Page 10 of The Secret of the Three Fates
She weighed her options, studying me before she responded. “I do not know why the old woman brought your bookseller here. I do not know why she brought any of you here. I do not traffic with the dead for the dead cannot be trusted—”
First sea-folk, now the dead. Did the White Witch trust anyone? I held up a hand, pausing her mid-sentence. “Do you mean to say this Lucy woman brought the others here as well?” A sickening worry clawed its way up my throat. What if this was a trap? Mr. Owen came here on the promise he could speak to his dead son. Had she done the same for the others… the duke… the dowager countess? Perhaps the Fates had promised the others things too. Mr. Owen’s brother… Andrew intimated that he’d not meant for his father to come. What if Lucy intended for each of them to be here for a reason?
“I believe so, though I do not know why.” Her expression shifted and she turned her head toward a sound I could not hear. “Someone comes. You should go now. I will find you if I learn more about the Fates and their purpose here.”
“Is it Lucy? I need to speak with her.”
The White Witch grew pale, shaking her head as her attention remained fixed on whatever she sensed coming down the corridor. “You must hurry. Back to your room.”
I followed her gaze but could neither see nor hear what had caught her attention. She had helped us, in a fashion, back in Cornwall, but I still did not trust her. “Why are you helping me?”
“Because the sooner you do what you’ve come to do, the sooner you will leave this place.”
I raised my brow in challenge. “Then we understand one another?”
The White Witch let out a strange sound that might have been a laugh. “Unfortunately, we do. Now go.”
WHILEIDIDN’Ttrust the White Witch and she did not trust me, alliances had been built upon shakier foundations. I was alsofairlyconfident she didn’t mean me any lasting harm. My mind flickered back to when we’d met in Cornwall. Her presence in Scotland didn’t make sense at all, but there was no time to worry about the White Witch’s perplexing motives. She was here, and I needed to know what these mediums wanted with Mr. Owen. If the White Witch was willing to help on that score, then so be it.
I raced back to my room, opening my door with a frustrated grunt that sent it slamming into the wall behind. Through the closed door I heard a telltale snort informing me that Mr. Owen had fallen asleep in my absence. At least he was resting. I did not like seeing him troubled—and while I remained vaguely irritated at him for bringing me here under false pretenses, I could not entirely blame him for doing it.
Someone wanted him here and went to a great deal of effort to make sure he came.
I sank down onto the little dressing table stool and picked up what remained of the salve Ruan made for me in Cornwall, pulling out the cork stopper. I dipped two fingers in the very last of it and rubbed the greasy substance over the scar on my brow—much as I’d done every night—the crisp scent of lavender and mint flooding my senses.
When I opened my eyes again and looked in the mirror, I noticed a piece of paper sitting on the center of the bed behindme.Now that hadn’t been there before.I shrugged out of Andrew Lennox’s borrowed dinner jacket and moved to the bed, grabbing the envelope from the mattress and turned it over in my hand. The wax seal on the back was the color of overripe blackberries. I broke it with my thumb, unfolding the message and read the words written there.
Meet me at midnight on the bridge. Alone. There’s not much time. He knows I know.
I stared at the words on the page, struggling to make sense of them. Who isheand what did this cryptic letter writer know? I bit my lip, staring at the slip of paper, and ran my thumb over the black ink on the page. I lifted my thumb… a small shape in the form of anMbranded itself on my skin. The ink was still wet. I sniffed at the paper which bore the same trace of verbena that I’d noted in the medium’s room moments before. It had to be from Lucy. Perhaps whatever danger the White Witch sensed worried Lucy as well.
I let out a hoarse laugh. This was preposterous—the product of my own overactive imagination and lack of sleep. I was putting far too much stock in the supernatural, when there had to be another explanation for the goings-on at Manhurst. There simplyhadto be.
I slipped the note beneath my jewelry box and unfastened my mother’s emerald earbobs and necklace, dropping them both into their leather traveling case. Meeting mediums on bridges at midnight was a terrible idea—but I needed to speak to the woman. I opened a small drawer and pulled out the locket I always wore and affixed it to my throat before taking my own woolen overcoat from the wardrobe, slipping it over my evening gown. There was no time to change into proper traipsing-around-the-wilderness attire. Not that I’d even packed such things in the first place.
I withdrew Mr. Owen’s old Webley service revolver from a drawer and unfastened it from its cumbersome leather shoulder holster before tucking it into the pocket of my jacket. One really couldn’t be too careful, though after all the improbable things I’d survived to this point it was a miracle I was still in one piece: a war, an angry mob of Cornishmen, attempted poisoning. I mean really, what was the worst that could happen on the bridge?
CHAPTERFIVEA Midnight Swim
THEdamp night air grew colder by the minute as I darted into the shadows off the east lawn toward the bridge. The ruins of the old castle rose up in the moonlight, swallowing up what little light existed. The dreadful construction was the sort of thing that inspired ghost stories. No wonder I was leaping at shadows as of late.
You’re in a ghost story, Ruby.
I swatted that thought away. There was no such thing as ghosts, and no matter how convincing the séance seemed, there had to be another explanation for what I saw tonight—I’d just have to figure out what exactly that explanationwas.
The wind picked up, cutting through my woolen coat as if it were no more substantial than my pitiful gown beneath. The hem was soaked—again—likely ruined for good and not even my housekeeper Mrs. Penrose’s estimable skills with a needle could save it now.
A shadowy, lumbering figure appeared in the distance, making his way back toward the castle. I squinted to make him out, but whoever it was disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.
No such thing as ghosts indeed.
Thighs burning from exertion, I climbed back up and over the stile, hurrying through the muddy pasture down toward the lake. The soft light of candles appeared in the distance. There must have been a dozen of them flickering below on the bridge—a warming glow drawing me nearer. Somewhere from my left an animal splashed into the water. Whatever it was, it sounded large. My frozen fingers wound themselves around the grip of the revolver as I continued onto the bridge.
But there was no one there.
Nothing but twelve lit candles set into a circle.
Odd. But what hadn’t been odd this evening?
