Jesse, are you up there somewhere? Do you visit Reginald in his dreams, but not me?
I swiped at my eyes with my free hand, smearing tears and grit.
The auto slowed, slowed, then rolled to a halt at the side of the road. Armand pulled the brake, and Mrs. Westcliffe twisted to face him inquiringly. Her black hair looked frosted in dust.
“I think perhaps we’ll pay a call on Dr. Hembry in the village before going all the way to the castle,” he said to her.
“Oh?”
“I believe Miss Jones has reinjured her arm.”
They both looked back at me, and I looked down. The seam of my fitted white cuff had a wet, growing stain, crimson as the clouds.
He waited for her in his bedroom.
He would have chosen another room, but this was the only place in all the mansion he could be certain a servant wouldn’t enter without his express permission first. And it was the only place Eleanore had ever visited him before.
As smoke. As her true self.
Armand paced a circle from one end of the Turkish rug to the other, examining his surroundings for the hundredth time: the bed crisp and tidy, the cushions on the chairs straight, his dinner tray already taken away—minus the dessert he’d requested but kept for her. He’d already pulled all the curtains safely closed. A wineglass had been left on his desk, a gleam of Bordeaux at the bottom. He paused by it, uncertain. Should he have finished that? Should he have saved the bottle to offer her some? Did she even like wine?
It seemed incredibly, deeply stupid that he didn’t know.
But then the fire in the hearth popped and the log fell apart in a splendor of sparks, and Mandy found his gaze tugged to that and his regrets about the wine falling and dying with the light.
He resumed pacing.
The room was large and sparsely furnished. Years ago, because it’d been easy and because he could, he’d picked what furniture he’d liked from Tranquility’s other chambers and hauled them up, piece by piece, to his own. Aubrey’d thought it funny and Reginald had been too drunk to notice—all this time, and Mandy was fairly certain he still hadn’t sobered up enough to notice—so nothing matched, but that was fine.
He didn’t care about that. It wasn’t as if he was going to host a soirée in here. Only Eleanore, and he doubted very much she gave a damn about matching furniture, either.
But where was she?
On his fifth pass by the big window he paused again, parting the curtains with the side of his hand. Country darkness loomed past the glass, unbroken but for the stars over the sea, glistering and humming, whispering their soft and silken secrets.
He dropped his hand, shutting them out.
Bugger them. He didn’t want to hear them now.
He was just … waiting.
In the far, unlit corner of the room, buried in the drawer that held his ascots and a handful of formal scarves, was a ring, and if he was going to be perfectly honest with himself, that’s what he was trying not to hear—that more than anything, more than even the stars.
It was a ruby ring, set in gold, and the ruby was big and round and clouded, and its song never, ever ended.
How he hated that sodding song.
He wasn’t expected to wear the ring yet, thank God. He considered himself more the guardian of it, because it was the ring of the duke, and Armand wasn’t the duke. Reginald was. Slipping it over his knuckle and wearing it outside this room it would be the same as declaring to the world that Reginald was as good as dead, which he wasn’t.
It was like he was dead, all right. Stuck in his madness, stuck in that godforsaken asylum: like it. But that wasn’t the same.
Mandy’s feet stopped; he was caught up short by a sharp, internal jerk of reality.
The ruby ring wasn’t going to be his, and he’d never have to wear it. Aubrey would.
Aubrey.
He sank into a chair by the fire, scrubbing his hands over his face, feeling rough evening whiskers and the sullen heat of the flames.
He should have taken the time to shave for her. Why hadn’t he done that?
Mandy tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. Seeing her.
Eleanore, pale and pinched, so almost-beautiful.
Reginald this afternoon trapped in his cage, calling her a thing to her face. Ranting.
she’s coming, whispered the stars. That one particular, infuriating star, louder than all the rest. she’s here, louis, let her in.
Mandy stood. He grabbed the blanket he’d set aside for her and went to the door. He had his hand on the knob before she even knocked.
The door opened just as my hand was lifting. I supposed he felt me there beyond the wood, maybe sensed my Turn from smoke into flesh. The door didn’t open all the way; Armand’s arm emerged through the crack to offer me a soft gray blanket. I caught it up to my chest, then shook it out and flung it over my shoulders like a cape.
The perils of Turning. It would have been convenient if my clothing somehow made the transformation with me, but it never did. Nothing ever stuck to me when I Turned, not even rain or blood or dirt. I’d spent a lot of time naked recently.
“You made it,” Armand said, opening the door wider. He sounded relieved, as if he’d thought I wouldn’t actually come.
“You seemed to require it.”
I spoke softly. It was late and I didn’t think there was anyone nearby, but Tranquility was a decaying mess of a maze, to put it kindly. It’d be easy to overlook a hidden servants’ door. Armand gave a quick glance up and down the empty hallway before stepping back.
“Come in.”
I did. I was glad to see he hadn’t turned on the electric lights, so the shadows of the room danced strictly from the fire. I didn’t like electric lights. I didn’t like electricity in general, not after Moor Gate, but even the fashionable stained-glass chandeliers here made me feel ill when they were lit. Like bees in my head, buzzing and buzzing.
I was curious if it was the same for him, but I had never asked.
“How’s your wound?”
I shrugged. “It’ll heal. Again.”
“Let me look.”
I freed my upper arm from the blanket. His touch felt light against my skin, gentle. His fingers were cold and long, like mine.
“It’s not as bad as I thought today in the auto. All that blood, I mean.”
“Dr. Hembry put a stitch in it,” I said.
“Did he?” He tipped his head, looking closer, and I smiled.
“The Turn,” I said. “It’s gone now.”
“Oh.”
He stood there, frowning, and I wondered if he noticed the bruising around the freshly broken scar. The unmistakable shape of his father’s fingers imprinted on me.
I pulled the blanket back over my shoulder and surrendered to a giant yawn.
“Tired?” he asked.
I shrugged again. “New moon. You know.”
“You’re still keeping watch?”
“Is there someone else to do it?”
It came out sounding cruel, and I hadn’t meant it to; I touched my hand to his sleeve. “Never mind. I know you’d help if you could.”
His lips thinned. I spoke again quickly to stave off whatever he was about to say.
“Is that sugar in the air?”
“Yes. I saved you dessert.”
“Cheers!”
Oh, pie! Blackberry pie, a nice fat wedge, the crust so buttery tender it flaked apart at the first touch of my fork. I sat before the fire and devoured it all in about a minute, then swiped the plate with my finger, eager for every last crumb.
Armand was seated cross-legged at my side. I sucked the mashed blackberry goo from my fingertip, sending him a glance.