Entwined(95)

Keeper!

Azalea dove at herself—then pulled up so sharply her skirts engulfed the back of her legs. The slight gust of wind ruffled the girls’ hair. Her copy image held a flash of steel in her hand. Mr. Bradford’s pistol!

Gritting her teeth, she proceeded with caution. Her vision still blurred from the hood of the cloak, she neared Keeper carefully. It was odd, to walk without seeing her skirts in front of her. She *footed to just by Mr. Bradford, next to the twins’ sofa. They watched with wide eyes, whispering among themselves.

“…don’t think I can?” Keeper clutched the pistol and held it to her—or rather, his, Azalea-like chest, keeping it from Mr. Bradford’s outstretched hand. Azalea wondered if that really was her own, ghastly pale face—and if it was, she certainly didn’t look a picture, all scratched up and bruised, trembling all over.

“No, nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Bradford. “I just didn’t think you knew how to shoot.”

“She doesn’t,” said Bramble, from the sofa behind him.

Azalea-Keeper flicked the pistol around her finger, spinning it so quickly it flashed in the lamplight, a circular blur of metal. She threw it into the air at a spin, snatched it with the other hand, spun it, and stopped it barrel up with a smack.

The girls’ jaws dropped. Mr. Bradford blinked, looking Keeper over from skirt to tangled hair, with a slightly bewildered—then suspicious—expression.

“Only one shot?” said Keeper, fiddling with the pistol in shaking hands. His voice sounded strikingly like Mother’s. “They haven’t invented pistols with, say, thirteen shots yet? Ha! Joking! One is grand!”

“I think you’re ill,” said Mr. Bradford, advancing on Keeper. He made to take the pistol. “Miss Azalea, the regiments will be here in hardly twenty minutes—you don’t need it—”

“Yes, I do!” Keeper snarled, backing away toward the draped piano, green eyes looking wildly around the library. He raised the pistol away from Mr. Bradford’s outstretched hand, above his own head.

A firm, stiff hand grasped Keeper’s wrist from behind. Keeper blanched, which made the scratches on his—Azalea’s—face stand out even more. Azalea could see how he tried to struggle against the King’s grip, but he was either too weak or the King too firm. Possibly both.

Even so, Keeper did not drop the pistol. His dainty fingers wrapped around it so tightly the knuckles glowed white. The King sighed and made to pluck the pistol from Keeper’s hand. When Keeper would not release it, the King’s brows furrowed.

“Miss Azalea,” he said, in a clipped, impatient voice. “We are all frightened, but now is hardly the time. Give me the pistol.”

“No.”

“Azalea, let go of the pistol.”

“No.”

“Azalea—”

“I won’t!” said Keeper, writhing against the King’s steel grip. He kicked back against the King’s legs, driving the boots’ heels into him, but the King showed no signs of feeling it. He was the most solid gentleman Azalea knew. Azalea slipped closer.

From the sofas, the girls watched, both fascinated and ducking behind them, eyes peeking above the backs of the chairs. If the pistol went off now, it would hit the ceiling.

“Miss Azalea,” said the King. “Let go. If your mother were here—”

“Don’t tell me what Mother would or would not do!” Keeper snarled. “She’s dead!”

Azalea winced. For a moment, the King’s hand gripping Keeper’s faltered. Then it was back to a steel clamp.

“Azalea—”

“She’s dead!” said Keeper, the green in his eyes blazing, intense. “Dead, dead—”

Azalea gripped the cloak at her neck. It was like she was being slapped.

On the sofas by the fireplace, Kale and Jessamine curled up into little balls and began to cry. Jessamine in her delicate, crystalline wails, and Kale in her piercing sobs. Lily, in Clover’s arms, sensed discord and began to cry, too.

“Lea, stop,” said Clover.

“Miss Azalea,” said the King, who kept his hand firmly around Azalea’s wrist. “I think we are all aware of that. For now we will have to bear up—”

“What the devil for?” said Keeper. Her voice rang through the room. “It won’t be the same. Not with you.”

The King’s hand at Azalea’s wrist shook. There was an odd, awkward moment, a hiccup of time, as though the air were being turned inside out. The King’s face seemed far more lined, and as Azalea drew close to him, she saw how old he suddenly looked. Azalea was reminded of the uncomfortable moment, last summer, when his internal thread twisted so; and now it seemed twisted so much, it made all his features taut and strained.

“We must do what we can, Miss Azalea,” he managed to say. “In this family we—”

“You are not,” Keeper spat, “a part of this family.”

The King released Keeper’s hand, sharply, and Azalea realized, with a flash of memory like a slap across her face, those had been her words.

“How dare you!” Azalea screamed. She threw herself at herself, the wraith cloak fluttering to the ground behind her, and pummeled Keeper to the ground, before he even had a chance to raise the pistol. It clattered across the floor. “How dare you! I’ll tear your eyes out!”