Page 132 of The Shadow Key

But.

Julian does not go through the doorway the sconce has revealed. Instead he turns, crosses the vestibule again to the west wing, disappears through the door, and Linette is left frozen with a dawning realisation.

There are tunnels under this house.

And he has just opened one of them.

She hovers with indecision. Confront him now? Or follow him through the tunnel when he returns and see where he goes? Heart in her mouth she moves out from her hiding place, descends the stairs. At the bottom – resolve hardening like iron – she follows her cousin into the west wing.

Candlelight slithers beneath his study door. She can hear movement, rustling, a creak. Without making a sound, Linette pushes the door open.

Julian stands behind his desk, the grimoire in his hands. He looks up; their eyes meet. He does not appear surprised to see her. Indeed, he simply laughs.

‘Cousin,’ he says. His voice is hoarse. He looks even sicker than he did the other night – his face pale and drawn, dark crescent moons beneath his eyes.

‘Julian.’

Her cousin places the book back down on his desk, almost tenderly strokes the curve of Berith’s circle.

‘I saw the light in your window. I knew you’d come down.’ Julian tilts his head. ‘The Devil is in you,’ he remarks. ‘I can see him in your face.’

There is no point in drawing it out, no point wasting her breath with lies. Better to be honest, to say precisely what it is she intends to do.

‘I know everything.’

He stares at her across the desk. Then he smiles, cold and hard and taunting.

‘I know you do.’

She blinks, not expecting that, for how can he know? But, no matter. It changes nothing.

‘You won’t get away with it,’ Linette tells him, stepping into the room. ‘I’m not afraid. All of you – Lord Pennant, Sir John – you will pay for what you’ve done, but I shall see to it that you pay first.’

He laughs, a cold laugh that sends frosty needles down her spine. ‘And how do you propose to do that, Linette?’

She steps closer. All she needs is the ceremonial dagger. All she needs is to bury the blade in his heart and watch him bleed onto the rug …

‘No one will believe you,’ Julian says now, smooth as silk. ‘No one will take your claims seriously.’

The amusement leaves his face, as if someone has flicked a lever. His dark eyes narrow as Linette takes another step forward. He coughs into his hand, and when he lowers it she sees the glint of blood on his palm.

‘They’ll put you away. As mad as poor Gwen Tresilian, they’ll say.’

Linette nods. ‘They can say it, but it won’t be true. However, I had no intention of telling anyone.’

Julian watches her. He opens a drawer in the desk – not the one Linette wants open but another – and brings from it a familiar glass vial. Almost tenderly he places it on the table.

‘You don’t plan on doing anything stupid do you, Linette?’

‘What I plan,’ she says quietly, ‘is one of the most intelligent things I think I shall ever do.’

Her cousin lifts one side of his mouth, dips his hand into the inner pocket of his coat and brings out a handkerchief. Slowly, he wipes the blood from his hand.

‘Your arrogance has always amazed me,’ Julian says. ‘You know so little of the world and yet you think you know better than anyone how to live in it.’ Casually he removes the gold stopper from the vial, tips a few drops from it onto the bloodied handkerchief. ‘Of course, you do not know better. You never have.’

Linette looks at that handkerchief, resting now in his cupped hand. She needs to reach the desk, needs to get hold of that knife, but Julian does not move, stands so quietly, so still, and for the first time since leaving her bedroom Linette feels the smallest flicker of doubt.

‘What do you mean to do?’ she asks.

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