Page 94 of Whisper of Nightmares

Cybele throws out her arms. “What else was I supposed to do, Euphemia? I was worried. Desperate. And he was the one person I knew I could get talking.”

A startled smirk creeps onto Euphemia’s face. “What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything too terrible.” Cybele sits taller, her thin nose pointed to the rafters. “I only told him that if I found out he was the one spreading rumors I’d slip hemlock into his ale. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not even a year from now.”

“Cybele!” Euphemia can’t believe her ears. Then again, she’s been on the receiving end of Cybele’s torment before. The woman knows how to get what she wants. “Well? What did he say?”

“He denied it. Of course. But I got him to tell me what his father was up to. And, Euphemia, I don’t think it’s good.” She pauses, lips working as if she doesn’t want to say it. “He said he was coming for you. Well, for the family you married. He says they owe him for the bride they stole. He intends to collect.”

Euphemia rolls her eyes. “This is ridiculous. No one stole me.”

Cybele’s brow furrows. “Do you promise?”

She looks so unconvinced, so worried, that Euphemia is taken aback.

Her voice is so small when she asks, “Why is it so unbelievable that someone would want to marry me?”

“It never had anything to do with that,” Cybele says, taking her sister’s hands into her own. “The way Ismene described you that night, she didn’t say you were a blushing bride. She said it looked like you were running from something. Or someone.”

Euphemia presses her eyes shut.

She had been wrong to ask Ismene to lie for her.

But what other choice did she have?

“Was it Conwal?” asks Cybele.

“What?”

Cybele swallows, digging deeper for the question she truly wants to ask. “Did he threaten you?”

Lying would be so easy.

Cybele has set her up again to do so.

But she feels buried in lies already.

“No. Conwal did not threaten me.”

The tension in Cybele’s shoulders eases.

Seeing her sister so reassured, Euphemia realizes something.

“You followed Thurstan here? For me?”

A whisper of a smile drifts across Cybele’s face. “Someone had to make sure he didn’t come here and do something to you.”

She never knew how much Cybele cared.

It fills Euphemia’s chest with warmth she did not know she needed.

“I thought I saw him in town the other day,” Euphemia says. “I told myself I was wrong. That I had to be seeing things. But that really was him?”

Cybele nods.

“I looked right at him though, and he ducked into an alley.” Biting her lip, she adds, “If he believes Kelda owes him money, why didn’t he confront us then?”

Cybele lights up as if she’s suddenly just remembered something. “That’s right. I nearly forgot. I saw him talking with someone when he arrived.”