Page 45 of Wolfsbane Hall #1
Grand Ballroom
The night was formed from chaos. Had the three Ashbrook brothers just poisoned their entire family? All three of them? Or just Dean? And why drink it himself?
Celestine sucked in a sharp breath and lifted herself weakly to stand vigil over them, but her legs were still jelly. Babette had Everett’s head resting in her lap, and she was whispering a sweet lullaby, but it was unclear if she was whispering it to him or to help keep herself calm.
“Should we assume they are going to stay dead until we solve the show?” Babette asked, stroking Everett’s dead hair.
“I have no idea.” Celestine’s gaze traveled over all of them. Bodies were strewn all throughout the Grand Ballroom, like a child’s discarded toys. “Most of them have already died tonight and come back from the dead.”
“Right.” Babette let out a long-suffering sigh. “So, any ideas?”
“I say we just leave them.”
Babette snorted. “They would deserve it.”
“Yes.” Celestine took three slow steps, but when she couldn’t make it any further, she sat in the middle of the room and crossed her legs. “I hate them.”
“Sometimes I do, too.”
Celestine was done, both physically and mentally.
Her body could barely move anymore, so she stretched out, lay down, and stared at the ornate ceiling.
A mural of a lion fighting a wolf was painted in heavy detail.
It was unclear which of the two beasts was winning, and it wasn’t just a battle of strength. It was also a battle of wits.
Celestine rubbed her temples. With being so close to the end, the poison was wreaking havoc in her body, and her heart was beating arrhythmically. She placed a hand on her chest, felt it, and counted the beats.
Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
But they were too far apart. Her heart was slowing.
Beat.
She was dying.
“So you’re in love with Everett?” Celestine asked, her eyes staring at the sharp canines of the wolf.
“Yes,” Babette said softly. “This kind of feels like the closest I’ve ever been to him.” She combed his hair back lovingly. “But, unlike you, he’ll only ever see me as a friend.”
Celestine slid her fingers along the marble. “I don’t think he likes me like that, nor do I like him that way. I don’t think he allows himself to love anyone after Marguerite.”
“Instead, he drowns himself in pleasures like drugs, boundless girls, and you…” The implication was that Celestine was fucking him. But she never had.
“Tonight is the first time I have ever even kissed Everett, and that is only because I was playing his long-lost murdered love. ”
Babette scoffed. “But you throw yourself all over him.” Ah, and this was the actual reason why Babette hated her. “You’re saying you’ve never fucked him?”
It was an offensive way of asking, but Celestine chose to ignore the insult. “It’s my job to be desirable, and the only Ashbrook I’ve fucked is James.”
“They’re not all for your job,” Babette said, “James is your lover—”
Celestine sat up to look at the other woman. “James and I have fun together. We both make good distractions. It’s not any more than that.”
“And Dean?”
God, Celestine didn’t even know what Dean was to her.
The love of her life? The end of it? He was the one she wanted with every ounce of her being, and the one she also wanted to murder with her own hands.
If she were to strangle someone in real life, it would be him, but she’d never be successful.
He was a wall of muscle. It would be like a mouse trying to crush a cat.
Dean Ashbrook was too much to put into words.
“He’s…” she started, but nothing else came out. “He’s my ruination.”
Babette laughed. The sound was meek but filled with thick understanding. “That makes sense.” She let out a huff. “You know, I always wished to be you.”
“And I always wished we could be friends. You seemed so beautiful and fun. It was my deepest desire for a long time. And then…”
“And then?”
Celestine snorted. “You were wretched.”
“I was.” Her brown eyes were nearly black in the flickering of candlelight.
Celestine swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Then I stopped wanting to be your friend.”
Babette placed Everett’s head softly on the floor then shifted to sit up straighter, her eyes flicking to Celestine. “Do you still want to be my friend?”
Celestine traced the marble pattern with a finger. “Sadly, yes. I want impossible relationships.”
“Then maybe we should try.” Babette’s voice was quiet and tentative.
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
A piece inside Celestine’s heart clicked into place. “Alright. We can try while I am still around.” She rubbed her chest again, another shot of pain rushing through her system. “But I don’t think I’ll be here very long.”
“You’re leaving?” Babette’s chestnut locks bounced as she cocked her head and examined the other woman.
