Page 48 of The Thirteenth Count

The young man was leaner, his features sharper, with hair the color of pale gold and piercing blue eyes. Blackwell features.

Lysander. The middle son, from the lineage charts she’d been made to memorize. Fern took a step back.

“Well,” he said, his voice smooth and deceptively light. “That is certainly one way to make an entrance.”

Fern froze, clutching her cloak around her nightgown. “I… I was just…”

“Exploring?” Lysander pushed himself off the wall, walking slowly toward her. He didn’t move like Cassius, who walked as though someone were always grading him. Lysander’s gait was languid, almost bored. “Curiosity is a dangerous trait in this house, Miss Silverbell. Usually fatal.”

“I got lost,” Fern stammered, backing up until her shoulders hit the paneling she’d just fallen through.

Lysander stopped a few feet away. He looked at the open panel behind her, then back at her dust-smudged face. He leaned in, sniffing the air theatrically.

“Dust,” he listed. “Old wood. And… ah, yes. The distinct copper tang of the lower levels.” His amusement sharpened. “You’ve seen it, then.”

Fern didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The image of the cobbler being dragged to the chute was still burning behind her eyes.

“Don’t look so terrified,” Lysander said, dropping his voice. “If I were going to turn you in, I would have called the guards the moment you crashed through my wall.”

“Your wall?” Fern glanced around.

“My private corridor,” he corrected. “Ideally located for avoiding my father. And, apparently, for catching wayward Roots.”

He studied her for a long moment, head cocked.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly.

“The machine,” Fern whispered. “The tanks. The… people.”

Lysander’s jaw tightened. For a second, he looked far older than his twenty-some years. “The Distillery. Yes. It’s not a sight one forgets easily.”

“How can you let it happen?” The words burst out of her before she could stop them. “They’re people! Neighbors! My neighbors! And you just… you use them like fuel!”

“It’s not a matter of letting it happen, Miss Silverbell.” Lysander’s face grew weary. “It is the cost of survival.”

“It’s monstrous.”

“It is,” he conceded, running a hand through his hair. “But that machine keeps the wards holding back the fog on the upper tiers. It keeps lights burning. It keeps you safe in that pretty blue room of yours.”

Fern flinched.

“You hate it,” she said, watching his eyes. “You hate it as much as I do.”

Lysander’s mask slipped back into place—the bored, cynical courtier. “Hate is such a useless emotion. I prefer… pragmatic disappointment.”

He reached out, grabbing the handle of the secret panel and pulling it shut with a definitive click.

“Go back to your room, Miss Silverbell,” he said. “Take the main stairs. Keep your head down. And for the Mother’s sake, wash that smudge off your cheek before anyone else sees you.”

Fern hesitated. “Why are you helping me?”

Lysander turned away, adjusting his cuff. “Because my brother seems quite fond of you. And Cassius has precious few things in this world that aren’t trying to kill him.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Don’t give me cause to reconsider.”

Fern didn’t wait. She turned and fled down the corridor, her pulse loud in her ears, leaving the middle Blackwell alone in the shadows.

The ink on the page was still wet. It glistened in the candlelight, stark against the rough parchment.

Fern stared at the words she’d written. Her hand had trembled so violently that the quill left a spray of black droplets across the bottom of the page.