Page 63 of Blackwicket
“You sound more sure than most people would be.”
“Fiona and I aren’t Dark Hall children, if that’s what you want to know, Inspector.” This was the moment I chose which secrets weren’t worth the cost of keeping. “My mother was the last Dark Hall child the Blackwickets procured.”
“Are you certain?” he asked pointedly.
I resisted the memory of Thomas’s face, weeping with the red smoke of curses as he died.
“Yes.”
Thomas hadn’t belonged to our family. He’d been a Nightglass. “My mother wanted to break tradition, and couldn’t stand the idea of stealing children, but she believed it was important to carry on the family legacy, so she chose Darren.”
“You make it seem like a transaction.”
“It might as well have been. I can’t imagine what she saw in him other than an opportunity.”
“You assume she wasn’t in love with him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, bitter. The same anger that took me to Darren’s hotel room door clawed through the shock of his loss and reminded me of the pain he’d brought to my life before finally leaving it. “Maybe she was. She was always so glad when he showed, and her heart broke each time he left. The truth is, he couldn’t handle being here.”
“This is a difficult house.”
Inspector Harrow’s words were too close to excusing a man who’d been given every opportunity to choose us and never had.
“We were hisdaughters,” I said, and the word was broken glass, shattered by the hurling of a stone Darren Rose had thrown again and again. The force of my anger propelled me a step closer, and the Inspector squared his shoulders, standing his full height, prepared to respond if I chose violence. “I loved my father until I hated him. He wasn’t a good man, and nothing he ever did, no small amount of decency, ever made up for it. But I didn’t want him dead.”
“Then who would have?”
“The easier question is, who wouldn’t have? He swindled and hurt a lot of people.” My train of thought stuttered, skipped. I considered Mr. Thatcher, William’s insistence that he’d had nothing to do with it, Thea’s assurance Patrick hated the Nightglass family and everyone involved with them. “That man you nearly murdered in the alley.”
“Patrick Farvem,” he said, not denying it.
“Yes.”
“Patrick was found dead this morning on the village green. I was at the scene when I got word about the murder at the Vanderson.”
My palms grew clammy. Patrick had been in bad shape when I’d left the lounge. “Did you…”
“Like your father, Patrick’s throat had been cut clean.” His response was measured, but with no gentler an edge than usual. Inspector Harrow knew the sort of world I’d lived in, knew there was no use in softening the blows. “Rough business. And here’s the thing—your father worked for the Brom. Thatcher and Patrick didn’t. Thatcher was a regular Nightglass resident doing his best to get by, and to my knowledge, Patrick Farvem was a thorn in Brom’s side. None of these men had anything in common, but you, Eleanora.”
Mr. Thatcher hadn’t let me leave Nightglass, Patrick had tried to stab me, and my father, well, his list was too long.
“You’re insinuating I’m a serial killer?”
“It’s a coherent line of reasoning. But knowing what I do, I don’t see you being so direct. It’s not your style.”
He’d circled to the thing that had brought our paths together, still lock-jawed on proving he was right, and I’d slipped through the cracks of the system. His system.
“Is it yours?” I asked, stooping to his level.
“If I’m not mistaken,” he replied, low, conspiratorial. “You’ve already witnessed mine.”
He was discussing Annulment, the way he’d been separating Patrick’s magic from his soul. But it wasn’t that image that flickered in my mind, briefly illuminating unwanted memories. Instead, it was Inspector Harrow’s body, the warmth of his mouth. These thoughts were disgraceful after everything that had happened, and my anger grew in the fertile soil of shame. I reminded myself that the Inspector’s behavior hadn’t been sincere. He’d intended it as a smokescreen. Still, my belly warmed, and a shift in his body language brought him a bare fraction closer to me. I wouldn’t have noticed had my magic not expanded, gathering beneath my breasts, pressing.
“Whatever’s going on, it has something to do with William Nightglass.” I managed the moment by changing direction. “He wants me for the Brom. That puts me in a special position to figure out what his endgame is, whether he’s behind all of this. I’m willing to do it if you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, what you’re trying to find.”
Inspector Harrow’s lips twitched, but the smile was more mocking than amused. “He does want you. So you’re saying you’d be happy to waltz into his arms and use your charms to get me answers?”
“I’m saying,” I replied sharply, “I’m involved in this as much as anyone, and I want to help you if you’d stop being so egotistical.”
