Entwined(82)

In a jolt, Keeper jerked back, his head yanked at a full square angle. He made a strangled, inhuman noise.

Azalea caught a glimpse of an Adam’s apple a-bob, and shook free of the sash. Blood rushed to her fingers. She gathered her skirts and ran out the entrance, down the silver stairs, choking back something that was like sobs but not quite.

“Az!” Bramble caught Azalea before she collapsed onto the bridge. “Are you all right? You’re dead pale. Why wouldn’t he let you go? His back was to us. What happened?”

Azalea shook her head. “Nothing—nothing.”

“What—what happened to him? At the end?”

Azalea looked at Clover, uncertain.

“He…lost his balance,” said Clover. “Or…something.”

“It looked like his ponytail had revolted against him,” said Bramble.

“Look,” whispered Goldenrod.

They looked. In the pavilion, Keeper swept about, his cloak billowing behind him. He was prowling. His eyes glinted as he searched over each piece of the dance floor.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Azalea. “We’re not coming back.”





CHAPTER 24




Azalea’s wrists throbbed as she helped the girls undress and unpin, tugging slippers from their feet and tucking them in. She built up the fire and turned down the lamps. Then, with a candle, she slipped down the two flights of stairs to the ballroom. To her relief, it was unlocked. She slumped in front of the nearest pier glass, shaking. After a moment to breathe in the calming, familiar nutmeg-and-fabric smell of the ballroom, she pushed up her sleeves to examine her pulsing wrists.

They were swollen and red, a welt ringing each like a mottled bracelet. Azalea touched them and winced. Her eyes stung.

Keeper had guessed she had given up. She had. She felt as though a needle and thread was sewing her throat shut, piercing and winding. She buried her face in her hands, throat too tight, and quaking too hard, to even cry.

“Princess.”

Azalea jolted away from the mirror, nearly overturning the candle.

“I’m sorry…. It’s…only me.”

In the dim light, by the ballroom doors, stood Mr. Bradford, rumpled as always, but face sober with a deadly solemnity. He walked to her and knelt. Over his arm was slung an old, ragged piece of fabric. Azalea recognized the cloak that hung in his shop’s closet.

“Are you all right?” said Azalea. “Why are you—?”

“Miss Azalea, I followed you.”

Azalea’s brows knit together as he brought out his handkerchief. He unfolded it in his hand, and revealed an old gold pocket watch, with swirls about the cover, black inside the creases. He took Azalea’s hand and pressed the watch to it.

Azalea frowned at it, taking in the worn gold swirls. Realization dawned.

Giving a cry, Azalea reeled backward, and the pocket watch clattered to the marble.

“Your watch!” she said.

Mr. Bradford took her trembling hands in his large ones. His fingers brushed her sore wrists, and Azalea gave a shuddering gasp. In a moment, his suitcoat was about her shoulders, and he had lit a fire in the grate.

“Yes,” he said, still trying to calm her. “Yes, I followed you, followed you. Through the passage. And the silver forest. Everything.”

Azalea felt as though she was bumbling through an unfamiliar dance step, her feet late on the rhythm and catching underneath the gentleman’s.

“H-how?” she managed to stammer.

Mr. Bradford fumbled with the threadbare, moth-eaten cloak over his arm.

“It is a family secret, of sorts. See here.”

He stood, strode several paces from her, and with an awkward flourish, brought it over his shoulders.

He faded into the darkness.

Azalea leaped to her feet, searching over the red velvet curtains, turning hard to see where he had faded to. Disappeared to. It frightened her—it was too much like Keeper!

In an instant, Mr. Bradford reappeared, solid and visible again, the cloak now off his shoulders and rippling in his hands.

“A wraith cloak!” said Azalea as he pulled her to the fireplace. Azalea’s legs shook, and relieved, she dipped to the floor, dress pooling around her.

“The same.” Mr. Bradford clumsily folded it, and knelt in front of her again. “It has been passed down in our family. Your ancestor, Harold the First, gave it to us, but, ah, as uneventful as Eathesbury is, we’ve never used it. When I saw you at the graveyard, looking so white, I knew something was wrong. I knew it.”

Azalea stared at him, the fire flickering highlights in his eyes.

“So…I thought I should do something,” he finished lamely.

“You saw everything?”

Mr. Bradford gave half of a crooked smile. “I did knock.”

“You didn’t see Mr…. Mr.—”

“Mr. Keeper?” Mr. Bradford spat the name. “Oh, yes, I saw Mr. Keeper. Rather hard not to. I saw him try to kiss you. Or what he said was a kiss. I want to snap his head off!”

Azalea had her hand over her mouth, shocked that someone as solemn and dignified as Mr. Bradford could have such venom. He took her hands, gently, and pushed up her sleeves, revealing her swollen wrists. His fingers traced the bruises.

“You stopped him,” said Azalea. She bowed her head, shy. “You kept him from—from—”