Page 72 of The Secret of the Three Fates
The stars overhead offered no answers nor were there any to be found down here. Whoever had killed this medium had taken whatever she’d discovered with them. With a frustrated groan I stood, climbed out of the hole, and promptly vomited up the contents of my stomach.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONEGhosts
Ido not know why I did not immediately run for help. Nor do I know why I paused, sitting at a table in the empty courtyard waiting… I do not even recall what I waited for, only that I couldn’t bear to be amongst the living until I’d rid myself of the dead.
Once I managed to compose myself enough to return to my room, I headed inside, determined to find Ruan and then contact the inspector. My hands still trembled, but I could do that much for the poor dead woman. The inspector would likely try to accuse me of killing Abigail as well, but I had no choice in the matter.
Ruan found me before I found him, catching me by the arm as I started up the stairs. “Where have you been?”
He was dressed in only shirtsleeves and a herringbone waistcoat, his right arm and shoulder bound tight to his chest with a white cloth sling.
I opened my mouth but snapped it back shut, the words not coming.
He touched my temple with his forefinger. “Please talk to me, Ruby.”
Again, I opened my mouth, wanting to tell him about the poor dead woman in the ruins and yet the words would not come. My eyes burnt and silence surrounded us. The clock on the hall struck twelve.
How long had I been outside?
Ruan laid a hand on my cheek. “Gods, you are frozen. I have been looking all over the castle for you—where have you been?” He looked down at my hands. “You’re shaking…”
I looked down to my filthy hands and clenched my fist to stop the trembling, finally finding my voice. “There’s a body… in the ruins. The missing medium.”
Ruan shifted his weight, taking me in fully. What a sight I must be with my knotted hair, my stained dress, and mud-caked shoes. As the meaning behind my words sank in, he pulled me against his warm chest—heedless of his own injury or the state of my clothes.
“You need a bath,” he murmured, his lips pressed against my hair as he inhaled deeply.
I let out a startled sound. Yes. I did. But there was no time for it. Tears pricked my eyes. Stupid. Stupid tears. “I must go to her, I must help…”
“Help who?”
“The dead medium.”
Ruan muttered something beneath his breath in Cornish before stepping back and tilting my chin up to look him in the eye. “She’s dead. There is nothing you can do for her that can’t wait until morning.”
His words soaked through the frozen expanse of my thoughts. He was right. The poor woman had lain there in that shallow grave for a week. Surely another few hours wouldn’t hurt. But leaving her alone seemed cruel. Someone had killed her and left her like carrion. Forgotten.
He frowned and met me with that irritating stare of his. Theone that reminded me why he held such respect in Cornwall. “You will do no one any good like this. Let me help you—you can hardly stand on your own feet.”
I wriggled away from his kindness. “No. No, I’m fine. I promise. I’ll be all right.” A lie. I hadn’t been fine in a very long time, but I was a Vaughn, and Vaughns always managed to get by.
He stood there, perhaps six inches away from me, his eyes bright. He swore again beneath his breath, muttering in Cornish before pressing a gentle kiss to my brow.
A girl could grow accustomed to this sort of thing. “What did you say?”
The edge of his mouth curved up and he shook his head. “You don’t want to know. Good night, Ruby.”
Good night, indeed.
I started up the stairs, leaving him behind. Just as I turned the corner, I heard a pair of voices coming from behind a cracked door at the near end of the corridor. I ought not have stopped—not paid it any mind at all—had I not recognized Elijah’s voice. The other speaker, I could not identify. My fingers rested lightly on the gilt wallpaper as I leaned closer to the opening.
“—it will be fine. Believe me. I won’t let them harm you—”
“—it’s too late, Elijah… the plan will never work now,” the other person replied. An Englishwoman, though she had a strange accent I could not quite pinpoint. Perhaps it was the woman Ruan saw outside the window earlier tonight? Whoever she was, she also knew his true name—an unsettling revelation.
“I was frightened for you. When you fainted I—”
Fainted?My stomach knotted as I strained to listen harder at the door. Suddenly I recalled the ease with which Genevieve had mutated herself on the bridge. Her change in posture, her thickening accent upon the appearance of Andrew, Malachi, and the duke. At the time I thought she was afraid of Elijah, but what if her reason for being here was something else entirely?
