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I shiver. That’s why boards had been nailed across her window, though she knew how to pull at least two down. “Juliane told me sometimes the tea makes her worse before making her sleep.”
Simon nods. “Skoniaacts on what’s already in the mind, which is why it’s also used to get someone to tell the truth—it breaks down the walls around what someone is trying to hide. Unfortunately, many like Juliane build vast, complex misapprehensions around things they observe.”
“Like what?”
He sits back as he crosses his arms over his chest, pulling away once more. “She believes Oudin or her father killed her mother, which makes her fear they will do the same to her. That’s why she hid herself away for the past few years, trying not to let them know that her mind was suffering the same way. She doesn’t conceal it as well as she thinks.”
The dark, wretched room she hid in while he was gone.This is my life without Simon.
“You understand her from living with your father,” I say, andhe nods. I reach for his hand again. “It was noble of you not to abandon him.”
Simon snorts. “I regretted that noble foolishness for nine and a half of those ten years. I resented him for what he couldn’t be, and I hated my mother for letting me stay with him.” He grimaces, speaking through gritted teeth. “Do you want to know how he died?”
My stomach flutters. “You said he was sick. Sicker than Juliane.”
“He was, but that wasn’t what killed him.” Simon forces his words out a few at a time. “I got careless. I left the house one night without putting out the lantern. I just needed to get away, a few moments of peace. And in that time he set the house on fire.”
“That was an accident,” I insist. “You didn’t want it to happen.”
“Maybe not,” he whispers. “But I was relieved when it did. For the first time in my life, I felt free.” He chuckles ruefully. “Dirt poor and completely alone, but free.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person.” I tentatively touch his arm and am relieved when he doesn’t recoil. “And you’re not alone anymore, Simon.”
“But I have to be,” he says. “That’s what I really came up here to talk to you about.”
My throat clenches so tight I can hardly breathe. “All right.”
Simon’s eyes go unfocused as he returns to the dark thoughts he recalled earlier. “I’ve never conducted an investigation on my own, and I’m terrified of misreading the evidence or some clue and sentencing another woman to death with my mistake. Altum Ferris has been doing this for much longer.”
That must have been who he went to consult. “You shouldn’t have to take all of this on yourself,” I say. “Perhaps he could come here to help.”
“No,” whispers Simon. “He can never leave Mesanus.”
Suspicion dawns on me. “Does he suffer madness, too?”
“He does now. Most of the time Ferris is lucid and rational. Other times he stares at the walls of his room, not reacting to anything, hardly eating or drinking. All his digging in the most poisonous minds has taken him to places he can never return from. Yet he still does it, saying the more we understand about these killers, the better able we’ll be to stop them. He considers his own sanity a price worth paying.”
Simon is afraid he’s on the same path, but he doesn’t have to follow it—or does he? Not only has Simon been ordered to conduct this investigation, the only home he has depends on him obeying.
“When this is over,” I say, and my heart clenches at the next thought. “You can leave Collis and go somewhere your uncle can’t force you to do this kind of thing ever again. Altum Ferris’s fate doesn’t have to be yours.”
“It may be too late. Do you know what the altum said when I visited him?” The moonlight shines on all his lashes individually as Simon turns his face to the stars. “He told me I understood this killer perfectly. That I was better at this than he was after decades of study. That I should trust my instincts.” He shudders. “What kind of person has understanding and instincts like this?”
I don’t dare let him know the same thought has occurred to me. “But you hate doing this. Don’t you think that says something about you?”
“That’s just it, Cat,” Simon whispers. “Idon’thate it. I actually enjoy it.”
“You enjoy bringing violence to an end and saving the lives of innocents,” I insist. “As anyone should.”
“No.” Simon shakes his head. “I was thrilled when the killersent me that note. It meant he considered me worthy of his attention.”
“Simon, it meant that you were doing things right! That you understand him!”
“Which means I’m drinking the same poison. It’s only a matter of time before it sickens me as it did Altum Ferris. Until I’m drifting in and out of sanity.”
I have no answer for that.
“But you…” Simon hesitates and swallows. “You’ve been like an anchor. More than once you—or the thought of you—has kept me from drifting too far.”
