Page 84 of House of Salt and Sorrows
I nodded. “To the family crypt.”
“I’ll come with you. The storm is picking up. I can’t in good conscience let you go out alone. It wouldn’t be safe.”
All morning long, I’d avoided him, trying not to think about last night, about our kiss. I needed to stay focused. But he was right. If I went out in the storm on my own, there’d be another search party just for me.
“I need my cloak,” I said, scurrying up the stairs. “I’ll just be a moment.”
His footsteps trailed after me. As our eyes met, I felt my jaw tremble.
“How are you?”
His voice was low and warm and threatened to undo the hardened facade I’d tried to maintain all morning. I pushed a tear from my eye, as if it was no more than a speck of dust. “Today is most decidedly not about me.”
He bounded up the stairs between us. “You look exhausted. Let me search the crypt.”
I kept climbing. “You don’t know how to get there.”
“Send a servant with me. We’ll be there in no time.” His fingers brushed the hollow of my back. “Annaleigh…”
I stepped onto the landing. “I need to do this, Cassius. I can’t stay here looking through the same rooms over and over while everyone else is out searching. I feel like I’m going mad. Let me do this.”
“We’ll find them,” he promised, squeezing my hand. “There must be a room we missed, or perhaps they’re playing a prank?”
I shook my head. “They wouldn’t do that. They know what we’d think.”
Cassius stopped at the portrait just across from my bedroom, studying it. It had been painted before the triplets were born, back when there were just six of us.
“Those are my older sisters.”
“Ava, Octavia, Elizabeth, and Eulalie.”
I paused. “How did you know their names?”
He froze, his blue eyes dark. For a moment, he looked worried, caught in something. “On the plaque.”
I squinted at the little bit of brass under the picture frame. I couldn’t make out their names in the dim light. “There were twelve of us originally. But one by one, we’ve been picked off. The villagers think there’s a curse on our house. So you see, Rosalie and Ligeia would never pretend to go missing. It would be too cruel.”
“So much loss,” he said, his eyes focused on the painting.
I turned away from my sisters’ gazes. “Oh.”
“What is it?”
I studied the door handle. “I’m certain I left my door shut.”
But it was now several inches ajar. I pushed it wide open, hoping to find Ligeia and Rosalie inside. When I spotted a dark form near my bureau, a startled cry burst from my throat.
Ivor looked up in surprise, his face cloudy but panicked.
“What are you doing in here?” I demanded, and felt Cassius at my back, peering in.
Ivor slowly shut the drawer. One of my silk stockings caught in the latch. “Looking for the twins.”
“In Annaleigh’s dresser?” Cassius’s voice was dark with warning. “And they’re triplets.”
He shrugged. “Thought with everyone busy, I might search for clues.”
“Clues?”
