I get lost in the plates: etchings of belladonna, foxglove, monkshood, each flower rendered with loving precision. Hemlock, too, sprouting fine as lace from a grave-shaped mound. My fingers stray over the paper, tracing the lines as if I could feel the plant’s sting through the page.
The house is so quiet that the click of the library door is less a sound than a statement. I glance up, expecting Mrs. Whitby. Instead, it’s Larkin.
He closes the door behind him with a deliberation that is, itself, a message. He’s wearing the same dark suit from yesterday, no tie, shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled to the elbow as if he intends to get his hands dirty.
His hair—light brown, always slightly too long—hangs damply over his eyes, and he looks both exhausted and electrically awake. I hate that it all looks good on him, the rumpled party boy look.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just leans against the paneling and observes me as if trying to place a species.
“Morning,” I say, voice hoarse with sleep and unpracticed civility.
He inclines his head, but doesn’t return the greeting. Instead, he lets the silence accumulate, stares at the stack of books next to me.
“Maeve never let anyone touch the Vale papers,” he says at last. His tone is glass: smooth, sharp, and ready to cut.
“I’m not just anyone,” I reply, tucking my hands into my sleeves.
He snorts, a brief flash of contempt, then drifts closer to the fire, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He looks at the book in my lap, then at the glass of whiskey I poured with breakfast because the day already seemed impossible.
“Up early,” he says, as if it’s an accusation.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I answer.
He circles the reading chair, deliberately, like a crow sizing up a dead thing. The fire flickers up and catches the edge of his irises—green, brighter than should be legal, even in a house with stained glass and gas lighting.
“Bad dreams?” he asks, mouth twitching.
I don’t want to talk about dreams. Or about the sensation of being watched from inside the walls. Or the voices I heard, the whispers of the house.
I want, very much, for him to leave me the hell alone.
Instead, I say, “Nightmares are supposed to go away after childhood.”
He sits on the ottoman across from me, which puts him too close for comfort, and studies my face with an intensity that would be flattering if it weren’t so obviously calculated to unsettle me.
“They don’t,” he says.
I close the book, set it on the side table. “Did you need something, or are you just here to glower at me?”
He offers a thin smile. “You’re quick for a Vale. Most of them couldn’t form a sentence before lunch.”
“You seem to know a lot about the Vales,” I say, the words out before I can temper them.
He cocks his head. “I suppose I do. You look like her, you know.” He glances at the scar in my eyebrow, then away, as if remembering something he would rather not.
The compliment, if it is one, lands sideways. “If you came here to fight about the will, you’re late. I already signed the paperwork. The house is mine, for whatever it’s worth.”
He leans back, stretching long legs toward the fire. “I don’t care about the house,” he lies, badly. “It’s a mausoleum. I just find it interesting that Maeve left it to you. Someone she hasn’t spoken to in a decade.”
I find it strange too, but I’m not about to admit that to him. “Blood is blood,” I say instead.
He laughs, and the sound is so dry it nearly shatters. “She hated blood. Spent her whole life trying to bleach it out of the carpet.”
I want to ask what he means, but I’m not sure I want the answer.
He picks up the toxicology book, flips it open to a random page, runs a thumb over the hand-colored plate of wolfsbane. “This is a first edition, extremely rare,” he says. “You know what that means, in money?”
“Probably enough to buy my apartment in the city, but it’s not for sale,” I say, trying to take the book back. He doesn’t let go.
