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Mrs. Kane’s eyes narrowed and she slowly looked over her shoulder at Kiki. “Yes, Miss Rosen. The maid.”
“What the hell is she on about?” Astrid asked Missy
.
“Believe me,” Missy said, “you don’t want to know.”
Mrs. Kane shot them a silencing glare. They both clamped their mouths shut.
“We always knew that if ever the four families were to meet at Easton again, there would be trouble,” she continued. “But we had thought the Williams line had finally died out.”
She stepped closer to me, her shoes rasping against the concrete floor. She leaned over and peered into my eyes, so close our noses almost touched.
“We should have known better. We should have known Eliza would rear her ugly head again. And so she has.”
Her breath mingled with mine, and it was all I could do not to bite her nose off. She leaned back again and walked away, shooting me a snide look over her shoulder. “Your grandmother made sure of that, didn’t she?”
Mrs. Kane plucked one of the knives from the circular table. My heart sank to my toes.
“What do you mean?” I said, barely able to speak past the burning lump of horror in my throat. “What do you mean, she made sure of that?”
Mrs. Kane cocked her head. “Don’t you know?” She walked over and lifted the knife toward my face. I flinched, and Constance and Lorna started to sob. “You were engineered, my love.” She brought the tip of the knife to my left cheek and I felt a pinprick on my skin.
“No no no no no,” Lorna whimpered, wagging her head back and forth.
“Your grandmother was the one who invited your mother to interview at Lange Industries. She was the one who made certain your mother got the job as your father’s assistant. She dropped in their laps the project that forced them to work late nights, weekends, holidays. To always be thrown together. She knew her son well enough to know what would happen. And as one of Eliza’s descendants your mother is, of course, a whore.”
“Shut up!” I spat.
She flinched and the point of the knife drove deeper into my skin. I felt the hot trickle of blood down my cheek and started to shake.
“Just like you are,” Mrs. Kane continued, her voice singsong. She moved the knife to my other cheek and pricked me there as well. “All of the Williams women are whores, and all of the Lange women are manipulative liars. Guess what that makes you?”
She turned around and dropped the knife back on the table with a clang. “Clean it!”
Someone rushed forward and grabbed the knife, scurrying quickly away. Mrs. Kane turned back to me.
“Ever since you’ve been enrolled at Easton, there has been nothing but misfortune,” she said, her words clipped now, as if she were giving a presentation on stocks and bonds. “My daughter died because of you and—”
“Your daughter died because Sabine DuLac was unhinged,” Astrid spat.
Mrs. Kane blinked and her head twitched slightly. Then she continued as if Astrid hadn’t spoken. “My daughter died because you are a walking curse,” she said to me. “And the rest of you have only made it worse.”
She flung an arm around at the others.
“Since you riffraff have been allowed into Billings, there has been nothing but misery and destruction. But now, with your sacrifice, the slate will be wiped clean.”
The knife was returned to its place on the table, and Mrs. Kane’s minion disappeared back into the shadows.
“With the purging of all those who were not properly chosen, all will be set right.”
“You’ve got your facts wrong,” I said. “I was properly chosen. And Missy would have gotten in. She’s a legacy.”
Mrs. Kane tsked, then sucked in a breath through her teeth. “You were chosen by one and one alone, Miss Williams,” she spat. “Ariana Osgood, descendant of the one who cursed us, convinced the others to invite you in so that she could keep an eye on you. And then the little heathen went crazy and started murdering people. Hardly a ringing endorsement, I’d say.”
“What about me?” Missy said, eyeing the knives with terror. “I would have gotten in junior year, like Reed said. You can’t do this to me. It isn’t fair.”
Mrs. Kane ignored her. She lifted her hood back over her head and turned her back to me.
