A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(53)

When I stop, the room is quiet. Auden is turned half away from us, facing the books, the hollows of his cheeks and throat pooled in shadow. Everyone else is staring at me, as if they still can’t believe I called Auden cowardly.

“This place, it infects people,” he says into the darkness. “I can feel it infecting me. And if I let it—”

He breaks off, but I think I know what he was going to say.

If I let it, I will become my father.

The silence pervades the room, and I know I should say something kind, something conciliatory, especially after calling him a coward in front of everyone else, but I can’t. I’m too choked off with my own anger. Here he is, the pretty lordling of a pretty castle, with all his family and history spread out around him, and he can’t be bothered to take any part in it, can’t be bothered to step up. While I’m here chasing ghosts and maybes for even the tiniest whisper of my own legacy.

Doesn’t he know how lucky he is? To call such a place a home?

To know the grass that grows over his parents’ graves?

Auden takes a single heave of a breath and then turns to us, shoving a hand through his hair. “Fine,” he says. “Fine. You all win.”

Delphine squeals and pops off the sofa to kiss him on the cheek. “How wonderful, darling!” she says. “I mean, I would have done it without you anyway, but this will be much more fun. You’ll see!”

He endures the kiss gracefully, but his eyes are glittering and dangerous as Delphine bounces back to the sofa and starts making plans for us. And rather than join the chatter about weather reports and whether or not we should wear robes or something more practical, he wanders over to the window to watch the snow.

“Do you think the people from Thorncombe still go up to the chapel after they’re done with the well?” Rebecca asks, and I hear Saint answer as he gets up from where he’s kneeling behind the sofa and comes to sit on the arm.

“They don’t. I’ve done the festival a few times with my mom, and it begins at the well and then ends at The Thorn and Crown with beer.” There’s a shy quality to Saint’s words, as if he’s nervous and happy and uncertain about being included in all this. It pulls at me, both with sadness and with pleasure, because I’m happy he’s a part of this, but I’m also pained that it was ever a question to begin with.

“It looks like the clergyman mentions a single title repeatedly,” Saint says, reaching for the book as I take a drink in hand and stare at Auden’s back across the library. “The Consecration of the May Queen. It was old even in Reverend Dartham’s time. Maybe if we can find it, we can figure out a little more about the ritual in the chapel itself?”

“And the book is here?” Becket asks.

“Presumably, unless it’s been removed,” Saint says. “Poe, do you know where it might be?”

I’m chewing my lip, watching Auden while dreams and memories of dreams threaten to push through into real life. “No,” I murmur distractedly. “Maybe Estamond’s ledgers? She has shelf numbers marked on there, so if she’d cataloged the book, we might be able to find it.”

There’s a general flapping of excitement about this, and within a few minutes, Rebecca and Becket are poring over one ledger while Delphine and Saint take the other. And while they’re searching for the paper needle in a paper haystack, I make a choice.

I steel myself with a long swallow of scotch, and then walk across the library to go apologize to Auden.





Chapter 16





He’s facing the snow when I get to the window, the fingers of one hand splayed against the glass while his other hand fists and unfists in slow, methodical pulses. This deep into the night-gloom of the library, he’s only the barest highlights of himself—eyelashes caught with shadows like drops of water, the wide mouth, the patrician nose and elegant tumbles of light brown hair. He’d dressed simply today—or as simply as he ever does—in dark red trousers and a white button-down, and the collar of his shirt is open enough for me to trace the strong lines of his throat and the mesmerizing crescent of his collarbone. I still feel that primal urge to go to my knees and beg him to pull my hair, but I ignore it. I refuse to kneel to a coward.

I may apologize, but I won’t kneel.

“You were right,” he says without looking at me, before I can even speak. “You were right about what you said.”

I think about this a moment. “I came to say I’m sorry, and I think I still should. I shouldn’t have said those things in front of everyone else. I know what happened between you and your father was painful.”

His eyes are still on the snow. “Painful,” he says. “Yes.”

“And I shouldn’t have shamed you for how you’re handling his death.” Guilt tightens my throat as I realize that I did fuck up pretty badly back there. “You’re grieving and you are grieving a man who was cruel to you, and I . . . I should have known better.”

“Yes,” Auden says, finally turning to face me. “You should have.” He sighs and scrubs at his hair. “But you also weren’t wrong. It’s easier to draw up wiring schedules and review wood samples than it is to think of Thornchapel as my own.”

He looks at me for a moment, then extends a hand. It’s cool from the glass, and I feel that coolness everywhere as I give him my hand in return.