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My father was handcuffed but straight-backed, as stubborn-looking as I’d ever seen him.
When he looked at me, the sternness softened and I saw something like concern in his eyes. The guards walked him to the center of the room where I’d stood minutes earlier.
Cael addressed the room. “In addition, by request of Lady Brennin, Immortal Hughes will now preside. I would not want any of you to believe this to be a biased investigation.”
The old man stood and made his way up the stairs to the podium while Cael headed down, taking a seat in the first green chair on the front row, directly in front of my father.
Immortal Hughes looked at the audience over his spectacles. “Greetings, dear nobles and scholars. We have previously received testimony from Lady Stroud wherein she confessed herconception and orchestration of the conspiracy and abduction of the heir. However, she also asserts that Immortal Ruskin was involved and that he subjected the heir to violence.” He spoke so slowly that I thought I might fall asleep before he got to the end of each sentence. “We shall now proceed to hear the testimony of Evander Stroud of the Third House concerning the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Sir Graham Brennin.” He set his gaze on my father where he stood on the stage. “Sir Stroud, what part, if any, did you play in the abduction?”
My father looked around the room, glaring at each noble with true loathing. Last of all, he glanced at me, smiling with a reckless gleam in his eye before turning to the man at the podium “All of it,” he said loudly.
The room went so silent I could hear my raging heartbeat.
What was hedoing?
“I beg your pardon?” said Immortal Hughes. “Please expound further. Was your daughter a co-conspirator or was she not? And what of Immortal Ruskin?”
“My daughter was nothing but a pawn in my game,” my father said bluntly. “I manipulated her with false intelligence, leading her to believe she was saving the kingdom from war by kidnapping the heir. She believed she was in service to a noble cause.”
If I hadn’t been gagged, my mouth would’ve been hanging open as I listened to the words that made me wonder if I was hallucinating.
My father squared his broad shoulders. “As for Immortal Ruskin, he had no involvement whatsoever. My daughter is mistaken on this detail for the same reason she was on the previous count—I led her to believe it was so. If she is guilty of anything, it is gullibility and zealotry, and perhaps one other flaw: she has always seen Ruskin as a source of competition, achildhood rival of sorts. Her animosity toward him is rooted in immaturity and insufficient understanding.”
The heat of tears on my cheeks alerted me that I was crying, but I couldn’t wipe them away with my hands cuffed to the chair. Protecting me was one thing, but defending Cael and writing off all his wrongdoing was another thing entirely—one that undermined everything Graham and I had been trying to accomplish. I hoped they wouldn’t believe him, but my father didn’t strike anyone as the kind of person who would falsely confess to a crime out of kindness. Even I, who knew him better than anyone, hadn’t expected him to do anything that would jeopardize his freedom.
I checked Cael’s expression, but his face was impassable, revealing nothing.
The Second Immortal stood speechless before eventually clearing his throat. “And do you, Sir Stroud, possess intel regarding the alleged murder of Cardiff Pearce?”
“Let me guess,” my father said with a cunning grin, “my daughter claimed Sir Ruskin was the murderer, is that correct?”
“You are not the investigator in this hearing, sir,” said Immortal Hughes. “Is that intel or simply conjecture?”
“It’s conjecture based on a pattern of behavior. As I said, my daughter sees Ruskin as a rival, and blaming him would be true to form for her.” He sent a split-second glance my way and I hoped it was long enough for him to see the fury in my eyes. Not only was he discrediting me, but he was favoring Cael over me, as he always had.
“Regardless of the accusations, or what Sir Brennin believed he saw,” my father continued, “I confess that once again, it is I who was the mastermind.”
A rumble of angry voices filled the room.
The Second Immortal squinted over his spectacles at the madman in the center of the room. “Are you affirming thatyoukilled Sir Pearce? Were you not incarcerated?”
He kept a smug smile on his face. “I challenge you to find a single guard who can verify my whereabouts on the night of the ball.”
I couldn’t make sense of what my father was doing. If he confessed to this crime, he would surely be executed, but I knew he wasn’t that selfless. He had to have a trick up his sleeve.
Immortal Hughes lifted his spectacles and put them on his head. “I, for one, struggle to believe you to be the mastermind, as you call it, of such disparate crimes without a single witness to confirm it. Do you maintain, under threat of perjury, that you are not in the interest of protecting an individual or individuals?”
Cael watched with intense eyes.
“I’m simply speaking the truth,” my father said. “It’s time for all of you to see my power and genius. Too long have I been in the shadows, disrespected or believed to be of minor importance—simply a man who married into the Third House and inherited the Stroud name. But I am both more and less than any of you believe me to be.”
I tried to speak, but my voice was muffled and useless against the gag. I was starting to see where my father would go and it terrified me. I wished I had the power to silence him, but I was the one who’d been silenced.
Graham looked my way, both of us finding pure pain in each other’s tortured gaze.
My father turned, facing the Immovables with a look of abhorrence. “You lot disgust me,” he said, dropping his formal accent and reverting to one that sounded like an islander—like a man from Tramore. “For twenty bloody years, I’ve despised youall. You have no idea how unbearable it’s been to be forced to look like you, act like you, and fit in with your vapid ways.”
Maeve Brennin looked both offended and deeply curious as she leaned forward in her seat.
