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“Yes. You had been looking for him just before.”
He’d almost believed her for a moment, had forgotten she made things up sometimes, played tricks. “You are mistaken, Ada. Giovanni couldn’t make it to the party. He wasn’t there.”
“No he was, he was there.” She sniffed. “Daddy had already put me to bed, and I really,reallywasn’t tired at all. The music was so loud, I could hear it from my bedroom. So I got up and went back into the party. I tried to hide so that nobody would see me and send me back to my room—I hid from you, Daddy, and especially Darcy. But I needed to know more.”
He tried his best to process it all. Why was she lying about this? What was the point?
“You know, Ada, when I was younger I used to like to go around looking for things too, and—”
“You think I’m lying.”
“No, no, I don’t think you’re lying, it’s just …” He scrambled for an answer. “I don’t see how this makes any sense. What else did you hear?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I found them all together in that room with the random billiard table that no one ever goes in. And they were talking about me and … No, I cannot say. You’ll think I’m making it all up. But they were, they were talking about me and that it was about time I knew the truth.”
He was oddly suspicious of this. “What truth?”
“Well, the actual truth—you know! But I must have made a noise or something, because Uncle Gio saw me, and then he told Daddy, and Darcy—Darcy got very angry and told me to get back to bed at once. Uncle Gio said that they should talk about these matters somewhere more private, that anyone could just walk in, and that must be why they all went away that night. To talk somewhere more private. Uncle Gio, Darcy, and that lady.”
Lady?“What lady?”
“I don’t know. Some lady who was there, she was arguing with them too. I didn’t see her face—she was wearing a feathery mask thing. She’d spoken to me earlier, though. Before you came along.”
He remembered, vaguely, this mysterious woman. The same woman Darcy had rushed away with that night. “Even if you’re right, Ada, and I’m not saying you are, what does this have to do with you causing the fire?”
“I really couldn’t get to sleep that night. There was so much on my mind. I waited for everybody to go to bed, including you—Darcy must have come back, but the two of you were up so late in the library, and I waited to go inside to find things out for myself. The things I heard them talking about. I lit a candle because I didn’t want to turn on the lights and have anybody find me. I was sitting behind the armchair and looking through thealbum when I found them—the pictures. It was true what they were saying—I couldn’t believe it. I was just staring and staring. But then I heard a noise, someone coming from the other door—the secret passageway, remember? The one that looks like a bookcase? So I ran out quickly, hoping he wouldn’t see me.”
“Hoping who wouldn’t see you?” Bron had been sucked into this tale. Was even on the brink of believing it to be true. “Who came into the room?”
“Well, Darcy! I saw him, from the end of the hall. He started throwing things around—I heard something break, and then he came out looking angry.So angry.The album was in his hands, and oh, you should have seen his face. I think he was crying he was so angry.”
The photo album. “Did he see you?”
“No! But he knew because then I saw him coming toward me, so I shut myself in my room and pretended I was asleep. I know he was standing there. I could feel him outside the door. But he didn’t come in. He must have gone straight to his room.”
“So then what did you do?”
“Nothing at first. I was so scared I’d get into trouble. But then I smelled something funny and remembered I’d left a candle burning behind the armchair. I went back to make sure it was out, and then I saw the room. On fire! That’s when I ran to you for help. But Darcy knows I was in there—he knows it was me who left the candle burning, and now he’ll hate me forever.”
The photo album. Somehow, Bron connected the dots in his mind. Ada, who had leafed through its pages, had seen something in there she shouldn’t have. And Darcy, who originally thought it had been Ada, was now under the impression that it washewho’d looked through the album, because he’d directly told him that he had.
Something still didn’t make sense. What would make Darcy so angry? Was Darcy now under the impression he’d caused the fire too, and regretful for treating Ada with so little patience all this time, blaming her for something she hadn’t done?
“What was it you saw in the photo album, Ada?” he asked. “Was it a picture of Darcy and Giovanni—Uncle Gio?”
“No, no! It wasn’t that at all.”
“Well, what was it then?”
“It was … it was … my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes, yes. They said they thought it was time I knew the truth about my parentage. That I should meet my mother! I’ve always known I was adopted, but I don’t know who my birth mother is, I don’t even know her name. But Darcy and Daddy and Uncle Gio, they all know!”
“Ada, slow down. I can’t keep up. So you know who your mother is?”
“Yes—I mean no. I mean, Daddy said to Darcy that everything was in there, in the photo album, for safekeeping. And I just had to look! And there was a photo in there, with me as a baby, and my mother. Holding me in the hospital! It saidAda, born 2:15 p.m. I never ever knew that!”
