Page 23 of A Steeping of Blood
“I know what the Wolf of White Roaring did,” Jin said.
Flick gave him a glare and then looked at Matteo, choosing her words carefully. “Not—goodness, not to write away the deaths that happened that night, but if I’m to guess, my mother’s to blame, isn’t she?”
When Matteo didn’t answer, Jin took a deep breath.
“We know how the Ram rose to power,” Jin said. “Penn himself confirmed the Wolf’s massacre”—he had the decency to look apologetic when Matteo winced—“was brought about by the Ram, no?”
Matteo looked at the floor.
“You’re still the same crucial member of this crew you always were,” Flick said softly.
“It changes nothing,” Jin added. “I don’t know if I’d call it aces, but I’ll be judging you the same way I always did.”
“With scorn?” Matteo ventured.
“Of course,” Jin replied loftily.
Matteo couldn’t hide the hint of a smile. “Much obliged.”
And suddenly, Arthie felt as though she was watching the conversation from the outside, as though they had formed an understanding and acceptance she couldn’t comprehend. ShewantedFlick and Jin to accept Matteo, but seeing it was different. Seeing it made her wonder if she should have allowed Jin the opportunity, at least, to accept her.
“But why?” Flick whispered.
Matteo glanced at Arthie. “I’ve been thinking about it since you asked me, and now that we knowwhothe Ram is, I might have an idea. Lady Linden was in the papers because of a scandal surrounding her family years before that night. Her father had been exposed for having an affair with a high official, and everything they had—their ventures, their social standing, whatever else—came crashing down. Her mother killed him and shortly spiraled, leaving Lady Linden to pick up the pieces.”
Flick stared in wide-eyed shock. She hadn’t known.
“Murder runs in the family,” Jin said.
“Indeed. I’ll never know for certain, but my mother was once an official. She took leave from her job shortly around the Linden scandal. I often wondered if she was the one Lady Linden’s father had that affair with, and it seems more plausible now. By choosing me to become the Wolf of White Roaring, Lady Linden was enacting some form of twisted revenge,” Matteo explained.
He remained unsure, but to Arthie, the Ram choosing him arbitrarily was less believable than the Ram enacting vengeance on the child of someone who had ruined her own childhood.
“She was in the papers often as she restored the family name in the years after.”
It was no surprise, then, that Lady Linden remained obsessed with her image to this day.
“Gathering what she needed for her rise to monarch, no doubt,” Arthie said. “You were the last piece of her plan.”
“And I’d had no hope of retaliation until the lot of you turned up,” Matteo said quietly.
It was Chester who reached for him first. He squeezed between the others and threw his arms around him. Jin exhaled through his teeth; Flick looked at her hands. Arthie thought of her last moments in Ceylan.
The Ram had hurt them all.
“And retaliate we will,” Arthie said, before she tilted her head at Matteo. “But is it retaliation that you want?”
Matteo thought on it for a moment. “I suppose I want peace. I want to live again.” He lowered his voice, directing his next words at her alone in a tone that was pensive, imploring. “With you. For you. And if retaliation is whatyouwant, then I want it too.”
Arthie swallowed, breaking away from the ferocity in his eyes, heightened by the knowledge that the others were watching. Did she hear him correctly? Did he want what she wanted, simply because she did?
“Which is to say, we need to find your parents, Jin,” Matteo said, granting her relief. “I’m sure you’ve seen the streets. Horned Guard are everywhere, fear mounting against vampires once again. She’s riling the people up, turning them into vigilantes. Worse, she’s done kidnapping vampires alone; she’s taking humans too.”
“I heard,” Jin said, pinching his lips. “Was destroying half of White Roaring’s press not enough?”
“The more anger toward vampires, the better,” Arthie said. “We were there that night. She doesn’t care for humans any more than she does vampires. We’re the same to her.”
“If the Ram knew to turn you into the Wolf of White Roaring,how do you think she knew about vampires before the public did?” Flick asked, clearly still tangled in the history she’d learned.
