Page 91 of Starchaser
Will slumps on the opposite side of the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. “Titus’s mother was human,” he says. “A servant in this very castle.”
I look between the two of them, feeling as if time has altogether stopped.
I start, “You’re—”
“A halfling?” Titus finishes, his cracked lips tilted, the ghost of a smirk. “Aside from a life of piracy, it looks as if we finally have something else in common.”
I shake my head, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “That’s why Calantha was… why she—” I try to speak, but tears clog my throat, and I have to look away from him, the image of his blood-smeared face in the dungeons seared into my memory. “Your blood—you’re part human. So theManan… she harvests yourManan? Oh, Maker of All—” My breath hitches on a sob, thinking about every time I saw Calantha touch Titus—the way he tensed. Every time it looked as if it pained him to sit down, to put any pressure on his back. How many times has she done this? How long has he endured this kind of torture?
His fingertips brush mine. “Forgive me, love,” he says, and I meet his gaze. “You shouldn’t have had to see that.”
“She saved your life,” Will says, his voice even for the first time since he burst through my door and found Titus unconscious on the rug. He runs his hand over the two puncture marks in the bedding, where my daggers tore feathers from the mattress, a glint of amusement in his gaze that would feel entirely out of place if I hadn’t seen that look in his eyes a dozen times. If it weren’t for Titus, recovering from the brink of death between us, I wouldhave been the one scoldingWillfor daring to lock me in my room when I could have been of help.
Then again, if I had gone with Will, Titus might have bled out in that cell. Alone.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Titus says, his smile somewhat pained.
I open my mouth to ask him what he means, but the servants’ door opens, and Killian sweeps into the room, followed by—
“Mother?”
“I came as soon as I heard,” Mother says as Killian shuts the door behind them. Her gaze lands, almost immediately, on Titus’s hand, clasped tightly in mine.
I didn’t even realize I grabbed his hand, but his thumb brushes my knuckles, and my heartbeat slows, if only a little. Still, guilt gnaws at my chest, and when I glance at Will, I find him staring at our clasped hands. Though his taciturn expression gives nothing away, I note the hurt in his gaze—the resignation. I know I should pull my hand away, but I don’t—can’t, as if some invisible force binds me to Titus in this moment, too powerful to resist.
“Hello, Grace,” Titus says, smiling slightly. “How nice of you to visit.”
Mother’s brow quirks, a motherly look of disapproval, tempered only by genuine concern as she examines the scars on Titus’s chest. “Killian said you had new information concerning the princess,” she says, glancing at Killian, smoking a cigar in the armchair in front of the fireplace, looking as if he bears the weight of the world on his shoulders. “He said it was urgent.”
Titus grimaces. “Calantha confirmed it, Grace. She confirmed what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.Tauntedme with it.”
Mother and Killian share a wary look. Will buries his face in his hands.
“Titus,” Mother starts, her voice steady, “we’ve been over this. What you’re asking us to do—”
“I’m asking you to listen to me!” Titus shouts, his face turning red, his eyes pleading. For a moment, I’m reminded of one of the last conversations Owen had with Mother, when he begged her to search for the Red Island. He said something so similar then.If only you would listen to me!
By the wounded look on Mother’s face, she remembers, too.
“Iamlistening,” Mother says, regaining her composure in the blink of an eye. “We’ve checked Princess Leonora time and time again. She shows no signs of possession—”
“It’s her!” This time, he grips my hand, clutching it tight as if to keep himself from springing out of the bed. “It’s Morana! Of course you wouldn’t see the usual signs—”
The usual signs. As Titus and Mother argue, my gut twists, and I realize what I’ve been too blind to see before. While Will once told me that Underlings despise sugar, Leo eagerly partook in the plate of sweets the day we met in the Queen’s Court. And Will told me once that Underlings hate flowers, but Leo walked willingly through the garden of Bloodroses and seemed serene in the Crystal Atrium. Eliza, however, always declines dessert. She fled from the Bloodrose garden, and she looked as if she were about to jump out of her skin in the Crystal Atrium earlier this evening. Still, something more glaring than the peculiarities of Eliza’s personality was right in front of me all along, hanging from Eliza’s neck, taunting me with the truth: The Changeling had transformed into a bat—the same bat that represents the crest of House Cooper.
“It’s Eliza,” I say, the words tumbling out before I’ve fully come to the realization, but the moment I say it, Will’s head whips in my direction, his eyes wide, and Titus jerks his hand away from mine, looking at me as if I just slapped him. But, hearing it aloud, I know it’s true, even if I wish with all my heart that it wasn’t. I stand, facing Mother, my chin held high. “It’s her—Morana has possessed Eliza Cooper. She’s been right under our noses all this time. She, Flynn, and Gabriel—the three of them were spying for the Guild of Shadows.”
“Flynn?” Titus gawks at me as if I’ve just sprouted a second head. “Don’t tell me you believe all that rubbish about their allegiance to the Underlings?”
My chest squeezes at the hurt in his gaze, but we’re almost out of time, and no matter the pain it might cause him to hear the truth, I finally see what I didn’t before. “Eliza killed Eva Mercer. It was Gabriel who attacked me at the train station. And tonight…” I hesitate, glancing at Mother and Killian, knowing that what I’m about to say will change everything. “Tonight, Flynn tried to kill me.”
I can’t bring myself to look at Titus, focusing on Will instead, now on his feet, pacing the room again.
“How did I not see it!” Will’s voice breaks as he runs his hands over his face, through his hair. He turns to Titus then, his expression crestfallen. “Aster’s right. Eliza… she never was quite the same after the death of their parents. I wanted to believe the rumors were false, but…”
“It’s Eliza,” I say again, feeling the weight of the words as they tumble out of my mouth, forming a blade in my grasp, condemning Eliza Cooper to death. “And now she’s missing. She’s gone and…”
It’s as if the blade I fashioned for Eliza is now turned on me, threatening to spill blood. Because if Eliza is gone, then Morana has fled, and with her, our chances of obtaining a cure for Will have vanished. And with Eva dead, the Order won’t have access to the trade routes needed to infiltrate Castle Grim tomorrow.
