The Broken Ones (The Malediction Trilogy 0.6)(44)
But there was no avoiding it.
Pulling the gown on, I followed Lessa into the hallway and down to the parlor. The house was eerily quiet. Not as though it were empty, but as though everyone hid behind closed doors, holding their breath while they waited for disaster to strike.
Get control of yourself, I silently berated my overactive imagination. He has no more reason than he did yesterday to suspect. Yet all the logic and reason in the world did nothing to quell my growing urge to run. To hide.
To fight.
The air in the parlor was thick with unspent magic, and I jumped at the click as Lessa shut the door behind us, going to stand next to the wall, her arms crossed. My father stood with his back to me, elbows resting on the mantel over a fireplace that hadn’t seen flame in nearly five hundred years. Despite it being yet early, a full tumbler of amber liquid sat in easy reach.
“You wished to see me, Father?” I asked, needing to break the silence.
He snorted, the noise full of contempt. “Is there something you wished to tell me, Pénélope?”
Wished to, no. I opened my lips to spill useless information, but before I could say a word, he turned. “Let me rephrase: do you possess knowledge that I might wish to be made aware of?”
My hands and feet turned to ice, and I took an involuntary step back. No. Please no. Too late I realized that the knife I always carried with me to these meetings was still hidden in my room. Not that it mattered. There was no way I could stomach the idea of using it on myself now.
“Something,” he continued, “that might have resulted from your little trysts?”
Run.
I flung myself at the door, but I barely made it a step before magic snared me. I rotated in the air, helpless to do anything as my father approached, a knife – my knife – appearing in his gloved hand. He stopped, eyes on my stomach, then his lip curled back with disgust. “On anyone with power, it wouldn’t be noticeable. Yet despite this… child existing only a matter of weeks, its magic shines through yours.”
He dropped me, and I landed awkwardly, barely keeping my balance. “How did you know?” I asked.
From behind me, Lessa laughed, the sound grating and toxic. “You didn’t think I’d lowered myself to emptying your chamber pots because I was bored, did you? It takes more than bloodstained sheets to fool me.” She sauntered forward to stand at my father’s elbow. “You really are stupid, Pénélope. It isn’t that hard a thing to avoid. I would’ve told you how, if you’d bothered to ask. Or were you so desperate to try to keep him that you got with child on purpose?”
Though it was a stupid thing, a reckless thing, to do, I spat in her face. But she only wiped it off her cheek and gave me a malicious smile.
“Have you not done enough damage to this family’s reputation?” my father demanded of me. “We can’t hide this scandal, and what good will you be once it’s discovered? The Comte will know his son has been traipsing around with you and put an end to the relationship and to your purpose. And we cannot even hope to benefit from the child, because with your affliction, neither of you will survive long.”
Panic sliced through me and I struggled against my bonds, feeling bruises rise on my flesh where they pressed into my skin. “You told Ana?s you wouldn’t hurt me. She’ll kill you for this!”
My father chuckled softly. “I’ve no intention of hurting you, dearest Pénélope.” Reaching up with one hand, he stroked Lessa’s cheek as though she were a prized possession. Or a pet. “Make whatever you do look like an accident, darling.” Then he turned and walked into the adjoining room.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Lessa stepped closer, and I turned my face away from the warmth of her breath. From the look in her eye. Because I realized now why she reminded me so much more of Roland than of Tristan – there was a darkness in her. A strange, perverse desire to cause harm solely for the pleasure of it. I would find no mercy in her.
Which meant my only salvation was escape.
“An accident, hmmm?” Her fingers caught hold of a lock of my hair, twisting slowly, gently, around the curl. “That’s more of a challenge given what a coward you are, never taking the slightest risk.”
She stepped around me, walking out into the empty foyer, me drifting behind in the net of her magic. “It will have to be the stairs, don’t you think?”
The marble gleamed ominously, squared edges suddenly taking on the appearance of a dozen knife blades ready to dash and slice my flesh. Even if I could survive a fall like that, she’d only toss me down again and again until something irreparable in me broke. A scream tore from my lips, echoing through the empty house.
Lessa mimicked me, adding her own screams to the cacophony, then burst into laughter. “No one can hear you, Pénélope. At least no one who cares.”
Reaching down, she released the magic binding my feet so my shoes could be removed, leaving my legs dangling loose. Tapping one pointed heel against my chin, she said, “Treacherous things. Such a shame that your vanity will be your undoing.”
Discarding one shoe halfway up the steps, she punched the heel of the other through the hem of my skirt. Then she made her way to the top, towing me along behind. “We’ll want to get this right,” she said. “So we’ll practice a few times.”