Page 64 of The Thirteenth Count

Cassius’ mouth flattened. “You’re close enough to be dangerous.”

“Then tell me.”

“No.”

That hit her almost as hard as the rest of it. “No?”

“Not until you learn the difference between what this place is and what my family made of it.”

Fern let out a sharp breath. “That sounds like an excuse.”

“It’s the reason Ashford Cross still stands.”

He stepped back from the table and turned one of the open volumes toward her. “You want answers? Then stop looking at the Keep like a prison. Look at it like a thing that was built to hold.” He tapped the page. “Ask what was added. Ask what carries weight. Ask what was hidden. Ask what happens when the strain has to go somewhere.”

“And if I do?” Fern asked.

Cassius walked past her. “Then you find the flaw.”

He left her alone with the book open on the table and the Keep breathing softly through the walls.

Sprout nuzzled his head against Fern’s cheek just before the seventh bell tolled. She didn’t open her eyes, wanting one more moment of peace before the day began in earnest—before Lina’s brush, Lady Blackwell’s lessons, Cassius’ cool instruction, the familiar ache of being arranged and corrected into something she wasn’t. But when the bell’s last note faded, no knock came at the door.

Fern peeked around the room. Sprout already lifted his head, ears twitching toward the silence. By now Lina should have been there with her pins and ribbons and quiet hands. Instead, the room remained still.

Sprout slipped off the pillow and landed lightly beside her hip. Fern pushed herself upright, straining to listen.

Nothing.

No soft tread in the corridor. No rustle of skirts beyond the door. No muted knock followed by Lina’s careful voice asking permission to enter. Even the fire burned lower than it should have, the room carrying a faint coolness that told her no one had come to tend it.

A prickle worked its way down Fern’s spine. She threw back the coverlet and looked toward the screen near the wardrobe. No gown had been laid out. The washstand sat exactly as she’d left it the night before. The wide-toothed brush Lina used on her hair remained untouched where it had been set aside for supper.

Fern left the bed and made her way to the sitting room. The constant chill beneath her feet no longer fazed her. Sprout circled once around her ankles, restless now, his ears pitched toward the door.

It was odd that Lina wasn’t there yet. Fern should have been well on her way to another morning of correction. Another hour spent under Lady Blackwell’s eye with her shoulders pulled back, her chin adjusted, her silence measured. But the suite was suspended, as though something in the Keep’s machinery failed to catch.

Find the flaw.

Cassius’ voice returned with irritating clarity. Her mouth tightened.

The Keep had a rhythm to it. Bell. Knock. Brush. Lesson. Meal. Watchfulness. Days were spent teaching her its order, pressing it into her body until she woke before footsteps reached her door. This wasn’t lateness. This was a break in pattern.

And in Blackwell Keep, breaks in pattern didn’t happen without reason—or so she assumed.

Fern crossed to the door and pressed her palm flat against the wood. Not a single vibration worked its way through the grain, letting her know there was nothing beyond.

“Stay close, little love,” she murmured to Sprout.

Then she drew back the bolt and opened the door to find Cassius Blackwell standing a few doors down from the suite, already dressed, already watching. Her grip tightened on the door until the latch bit into her palm.

The moment he saw her, he started toward the suite.

Fern stayed where she was, one hand still braced against the door as Sprout fluttered up to her shoulder. Cassius said nothing until he reached the threshold. Then he took the edge of the door from her hand and pulled it wider.

“Get dressed,” he said. “Lina won’t be coming.”

“Where is she?”