Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(41)

After passing what must have been a dozen portraits of scowling men in suits, they knocked quietly upon Blythe’s door and waited for permission to enter. Nothing in Blythe’s sitting room had moved so much as a hair. The air was heady, pressing upon the two as they stepped inside and onto the plush rug. Though Blythe lived, her room was that of a ghost’s.

A budding pressure in Signa’s chest eased when she saw Blythe sitting upright in her bed, leaning against the headboard. Sick as the girl was, Blythe didn’t scowl at Signa as she had last time. Rather, she looked to her brother and beamed.

“Percy! Where have you been? I’ve nearly begun to count the threads of the curtains, I’ve been so bored. What’s that you’ve got there?”

Her grin stretched when he waved a scone at her, and she whipped out her hand to take it. “God, I’ve been waiting for them to make the lemon ones again.” She bit into it and groaned as though it was the first thing she’d eaten all week.

Percy set the remaining pastries down and ruffled Blythe’s straw-blond hair before pulling up a small iron chair to sit beside her. “I’ll tell the kitchen to make them more often if you like them so much.”

Signa waited at the threshold of Blythe’s room, hands folded before her. She lingered there as Percy settled in, watching his Adam’s apple bob as he looked his sister over—her pale, bony frame. Dead, dry hair. The bags under her eyes, and lips that were as pale as the crumbs she brushed from them. Percy took hold of her hand, so fragile a thing, and Signa noticed for the first time the starkness between them. Where Percy was freckled, Blythe was porcelain. Where his hair burned like a summer fire, hers was void of color. What they shared was the sternness of their father’s mouth and the grim way their eyes squinted at the corners, like they were either always contemplating, as in Percy’s case, or perpetually annoyed, in Blythe’s. As different as they looked, when side by side there was no denying they were of shared blood.

“Is she going to come in,” Blythe asked, “or will she continue to stand there and let in the draft?”

Percy leaned toward his sister conspiratorially, though his words were loud enough for Signa to hear. “Careful, Bee. You must remember to speak quietly when there are skittish fawns about. We wouldn’t want to spook them.”

Squaring her shoulders, Signa walked into the room with her chin held high. “I am no fawn.”

The girl turned to her with a smile that nearly snipped Signa’s breath straight from her lungs. The feeling was similar to what Signa had felt the first time she’d seen Blythe—like she and Blythe were linked by an unbreakable string. This must have been the connection that Death said happened when she’d unknowingly spared Blythe’s life.

She barely knew this sickly thing who struggled to leave her bed, yet whose gaze could impale a person. All the same, Signa felt compelled toward her. She didn’t know what it meant, or why she had these abilities. But what she did know was that she’d do everything in her power to save Blythe’s life, and that started with figuring out the source of the poison.

“I want to apologize for the other night. It was… rude of me to say what I did. I’ve never been eloquent.” Signa balanced herself atop the far corner of the bed, opposite Percy. She was ready to spring back up and flee at any moment.

The ice in Blythe’s eyes melted as she licked the remaining sugar from her fingertips. “You ought to work on that.” Her tongue was the faintest shade of pink. Almost white.

Goose bumps crawled across Signa’s arms like spiders, and her stomach dropped before she noticed that the chill in the room was from an open window, and not because Death was lingering nearby. His absence might have given Signa hope, had she not known that Blythe was on borrowed time with a murderer still on the hunt.

“I won’t thank you for saving me the other day, given that it was your fault I had an accident in the first place.” Blythe’s words were as cutting as Signa remembered them, each one its own knife. “But I won’t refuse your company, either, for I’ve never had a cousin before. Will you be with us long?”

It was Percy who answered. “Father had the modiste prepare her a wardrobe for the season.”

Blythe’s face darkened. “I suppose I should be glad someone is getting his attention. Though if you are in need of gowns, you could have taken mine. I’ve no use for them anymore, and too many will go unworn.”

“Blythe—”

“Oh hush, Percy. I don’t mean it like that. They no longer fit me, and I doubt my body will ever be back to what it once was.” With each word, the bite in her voice lessened. “Now tell me about work. Are there any updates?”

His grip on Blythe’s hand tightened, and Signa got the impression that there was something more to this back-and-forth language of siblings that went beyond her understanding. “Uncle is on his way here right now to talk sense into the man, but I fear Father believes himself beyond reproach.”

Blythe clucked her disapproval. “Surely, he’ll bend one of these days. You must keep trying.”

“He’s not bent since the day you took ill, Blythe—”

“And when was that, exactly?” Signa hurried to ask, trying not to shrink under the weight of the eyes that turned toward her in surprise. “I ask merely out of curiosity. When did you fall ill?”