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A beautiful carved mahogany frame encased it.
The one painting of Rodolfo’s I had especially liked. The one I’d asked to have in my room.
The pounding of my heart got harder until my chest physically hurt for how ragged it had sent my breathing.
I sank onto the side of the bed, my stare glued to the painting.
Demons coming for me while I whittled away my time, ignorant of their approach?
Because Damen couldn’t have had that painting hung in here for kicks and giggles. He must be trying to mess with my head.
Because I couldn’t even consider the other possibility.
That he’d hung it in here because that was what our little family with him and me and Venetia had been—ignorant of the destruction that was always coming for us. That had come.
A reminder, if nothing else.
“Hello, miss.” A voice came at the doorway and I turned my head.
A maid I didn’t recognize stood at the threshold to the room, a wide silver tray in her hand with food and drink piled atop it.
As much as my muscles didn’t want to, I moved off the edge of the bed, standing. “Hello.”
She was young, maybe twenty, with her brown hair in a pert bob. She gave me a slight nod and stepped into the room. “I was told to deliver this platter to you, and to see to any needs you may have.” She walked across the room to the small round table with two opposite chairs tucked into it and set the platter down.
Stiffening my legs for solid support, I followed her to the table. “Thank you for bringing that. If I may ask, where is Josie?”
“Josie?” The maid’s eyes grew wide, her hand fluttering to her chest. “Josie, as in the maid here years ago?”
Dread made my eyes narrow at her. “Yes.”
She shook her head slightly, her look going to the ceiling. “Josie died in the unpleasantness, rest her soul.”
Fuck.
I sucked in a quivering breath. “The unpleasantness? What is that?”
“When the castle collapsed four years ago.” Tears glossed over her eyes. “She died in the wreckage.”
When Venetia crashed the castle, of course Josie had died. People died when Venetia couldn’t control herself. And tumbling the entirety of Netherstone into the valley surely killed a slew of people.
I’d always known what had happened, imagined the lives lost, as had Venetia. She’d been plagued with nightmares on what she’d done for years. But I always tried to think of it in the widest possible brush strokes—the castle collapsed—never in the nitty gritty of who had perished, for it would drive me to madness if I dwelled on it.
Bile ran up my throat. “Did you know her?”
She nodded. “Josie was my cousin.”
My lips pulled inward, my heart constricting. “I’m sorry for your family’s loss. I knew Josie as well and I always liked her—enjoyed her company. She was a bright light in this place, always a smile on her face, and she could talk for hours without a response, which was what I oftentimes needed.”
“That she could. She was the one I wanted to sit next to at family dinners.” She smiled through the tears brimming in her eyes.
“I will miss her.” I motioned to her. “What is your name? Have you been assigned to me?”
“I have, miss.” She inclined her head. “I’m Hilde.”
“If I may ask, if Josie was family, what made you want to work here after what happened?”
Pink flooded the tips of her ears peeking out from her bob. “I didn’t have a choice, miss.”
