I bit my lip. Could my Portent have been one of the future instead of the present? “She might be by the lake,” I said hesitantly.
“Let’s check.” Charles signaled his men, and they spread out around us. He led the way through another door that went outside behind the property. More lightning flashed, and my heartbeat took off.
“It’ll be okay,” Darcy murmured to me. “I’ll protect you.”
Two figures stood by the lake, just like in my Portent.
“What were you thinking?” Caroline’s voice carried to us across the field.
“I had to do something,” Louisa said.
“Louisa,” Charles called as we approached.
The sisters whirled to face us.
“What’s going on?” Louisa’s tired voice grew higher as she took in Darcy and me standing behind Charles. Her gaze widened before she smoothed it out again.
That was all the confirmation I needed. She was surprised to see me standing here after dropping a gargoyle on me—or Jane.
“I’m sorry, Louisa, but you’re under arrest.” Charles’s voice was heavy.
“What?” Her eyes flew wide again. “Why?”
“I think you know why.”
“Charles, wait. Think about this,” Caroline said.
“I have thought about it.” Charles frowned. “How could you do this, Louisa? To Darcy? To our family? To the Bennets?”
“Do what?” she said.
“Don’t play dumb.” Charles gestured his men forward. They closed in around the sisters in a circle.
I curled my free hand into a fist at the memory of Jane buried under a pile of rubble. “Even if you wanted it to look like an accident, we know you were the one who tried to strike me with lightning and knocked a gargoyle on Jane.”
“I would never hurt Jane.” Louisa’s gaze darted to Charles, and she took a step back toward the lake.
“You already did,” I said. “You might’ve thought you were attacking me earlier, but that was Jane with a glamour.”
Louisa blanched but then held her chin high, her nose in the air. “You’re taking her word over mine, Charles? Don’t you know what she is? What her family is?”
Caroline bit her lip but stayed silent, her gaze darting from her sister to her brother.
Charles sighed. “I’m not choosing Lizzy over you, Louisa. I’m simply believing the evidence. We traced the magical residue on the gargoyle, and I confirmed it was yours. You tried to kill Lizzy, and it was you who killed Easton with that love potion, wasn’t it?”
The circle drew tighter around the two women.
“It was an accident!” Louisa burst out, her shoulders caving. “I never meant for Easton to die. That potion was to make Darcy fall in love with Caroline after she was disinherited and lost everything. I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it, or I never would have tried to give it to Darcy.”
“You killed a man because of some silly childhood crush?” Anger radiated from Darcy.
Caroline covered her face with her hands.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with the love potion,” Charles said. “It killed Easton because he’d also taken a wolfsbane potion.”
“Wolfsbane?” Louisa wrinkled her nose. “If Easton was a werewolf, then I did us a favor. Someone like him does not belong in the royal guard.”
“Louisa, stop.” Caroline tugged at her sister’s sleeve.
