Page 4 of Disillusioned
The words, like some sort of counterspell, washed over the duke, stripping away whatever deep enchantment had bound him. Eyes bulging, his entire body seized; then an unholy scream escaped his lips. He jerked and twisted until he toppled the chair, tipping the bucket at his feet.
Red-tinged water spilled toward her.
“My foot,” Armand bellowed, causing the guards to circle closer. “My fucking?—”
“Silence him!” Henri roared from beside her.
One of the guards grimaced and clamped a gloved hand over his mouth as Armand writhed, nearly sliding out of his chair. When the guard released him, the duke did fall to the floor, sobbing and clutching his leg with one hand, the other hand curled inward toward his body.
Kemble, with the help of two guards, hoisted him upright. They struggled to catch his flailing limbs, but the moment Kemble snatched his foot—the one that had been shoved in the bucket—he stilled.
“He’s here, isn’t he?” His gaze swept the room like an animal ensnared in a trap.
“Who?” Lilac glared down at him, forging through the unease in the pit of her belly. “Iswhohere?”
Armand trembled, the afternoon sun blinding him from the high windows like a torch held to his face, pressing the answers out of him. But he said nothing—until Kemble began to tug at his boot.
“No,” he moaned, but the men behind him only tightened their grip on his shoulders. “Don’t! Please, God. Don’t touch it.”
“The moisture will cause infection,” Kemble shouted over him. She pulled a thin knife from her apron and slit the boot up the side.
He screamed.
“Oh my.” A startled gasp escaped the nurse’s throat, even as she moved to cut his hose away with her shears.
Lilac stepped around her father’s warding arm.
Blooming in a mosaic of purple and red, his foot was bent in an unnatural form. The last two toes curled back, as if they’d been cracked off their joints, and his outer ankle was smashed in. Some of the skin had been torn across his shin, revealing the bones and meat underneath.
She glanced away from the mess of flesh. Her ears were ringing. There was no way he’d hiddenpain that great without magic. Without faerie ether, a spell, orentrancement.
“What happened?”
He began to stutter, but every word turned into a whimper. Kemble fished in her apron and pulled out a flask. After a couple large swallows Armand groaned and, still shaking violently, said, “Vivien is dead. And she was killed byyourvampire.”
The hall erupted with noise—thecouncilors asking what he meant, what she knew, her father demanding the duke be shut up, Kemble losing all her normal decorum and shrieking about the vampire, retreating against the southern wall. It all seemed to fade into the background as Armand stared at Lilac, a sick grin that felt all too familiar on his sweat and grime-slicked face. A grin she’d seen on his son’s face—one that told her the man she thought could be trusted was about to violate her.
One she’d never cower before again.
In one motion, she drew her dagger from her skirts and slammed its pommel on the desk. She cleared her throat in the moment of silence that followed.
“I will ignore your blatant accusation against the crown without a speck of evidence—for now,” Lilac said from behind her desk, glad she had it to hide her hands against. Her nails were picked to nubs. “You expect us to believe that a vampire got past you, your entire guard and staff, and killed your wife? And you escaped to tell the tale? What of Sinclair?”
The duke’s smile turned into a snarl. “My servants are useless, and my guards just stood there and watched! And my son was hiding under the stairs, clutching a bloody ax, likely from trying to defend his mother. Don’t pretend to not know the wiles of vampires, girl…”
A collective gasp was heard around the room.
“You will address me asYour Majesty.” She met his petulant glare with one of her own, even as her mind spun. Had it been Garin? “And where were you as this was occurring, Your Grace?”
For the first time, Armand’s accusatory hysteria faltered. “I—I hadbeen for a walk around the garden and only discovered the scene after it had occurred. The vampire was waiting to gloat.”
Lilac’s gut eased as understanding dawned, only to be quickly replaced with an echo of dread. “Ah, yes. I’m sure the air is refreshing so late at night.”
Henri spoke next. “I’m not understanding, or perhaps you take us for idiots. You found your son bloodied and with an ax, yet your blame is on the vampires?”
Armand leaned forward. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard, Henri. The devil spoke to me. He urged me to come here, to give herthat.” His eyes flickered from the package on the desk to Lilac. “She knows of him!”
Lilac kept her face straight as she could. This was a simple game of words. “If you wanted to accuse my family of sending a vampire to assassinate Vivien, you could have at least granted us a private audience.”
