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For once in her life, she didn’t want to be sensible.
Someone had laundered her original clothing and folded it all neatly atop the chest nestled at the end of her bed. She was unsurprised that someone had entered the room and taken the clothing away. She was, however, surprised that they had brought every single piece back, down to the breeches so patched the original material was hardly discernible, and the threadbare tunic worn completely through in places.
Clare ran her fingers over the patches. She hated sewing, had always hated it. Hated it more, perhaps, because it had been so necessary. No matter how often she did it, she always pricked her fingers on the needle, and that was if she could even get her hands on a proper needle for the job. She slipped the patched breeches on, then the worn tunic.
In the darkness that swallowed the rest of the house, she made her way to the sitting room, feeling her way to the large armchair that rested by the unlit fireplace. In the warm, inviting comfort of the chair, she settled in to wait.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Abomination
It took less time than she’d expected for the Arrendons to find her. She’d barely gotten comfortable before every magelight in the house flared into burning wakefulness, the fireplace next to her crackling to life. Verol practically ran into the room, Marquin on his heels, and Fitz right behind both of them.
“You’re here.” Verol’s surprise was obvious.
Fitz snorted. “I told you she would be. People like her don’t throw away the material advantages you afford.”
All the fear and confusion Clare had experienced that evening coalesced. Her emotions needed an outlet, and wasn’t it convenient that Fitz was here, and it no longer mattered what power she showed the Arrendons? The Song snapped out of her, clamping him tight. “Why do you dislike me so much?”
He strained against her with what power he possessed, but it was as effective as a butterfly fighting a lion. If he’d detested her before, it deepened into rage as words spilled unwillingly out of him. “Because she’s dead and you’re alive, and you’re nothing like her. Because he already looks at you more like a daughter than he’s ever looked at me like a son.”
She released him. Anger and regret clouded his eyes as they shifted, mortified, to Verol.
“Fitz…” Verol took a step toward him, but Fitz shook his head. Casting Clare a look of pure venom, he stomped out.
Verol looked between Clare and the doorway, torn. Marquin rested his hand on his husband’s shoulder. “Fitz will wait.”
“I didn’t know.” Pain laced Verol’s features, and Clare suspected she would cause more of it before the night was through.
“I don’t believe he wanted us to know.” Marquin looked pointedly at Clare. “That was unkind.”
“I never claimed to be kind. So she’s dead, and I’m alive?” She recalled the image the Song had shoved into her mind at the party, and the glimpses of knowledge that had come with it. “A little girl with blonde hair. She used to live here and she’s dead now. Who was she?”
Verol’s face twisted in pain and Marquin gave her another hard look. Yes, she’d already pieced together who the girl was. But if Verol couldn’t tell her, then she couldn’t stay.
Seconds ticked by, but just as Marquin opened his mouth to answer, Verol said, “Her name was Marie.”
“The last apprentice you took after Fitz.”
“Yes.”
“She was…like me?” Because that was what the Song had been trying to tell her with that image. That it had lived in another before. That it was why Fitz hated her. She’s dead and you’re alive, and you’re nothing like her.
“She was.”
“And that’s why she died.”
“Yes.”
She looked at Marquin. “When you said his Kinthing called him to some more than others, you meant it called him to people like me. How many others are there?”
“None,” Verol said softly. “There have been others like you, but never more than one at any given time.”
“What…what am I?”
The question broke Verol’s composure. He slumped onto the couch across from her and put his head in his hands. “You’re the one who lived. The only one, impossibly, that Alaric never found.”
“But what am I? What’s inside me?”
