Page 56 of Those Fatal Flowers

Because of me.

My treasure put a target on his back. My stomach lurches at the realization, and my hands move atop it to try to settle it.

I watch Cora’s face as she reaches the same conclusion. Mr. Waters still howls against Thomas, but Cora pays them no mind. Her eyes narrow to slits; her hands harden into fists.

“You,” she growls, pointing an accusing finger toward me. “This happened because of you!”

“Cora, please—” I try to reach for her, but she sidesteps my advance.

“You think it’s a coincidence that the man who won your hand is missing? Some jealous drunk wanted his chance to win the wealth of a thousand lifetimes, and who knows what he did to Will to get it! Because of you, my brother—” She wails, and what I hear in her voice makes me sick: She’s furious. But how can I blame her? Her words are true. Though Will’s disappearance is not by my hand, his death would be if my plan comes to fruition.

But wasn’t he fated to die regardless?

No man shall commit the horrible and detestable sins of Sodomy, upon pain of death.

Does a part of her know that? Does she blame me for encouraging her to commit that very same sin?

“Enough,” Thomas demands, but it only spurs Cora to lunge at me. Thomas steps between us and snaps her to his chest. She struggles against him as if rabid. “Take your father home. He needs to rest.”

“I’m not finished, Thomas!”

“We’ll find him, Cora.” He answers in a tone gentler than I believed him capable of using. Still, something feels off about it, like a wolf trying to soothe a hare between its jaws.

But the words seem to comfort Cora’s father, for his cries wane to whimpers.

“Where could he be, Thomas…?”

“I don’t know, Master Richard, but I promise you we’ll find him.”

The old man nods, and another coughing fit begins. The painful sound is the only thing that draws Cora’s attention from me. She watches her father struggle to regain his composure as she struggles to regain her own. Only once her breathing has slowed to a manageable pace does Thomas loosen his hold on her, and she tears herself from him as soon as she can. Her green eyes are still wild, and she reaches for her father, linking her arm in his.

“Let’s go.” Her voice is soft when she speaks to him. “We must get you away from this witch.”

The word is a knife in my side. She knows its weight as she levels it against me, the consequences it could have. It’s a similar accusation to the one she could make about my nature, but she knows thatwitchwill never circle back around to her.

“Cora…” I start, desperation rising in my chest, but she won’t look at me.

“I’ll alert the rest of the town. Margery, fetch my clothes, we must hurry,” Thomas says, his eyes directly on Richard, who nods clumsily. The poor old fool actually believes Thomas has his family’s best interest at heart. “You should be at home, resting in your bed. Will would never forgive himself if you got hurt.”

Richard relents, but Cora hesitates. Her eyes dart between Thomas and me once more, but then she follows her father into the stark morning air. Thomas shuts the door behind them and leaves to prepare himself, Margery trailing behind him.

“Make sure Thomas’s breakfast is ready before he finishes dressing,” Mistress Bailie orders me calmly as she floats acrossthe room to follow them. When I don’t answer, she looks overher shoulder at me. “You’d better get used to your wifely duties.”

The obviousness of what’s happened hits me squarely in the chest, melting away the initial fear, leaving only a brilliant, fiery rage. My feet carry me to the kitchen, but instead of obeying orders, I fly to the table beneath the window where Margery keeps the knives. They did something to Will. The words repeat over and over, until they become an incantation guiding me to exact vengeance. My fingers wrap around the smooth handle of the largest blade. I find my reflection staring back at me in its polished metal, though my alarmed expression seems at odds with the sneer I feel myself wearing.

Stop, Thelia.

The knife topples from my hand onto the dirt floor. I whirl around, but my only company is the dying hearth fire that Margery’s been pulled away from. Blood rushes through my ears, and for the briefest moment, I consider ignoring the message from the Underworld. How good would it feel to snatch the knife from the floor and storm up the stairs? To sink it into the soft spot of flesh between Thomas’s ribs, and then tear its sharpened edge against Agnes’s powdered throat?

But to do so would mean abandoning Raidne and Pisinoe, and though I want nothing more than to bring a bloody justice down upon the Bailies, now isn’t the time. I must wait for spring.

The understanding does little to quell the fury that still thrashes in my chest. Now might not be the time to kill them, but that doesn’t mean I have to sit idly by. After returning the knife to its proper place, I dash up the stairs.

I skip my bedroom and continue down the hall until I come to Thomas’s. I pause for a moment, considering, but move on to the next. Whatever’s happened, Agnes is the onewho will know the entirety of it. My hand wavers before her door, but I need to know for sure, for Cora, and I grab ahold of the knob and push my way inside.

It’s the first time that I’ve been in her bedroom. There’s a large fireplace to my right and a four-poster bed directly across from it to the left. A rug made of an animal’s skin covers most of the floor. Mistress Bailie stands in only her nightshirt in front of a large wardrobe at the back wall. She doesn’t look at me as I walk to the center of the room, my bare feet caressed by the warm fur beneath them. The sensation should be pleasing, but it makes my skin crawl.

I’m walking on another being who was killed for sport. Even at our most violent, my sisters and I never kept trophies.

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