’t raise her voice, pulling out a slip of paper from her desk. “Who is Isla Brahm, and what exactly has she done to deserve fifty thousand zaub of our hard-earned money?”

Whatever Nora had thought this was going to be about, this wasn’t it. She had arranged it the morning after she and Lotte had broken into Johannes & Grete. Lotte had told her about the lawyer who had died on the road trying to get Lotte to Walstad. It had been easy enough to find his widow. Nora wasn’t sure what a fair payout for a death by mechanical wolf on company time, so she had arranged was for two years of his salary to be sent to the widowed Mrs.Brahm. She hadn’t thought anyone would miss it. Nora could spend fifty thousand zaub on a bad day in Muirhaus Department Store, but she figured it would last Mrs.Brahm long enough for her to find a job of her own, or maybe a new husband. Whichever she preferred.

“Why?” Nora asked. “Can we not afford it? Because if that’s the case, I have some dresses I’ll need to return.”

“I thought you were intelligent, Honora.” Mercy Holtzfall’s eyes flicked to the ring on Nora’s hand. Applewood for selflessness. Not a virtue Mercy had ever held in high regard. “So tell me, do you truly think we should be handing out charity to every person in the city who has a sad story about her dead husband?” She already knew who Isla Brahm was. Of course she did. It had been a test. And Nora had failed.

The mansion was silent as Mercy Holtzfall watched her granddaughter, the rain drumming its fingers at the window. “Let’s try again.” Mercy twisted her hand, and Nora took in a strangled breath. “Care to explain, for one, what you were doing at Johannes & Grete when you were being tested by that rampaging troll?”

So. Her grandmother didn’t know everything. She assumed it had been Nora there, not Lotte. And Nora wasn’t about to correct her. To tell her she had been at a Grim rally.

“I figured I’d make sure my affairs were in order in case I died in the trials. I left all my best dresses to Modesty because they’ll clash with her hair horribly. I didn’t know she would try to kill me for them, though.”

Nora had the brief satisfaction of having the upper hand on her grandmother. I know , she wanted to scream. I know what you took from my mind.

“Funny,” her grandmother said, sounding as if she had never encountered someone less amusing.

“Do you think the papers would think so?” Nora challenged. Of all the grandchildren, Nora knew best that Mercy Holtzfall ought to be feared. But she was also by far the hardest to intimidate. “Do you think the people of Walstad would find it funny that one of the Holtzfalls is a murderer and that you’re covering up her crime?”

“What would you have had me do, Honora?” Mercy sighed. “At the time, your mediocre performance meant that Modesty was my only option for Heiress. I couldn’t have the people of Walstad questioning whether or not we were truly virtuous enough to rule over them.”

“She killed Constance!” Nora’s voice rose this time.

“You never even liked Constance.” Mercy Holtzfall sounded exasperated. As if Nora were being deliberately obtuse.

“The world has changed since the days of Honor Holtzfall,” Nora said quietly, the unsettled anger that had been with her finding firm footing now. “Maybe it was enough once that our existence shielded them from the dark things in the woods, but now we sit like dragons on our hoard of wealth. You’ve dragged me in here to berate me for giving a pinch of what we have away, while Modesty is walking around having killed someone in our family.”

“Is it your journalist who filled your head with those ideas?” The mention of August drew Nora up short. Her grandmother seemed to sense she had Nora’s attention. Silently, she slid open her desk drawer. Out of it came a small metallic bird. Nora recognized it as the emissary that she had repaired the first day she had met August while sitting on his desk fiddling absentmindedly. It held a small note scrawled with August’s handwriting. It was an address and a request to meet him. The message he had sent that she had never received.

That had led to him getting accused of murder. “This came looking for you during Constance’s funeral. A cousin whose death you express to be so outraged over. But you would have abandoned your family to go on a tryst with your little journalist.” She shoved the drawer shut. “I’m surprised you didn’t find it while you were in here earlier rifling through my belongings.”

It took everything in Nora’s being for her eyes not to flick traitorously to the duplicate ring on the wall. Her grandmother knew she had been in here. But she couldn’t know why, or else this conversation would be going very differently. If she found out Nora had given a ring to Theo to save Alaric, heads would roll. Theo’s, specifically. Her grandmother would see his actions as treason.

The lie came easily. “I wanted my memories from the maze trial.”

There was a long moment of silence before Mercy pulled her own Veritaz ring from her finger. The one that had been there since she won her own trial at just sixteen. Silver fir, for cleverness. “There is another memory you would have been better off stealing from me, perhaps. You might have learned more.”

She pressed the ring to the wall like she had the day she had stolen their memories, opening the vault where the memorandum charms were kept. The air that came from the vault smelled damp and colder than anywhere in the Holtzfall mansion.

Mercy returned, brushing dust off a mirror.

She placed the charm on her desk, and with one more small gesture, Nora’s left hand was released.

“Go on.” Mercy folded herself back into her throne behind the desk. “You shouldn’t waste your gift.”

Once upon a time, Nora would have done whatever her grandmother wanted. Now she wanted to turn away from it out of sheer pique. But curiosity got the better of her.

Nora pressed her finger to the mirror. She couldn’t read it like a mind as Lotte would, couldn’t absorb it all in the blink of an eye. But the charm sparked with long-held memories that seemed to whisper to Nora. Mirrors always worked best for her gift. Better than photographs or glass. And all at once, the memory came to life inside the small circle of the mirror, like figures on a film reel, even as she heard it whisper in her mind.

She saw Grace Holtzfall. Younger.

Seventeen years younger.

Stepping into this same office wearing a voluminous dress and a bright smile.