Chapter 239

Lysander’s pov

I was in the parlor with a book open on my knee and no idea what was on the page when Ines knocked at the archway, looking confused.

“Sir, there’s a gentleman at the side door. He says he’s your father.”

I closed the book. “My father’s dead.”

“He said you’d say that, sir. He said to tell you he’s the other one, and he brought biscuits.”

I found him in the little hall by the servants’ entrance, wrapped in a heavy brown coat with a covered basket over one arm, gray hair combed back and spectacles on his nose. He looked older than the last time I’d seen him. He looked smaller too. He smiled when he saw me, and the smile went straight to my stomach.

“Lysander.” His eyes dropped to my waist and lingered there. “Look at you.”

“What are you doing here, Darius?”

“Can’t a man visit his son?”

“Stepson. And no. You haven’t earned the right after what you did.” I folded my arms over my stomach. “How did you get past the gate?”

“I walked through it. Nobody was there.” He set the basket on a bench by the wall.

“I don’t want your biscuits.”

“No. You want to know why I’m here.” He took off his spectacles and folded them, a habit I’d hated since I was twelve. “Julian came to my house three nights ago.”

Every hair on my arms stood up. “Julian.”

“He was barefoot and chained in silver, and he told me a story about Calix.” Darius kept his voice low and even. “He said Calix put him in that dungeon to clear the way to Drake. He said you’re next. He said Calix wants every person who stands beside Drake out of the way, and you’re the only one left standing there.”

I couldn’t speak.

“I didn’t believe him at first.” Darius watched my face, and his eyes narrowed. “I believe him now. I can see it on you.”

“Julian’s a liar.”

“He is. And you’ve been sleeping with a chair under your door handle.” Darius tipped his head toward the stairs. “Your maid told me while she was fetching you. She thought it was sweet. She thinks you’re nervous about the baby.”

My face went hot. “What do you want?”

“I want to take you home. Tonight, while Drake and Calix are at the banquet.” He picked up his basket. “I have a carriage at the bottom of the drive.”

“Drake will tear the city apart.”

“Drake will be furious. But Drake won’t be dead, and neither will you.” Darius stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Tell me something, Lysander. If you went to him tonight and said Calix threatened you, what would he do?”

I didn’t answer.

“He’d ask for proof,” Darius said. “And you don’t have any. Calix cleared your name in front of the whole council. He saved the heir. He’s the hero of this house. Drake would look at you like you’d lost your mind, and then he’d ask Calix about it, and Calix would smile, and you’d be dead by the end of the month.”

I hated that he was right. I hated that he’d walked into this house and said the exact thing I’d been circling for three nights.

“You never wanted me,” I said.

“That’s not true. You know how much I want you.”

I flinched at that.

“And I still don’t want you dead. Can Calix say the same?”

I looked away from him, down the empty hallway toward the main stairs. The house stood quiet around me. Somewhere upstairs was Drake’s room, with his coat thrown over the chair and his cuff links I’d just fastened gone from their little dish. Somewhere downstairs was the parlor where Calix had stood by the fire and told me I was second.

My hand went to my stomach on its own. The baby shifted under my palm, a slow, sleepy roll, and I pressed down and held him.

I could survive Calix. I’d survived the dungeon. I’d survived weeks of cold stone and Drake’s back turned to me. I could keep wedging chairs under door handles and pouring tea into the hearth until something broke.

But I couldn’t bet my son’s life on Calix’s patience.

“Let me get my coat,” I said.

Darius nodded once, as if he’d never doubted it.

I went upstairs alone. I took my coat from the hook, then stood in the middle of my room and couldn’t think what else to take. I picked up a comb and put it down again. I went to the dresser and pulled open the drawer and stared at my folded shirts.

Then I walked down the hall to Drake’s room and opened his door.

It smelled like him. Cedar smoke and cold air and the oil he used on his sword. His dark coat from the parlor still hung over the back of his chair, and I walked over and pressed my face into the collar and breathed in until my chest hurt.

I found paper on his desk and dipped his pen and wrote Drake, and then I stopped. I didn’t know what came after his name. I’m sorry. I’m frightened. Calix is lying to you. Every word I could think of would end up in the wrong hands by morning.

I crumpled the page and threw it in the cold grate.

“Lysander,” Darius called softly from the bottom of the stairs.

I walked out of Drake’s room and pulled the door closed behind me. I walked past my own room and past the gray seascape Calix had straightened, and I didn’t let myself look at it. I walked down the main stairs, through the side hall, and out into the yard, and the mountain cold bit through my coat as I went.

Nobody stood at the side gate. The iron bar leaned against the wall, the same way it must have leaned the night Julian walked out. I looked at it and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

“Where are the guards?” I asked.

Darius didn’t answer. He took my elbow and steered me down the drive toward the dark shape of the carriage waiting under the pines.

The driver opened the door. I climbed in and sat on the cold leather seat with my coat pulled tight around me, and Darius climbed in after me and rapped twice on the roof. The carriage lurched forward.

I turned in my seat and looked back through the little rear window. The house glowed against the black mountain, every window lit, the way Drake liked it when he was away. I watched it grow smaller.

Then the bond yanked.

It tore through the center of my chest like a hook set deep and hauled backward, so hard I grabbed the edge of the seat and folded over my knees with a gasp. My heart slammed against my ribs. Every nerve in my body screamed one direction, back up the mountain, back toward him, and the baby kicked hard under my hand like he felt it too.

Darius’s hand closed on my shoulder. “Lysander?”

I couldn’t breathe.