Page 28 of A Treason of Thorns

“Why did you come back?” I ask.

“I don’t really know,” Wyn says without looking at me.

“Will you stay long?”

His frown deepens. “I don’t know that, either.”

“I still plan to look for the deed,” I warn him. “To finish what my father started. Now more than ever—Burleigh couldn’t keep itself together at the thought of a new Caretaker. So if you can’t live with that...”

“No, it’s alright.” Wyn takes a step back and eyes his work critically. “I remembered something while I was on my way out to Taunton—I never could change your mind, when you were set on something. So I’ve changed mine, instead. You say you came back to help me, but I’ve come back to help you, too. Or at least to keep you from killing yourself with House magic.”

This time, I’m the one who frowns. “It’s that simple?”

One corner of Wyn’s mouth tugs up, and he looks almost wistful. “Yes. That simple. Look, Violet, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was hard on you, but you’ve been away. I’ve been here all along and I watchedeverythingthat’s happened. So I know that if you’re not terribly quick and clever, either Burleigh or the king will be the death of you. I don’t want to see another Sterling die.”

“I’m not going to die,” I tell him with far more confidence than I feel. “I’m just going to... get ahold of Burleigh’s deed, free my House, and live forever.”

Wyn laughs, the sound short and dry, and possibly a little bitter.

“You were right,” he says. “You haven’t changed.”

But I have. I realize that now. Out on the fens, I was so sure I could fix things if I just got home. But now I’m actually here, doubt runs through me, as insidious as leftover mortar.

When Wyn and I have finished with the plastering, I make a flimsy excuse and slip away. I flit through the empty, echoing halls, where an occasional ghost shimmers in a corner or a doorway. In the conservatory, I push the glass-paned doors wide and go out into the garden, where the air is thick with late afternoon sunlight. As I pass by the tangles of unpruned roses, I can’t help but notice that there’s something not quite right about them. They blush grey rather than pink at their soft and velvety hearts.

But it’s not the garden I want. I go through the roses and the wildflower meadow to the edge of the woods at the back of Burleigh’s grounds. There, hemmed in on three sides by a drystone wall and on a fourth by the forest itself, is the Sterling family cemetery.

I let myself in through the little wooden gate. The sound of itshutting behind me is horribly final, as is the sight of bare earth mounded atop my father’s grave. There’s a stone marker with Papa’s name and the years of his birth and his death cut deep into it. The grave itself is fresh and new and raw, like a knife wound to the surface of Burleigh’s good earth.

Sinking down in the grass alongside the grave, I take a handful of bare soil, still damp from the earlier rain. This, too, reminds me of how badly things have gone wrong. When my father managed Burleigh it never rained before evening. Burleigh and Papa kept the land in excellent health and the weather carefully regulated.

My father worked ceaselessly on behalf of the House. He knew everyone at court, and rode back and forth across the length of the country in what I now know was his search for Burleigh’s deed. How can I possibly begin to retrace his steps, and to uncover the information he brought to light? I am just a girl, with no connections, no income, and no key with which to help my House. My resolution to save Burleigh and to complete the task Papa began is an empty one. What do I have, besides the strength of my own will?

Across the wildflower meadow, there’s a shimmer of faint blue-green as the House remembers Papa and me walking hand in hand toward the back woods, fishing poles resting on our shoulders. Whenever he managed to steal an hour or two for me, that’s what we liked to do—sit on the banks of the trout stream in the forest, sometimes catching something, sometimes not. We’d talk about Caretakers, about my duty to Burleigh House, and how so long as I looked after it, Burleigh would always be there for me.

But I left, and Papa is dead now. Burleigh is dying. I know, Iknowit’s not my fault, yet it still feels as if I had a hand in it.

What if I’d stayed? What if Papa had kept me behind, instead of Wyn? Would things be any different now?

I scrub both hands across my face in abject frustration.

You’re meant to be a Caretaker, Vi, Papa’s voice says in my head.And a Caretaker always puts her House first.

Run away with me, Wyn counters.We could go anywhere, let’s just get away from here. Burleigh’s not the friend you think it is.

Your father never told us where the deed’s hidden, Mira adds.The only ones who know that secret now are the king and Burleigh House itself.

I watch as the remembered versions of Papa and me reach the eaves of the forest and vanish among the trees. Then it strikes me like a bolt of lightning.

My father knew where the deed was.

Burleigh likely still knows it.

And while Burleigh can’t let me speak of the deed without destroying pieces of itself, it can show me memories of my father. Of what he said, what he discovered, where he planned to go.

Blood and mortar. I think I know how I’m going to save my House.

Jed comes home at sundown, tired but pleased to have been offered a place day laboring at Longhill Farm, not far from Burleigh House. We all eat our supper at the staff table and are uncomfortably quiet—I suppose no one wants another row. I can hardly wait to excuse myself, pleading lingering exhaustion after our long days of travel.