Belladonna (Belladonna #1)(99)

But when she looked at him now, she saw with sudden clarity what he was: a murderer. “You poisoned yourself,” she whispered, thinking aloud as the puzzle pieces snapped together. “You knew I’d save you.”

“What I knew was that you still had one dose left of the antidote.” Never had she heard a voice so bitter. “I searched for it everywhere, but I could never find it. I needed it gone.”

“And the fire in the library?” Her voice cracked. “Would you truly have burned Thorn Grove to the ground?”

“Of course not,” he seethed. “I would have saved it after a few books burned. I would have been the hero. But you had to go and ruin that, too.”

So numb was her body that she’d hardly registered Sylas’s hand squeezing hers until he leaned in with a whisper that was nearly stolen by the crackling flames. “You don’t have to do this. I’ll take care of him. When I let go of your hand, run.”

He freed her hand, but Signa couldn’t run. Lillian loomed behind her son, eyes damp with bloodied tears. Rage had hardened her sadness. With every inch of space she closed between them, the snow melted and the earth beneath her wilted.

The force of her anger brought Signa to her knees, and Lillian bent before her, eyes full of an apology she could not speak. The spirit reached her hand forward, commanding but not forceful, and there was a plea in her eyes. A plea Signa understood at once.

Lillian was going to possess her—but only if Signa let her.

She wanted to say no. Wanted to forget the memory of that deep, awful cold burning within her. But who else would ever allow Lillian this chance? Who else could?

She steeled herself and took hold of Lillian’s hand.

Lillian stepped within her. Signa’s eyes rolled backward as the spirit seized her. Her body felt as though someone had taken a spoon and hollowed her out. As though she were nothing more than a shell of herself; like she was living out a night terror, unable to move or command her own body.

Why?

It wasn’t her own thought, but Lillian’s that blossomed as an endless pressure in her head. Signa couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream.

WHY?

She’d experienced pain like this only once before, when she’d watched her grandmother die. It was bone-deep and soul cleaving. No matter how hard she tried, Signa couldn’t shut herself away from it. She was a vessel, and Lillian the driver.

“Why did you do it?” she cried out, the words bubbling from her throat. Every time she tried to clamp her mouth shut, her lips seared with white-hot pain.

Percy started. “It’s none of your—”

“It’s not Signa who’s asking!” Though the words came out of her mouth, it was Lillian who voiced them. Her body shuddered with chills so relentless that she wanted to throw herself into the flames. “It’s your mother.”

Percy went rigid, face pale, throat drawn in like he was holding his breath.

“Tell me the truth.” Signa wouldn’t have been certain she spoke the words aloud had Percy not flinched. “Tell me why. Tell me what I did to make you hate me.”

Lifting his chin to look into her eyes, Percy said, “You were never the one meant to die.”





FORTY-THREE





I MEANT FOR IT TO BE MARJORIE.” THERE WAS NO HESITATION IN HIS words, no guilt or denial. “Did you think no one would ever realize the truth? The entire town already whispers about Father likely having bastard children roaming about. How long did you think it’d take before someone figured out that I was born to the governess?”

“Marjorie only ever wanted what was best for you,” Lillian spoke through Signa’s lips, hoping that her son might say something to redeem himself. That she’d still find love somewhere deep within him. But Signa saw only a callous young man who believed that she and Sylas would burn that night. It was the reason he spoke so freely.

As many times as Signa had been spurned, the realization still cut like a knife. She’d trusted him. Danced with him. Relied on him. And for what?

“If Marjorie wanted what was best, she never would have told me the truth.” There was no extinguishing Percy’s anger. No soothing the rage that burned in his voice. “She didn’t want what was best—she wanted a relationship. If I allowed that, then how long until she wanted others to know of us? How long until word got out that I was a bastard, and my prospects ruined? Don’t you see? I had to protect myself and this family from shame.”

Lillian wanted nothing more than to forgive her son, and Signa had to gather every drop of energy she had to push against Lillian and remind her of the truth. Though the spirit resisted at first, Signa could feel her understanding in the way her body wilted, shoulders caving in as Lillian asked, “Then why was I the one who ended up dead?”

“You tell me!” Percy seethed. “I put belladonna into a pot of tea that was meant for Marjorie. But you drank it, didn’t you? I didn’t realize it until you grew sick, and by then it was too late. You were dying, so slowly that you had the manor descending into chaos. So I gave you more berries, always in the tea, to help you pass on so that everyone might end their suffering. But it was never enough. I was getting them to you too slowly, and your body was developing a tolerance too quickly.”

Signa noticed then that Percy was shivering from the chill of communing with the dead. She wished it were enough to freeze him. It was a bitter thought, though in that moment she hated Percy so deeply that she’d have taken Death’s scythe and cleaved him in two herself. He had no remorse. No sympathy. He spoke like he had that day at the apothecary—with the cold calculation of someone who cared only for how others perceived him. How fast a person could fall into that trap and let themselves be ensnared.