“I can’t stay here much longer.”
Celestine felt as though she was swathed in sorrow, every regret she had ever had playing in her mind.
Her eyes focused on the gilded pillars holding up the elaborate ballroom.
Everything about the house was stunning and foul, and butterflies of grief stormed through her veins.
Leaving was never easy. Change was a cage.
Humans often disliked change because they valued stability and safety.
Change never felt that safe, at least not at first.
“We could start by solving this show,” Celestine said.
Babette nodded. “Let’s find the Specter.”
“So, what do you have?”
“The evidence points to four and a half suspects for the show, but I know they all didn’t do it.” Babette’s eyes landed once more on Everett .
“The boys, Irene, and Archibald,” Celestine said as a confirmation.
Babette played with the lace of her skirt.
“Earlier, I dusted the knife, shirts, and crossbow for prints, and it pulled all three of the Ashbrook brothers’ prints…
which isn’t surprising, since Vivian was playing with the knife at the beginning of the show, and James and Everett touched it after.
” Babette paused, thoughts flowing through her brown irises.
“So the real question is: Are we dealing with one murderer or multiple?”
Celestine curled her lower lip into her mouth. “Do you have the evidence?” Celestine hadn’t kept it. She’d tracked it in her head but hadn’t gathered it and stored it to look at it again.
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go over it again.”
Babette jumped up to get the evidence. Celestine tried to follow, but as she tried to stand, she still felt impossibly weak, so with a frustrated huff, she remained seated. She needed to save her energy, because she knew that, at some point, she would need to use all that she had left to run.
Babette motioned for her to sit and wait. Then she ran through different parts of the house and brought everything back, placing it in front of Celestine so she could see it all.
When she was finished, she had gathered the knife, two bloody shirts, one in green and one in blue—apparently, Babette had found the second bloody shirt earlier in the night—Archibald’s tie, James’s gun, and the crossbow.
“Should we dust for prints again?”
Celestine shook her head. “No, I trust your work. You are good at your job.”
Babette’s face lit up, but she tried to shake off her reaction, not wanting Celestine to see how much her words meant.
“But…” A thought sparked inside of Celestine.
At the beginning of the night, Everett had said, “It wasn’t me this time.” And Walter had said, “Not again,” when he died. And the entire night was about the Ashbrooks’ secrets: secret murders, money problems, fraud, and corporate accidents.
All pieces of evidence pointed to a different family member.
The tie: Archibald
The knife: Vivian, Everett, and James
The shirt: Dean
The gum: James
The lipstick: Irene
The only people who didn’t have evidence pointing toward them were the cast, Jon, and Walter.
Perhaps Jon was only truly here for the food. Celestine laughed. Of course, he would be. Jon and Walter seemed to be the only members of the family who cared about the others. And Celestine didn’t believe they had anything to do with the murder. But everyone else?
Did they all do it, like Murder on the Orient Express ? After all, that was Dean’s favorite Agatha Christie book.
But it didn’t make sense.
She was missing something.
Celestine’s brow furrowed as she remembered Babette’s briefcase. The girl had been hiding it all night. “Babette, what was in your briefcase?”
“A lot of things. Love letters between your character and Everett. Proof that James was responsible for a train accident, information about the deaths of all of Dean’s former fiancées. It was full of blackmail. My character was blackmailing the entire family.”
Celestine rubbed her temples and thought.
Did the answer lie in their secrets? Why had both Babette’s and Celestine’s characters been so central to the secrets? It wasn’t just to punish the Ashbrooks. Dean was more clever than that. His every action always had multiple purposes .
So, why all the secrets? Celestine went through them all again, and she landed once again on Marguerite. The entire night revolved around her and the murders of every Ashbrook bride.
For the first time in the whole night, Celestine wished Margot hadn’t been exorcised from her brain.
The girl had all the answers.
The secrets lay with Marguerite.
But then Celestine suddenly remembered that she might already have the answers she needed: the fire, the letters—everything was connected, including her venture to Specter’s rooms. Plus, Babette’s blackmail would help create a full picture, too.
She needed to get the newspapers and letters. They had the answers from hundreds of years ago. But she still didn’t have the energy to move. “Babette, can you do something for me?”
“Yes.”