Page 91 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
She kissed his fingers, and lay down beside him, the lines between them evaporating faster than ever.
A little while later, when his headache seemed to have eased somewhat, he turned to her and said, quite plainly:
“I thought I killed my mother. I thought the stress of the curse caused her miscarriage and death, but the other night the fortune-teller told me that I was cursed because of something my father did. I ought to be relieved, and I think I am, a little bit, but I hate him more than ever.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “He told me I killed her. Screamed it at me, actually. And yet, when he decided to leave, I still begged him to stay.” He swallowed. “He writes to Minty more often than me. Still sends money. Still doesn’t send me somewhere else. Still, occasionally, makes me think that perhaps he cares about me in some small way, even though I know he doesn’t. I never knew why he hated me so much. It was bad before the curse. Worse after. The fortune-teller told me he heardhisfortune when I was five, predicted I would do something to his line, besmirch the great family name, or something. So he decided I couldn’t inherit. But when Mother didn’t give him another heir, he went to magic for one instead. I don’t know what bargain he made, only that he broke it, and I was cursed as a result.”
Adeline stared at him, unable to find the words, to untangle any of what he’d just said. “Dimitri—”
“It’s all right if you can’t say anything,” he told her. “I can’t think what I want to say, either. Only that I wantedyouto know.”
“If I ever meet your father, I’ll murder him.”
He blinked up at her. “You could never hurt anyone.”
“I could,” she said.For you, I would.
“I think I would prefer a non-violent approach…”
“All right,” she said. “But I shall hate him silently.” She curled up against his shoulder, linking her fingers into his. There was nothing proper about this action, nothing reserved. More than simple comfort.
She found she did not care.
She pondered on what the fortune-teller had told her. Her first thought had been to ask about the curse, but the fortune-teller said that that was Dimitri’s future, not hers. So she asked about herself, instead. Would there ever come a time when the darkness in her truly lifted? Would she know true happiness? Would she marry, fall in love?
“You will know greater sorrow, and greater joy. True happiness will be for you to decide. You will marry, if you wish it, and yes, you will fall in love. Once, and forever, and it will last your lifetime.”
“And when will I meet this man?”
The fortune-teller had smiled. “You already have.”
Adeline was sleeping, a strange, blissful sleep, the kind she couldn’t quite remember having ever before. Someone was lying with her, limbs around her body, not a small wriggling mass like Edie or one of her other siblings. Someone who felt more like home than any of them, who smelt like hot paper and ink and moonlight.
Moonlight doesn’t have a smell,said a voice in the back of her head.You are speaking nonsense.
But it was a cool, white scent, and though she had never liked the dark as much as the sunshine, she wanted to bathe in its radiance.
“Oh my word!”
Adeline sat up, yanked from sleep. Posey was hovering in the threshold with a tray, eyes wide.
Adeline was in bed with Dimitri, his arms still wrapped around her, blissfully unaware.
She scrambled free, running towards her before she could alert anyone else, desperately smoothing her skirts.
“What are you doing?” Posey hissed, still clutching the tray. She held it between them like a barrier.
“It’s not what it seems, I promise you! He just had a headache, I was just trying to get him to rest—”
Lies, of course. That’s how it had started. But there was no ‘just’ about it. There was no ‘just’ about Dimitri at all.
“You were lying against him! Holding hishand!”
“Please, Posey, don’t tell anyone, I know what it looks like, but it isn’t like that—”
“Isn’t it?” Posey took a step forward. “We all see how he looks at you. How he acts around you. We’re not blind. And you’renotspecial.”
“I never said that I was.”
“You aren’t the only person who was ever nice to him, you know. We were all nice once. We all felt sorry for him. We all tried to care. He just didn’t much care back.”
