The Butterfly Garden (The Collector #1)(72)

When the Gardener came, it was without a dress but with Desmond, and he smiled to see all of us together. “It’s time, ladies.”

Slowly, everyone kissed Zara, gathered their trays, and filed out of the room with the Gardener kissing each and every one of them on the cheek. I waited until the end, perching on the side of the bed so I could take her clammy hand. Lorraine’s silver-streaked braid was pinned like a coronet around her double-twist. “Anything I can do?” I whispered.

She dug under her pillow and gave me a battered, dog-eared, highlighted, and notated-half-to-death copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “I was really into theatre in school,” she said softly. “When I was taken from the park, I was supposed to be meeting my friends for a rehearsal. I’ve spent three years writing notes for a production I’ll never do. Do you think you and Bliss could put together a reading for everyone? Just . . . something to remember me by?”

I took the book and held it against my heart. “I promise.”

“Take care of the next girl, and try not to visit me too much, okay?”

“Okay.”

She pulled me into a tight hug, her fingers digging into my shoulders. Despite how calm she seemed, I could see her shaking. I let her hold on as long as she wanted, and when she finally took a deep breath and pulled away, I kissed her cheek. “I only just met you, Felicity Farrington, but I love you, and I will remember you.”

“I guess that’s as much as I can ask,” she half-laughed. “Thank you, really and truly, for everything. You’ve made it all easier than it could have been.”

“I wish I could have done more.”

“You do what’s yours to do. The rest belongs to them.” She jerked her head at the men in the doorway. “I guess you’ll see me in a couple of days.”

“By the honeysuckle, so we’ll almost never see you at all,” I agreed, almost inaudibly. I kissed her again and walked out of the room, holding the book so tightly my knuckles popped.

The Gardener glanced at the braid that very obviously wasn’t Zara’s, then back at me. “Lorraine’s been crying,” he murmured. “She says Bliss attacked her.”

“It’s just hair.” I looked him square in the eyes. “She isn’t you or your sons. We don’t have to tolerate her hurting us.”

“I’ll speak with her.” He kissed my cheek and went to Zara, but Desmond held back with a puzzled, slightly worried frown.

“Is there something I’m missing?” he asked me quietly.

“Too much.”

“I know you’ll miss her, but we’ll get her taken care of. She’ll be fine.”

“Don’t.”

“Maya—”

“No. You don’t know. You should, you’ve seen enough—well. I do know. You don’t get to tell me she’ll be fine. Right now you don’t get to tell me anything.”

Avery was the Gardener’s firstborn, but in the ways that mattered Desmond was his heir.

And before long, we’d find out just how much his father’s son he was.

I looked back at Zara, but the Gardener was in the way. Ignoring Desmond’s hurt gaze, I walked away.

Returning my tray to the kitchen—and taking a spiteful glee in Lorraine’s sniffles and her mere inch and a half of ragged hair—I declined an offer from several of the girls to join them and went back to my room alone. After maybe half an hour, the walls came down. Zara was too injured for a final tryst, after all, and Desmond was there with them. I curled up on my bed with the play, read all the notes in the margins, and got to know Felicity Farrington a little.

Around three in the morning, the wall that blocked me from the hallway lifted. Only that wall—the ones to either side that looked through display cases and, if you squinted, into Marenka’s and Isra’s rooms, stayed in place. They’d been there for weeks, and it was a strange breed of lovely to not see dead bodies every time I opened my eyes. I closed the book on my finger, steeling myself to see the Gardener in the doorway, one hand at his belt and his eyes full of excitement.

But it was Desmond, his pale green eyes haunted and bruised in a way I hadn’t seen in months. He clutched the glass wall to keep himself standing, his knees buckling and swaying with every attempt to support his weight.

I closed the book properly, slid it onto the shelf, and sat up on the bed.

He took a few wobbly steps into the room and fell hard to his knees. He buried his face in his hands, then flinched violently, staring at his hands like they’d somehow become separate from the rest of him. A sickly sour chemical smell wafted around him, the same scent I noticed any time I went near the honeysuckles at the front door. His entire body shook as he doubled over, pressing his forehead against the cool metal floor.

Almost ten minutes passed before he said a word, and even then his voice was hoarse and broken. “He promised we would take care of her.”

“He did.”

“But he . . . he . . .”

“Put her out of pain, and prevented her from decay,” I said neutrally.

“. . . murdered her.”

Not entirely his father’s son then.

I pulled off my clothing and knelt down in front of him, unbuttoning his shirt. He gave me a sick look and batted my hands away. “I’m putting you in the shower—you reek.”