Chapter 928
“And our engagement party,” Victoria added cheerfully. “Don’t worry, Skye. You can come as Alistair’s consultant. That’s what we’re calling it, right?”
“Liam will be there,” Alistair warned, his voice dropping. “He’s a major donor.”
Skye ran her thumb over the embossed lettering. The Gala in the Dark. It felt like a prophecy.
“I’ll be there,” Skye said, her voice hardening. “Not as a consultant. As the CEO of Oracle.”
“Yay! Girls’ night!” Victoria clapped. “We need to go shopping. You cannot wear whatever that is.” She gestured at Skye’s practical trousers. “We need sparkle. We need drama. We need war paint.”
Alistair looked at Skye, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I’m sorry. I have to play this part for a few weeks.”
“I know,” Skye said. She glanced at Victoria, who was already taking a selfie with a thoroughly unamused Julian. “Just keep her safe, Alistair. We both know she’s a target.”
“I will,” Alistair said grimly.
“Then we’d better make sure she doesn’t get eaten,” Skye said.
Later, after Alistair had dragged a protesting Victoria away — “But I haven’t seen the dungeon yet!” — Skye found Julian alone in the library. He was coughing into a handkerchief. When he pulled it away, she saw a stark bloom of bright red blood. He folded the cloth quickly, hiding it.
“You’re getting worse,” Skye said.
𝘛𝗵𝗼𝘶sа𝗻𝖽ѕ 𝗈𝘧 𝘳𝘦а𝖽𝖾𝗋s o𝗇 𝗴𝘢𝗹𝘯о𝘃еls.𝖼𝗈𝗆
“I’m fine,” Julian lied. “About the girl…”
“She’s one of us, Julian. She helped save Parker. We can trust her.”
“In this city,” Julian said, his eyes returning to the map, “innocence is just a commodity. Either we use her to save it, or the Mastermind uses her to burn it down. There is no third option.”
Skye looked out the window. The sun had set, and the shadows of the trees fell across the glass like the bars of a cage. She realized, with a slow and sinking certainty, that Julian was right.
She was learning to spin webs. She just hadn’t made peace with the feel of the silk on her fingers.
The rain had returned — a relentless drumbeat against the slate roof of the Vance manor. It was three in the morning. The house was asleep, breathing slowly in the dark.
But Julian was awake.
He lay in his bed, sweat soaking through his silk pajamas, trapped in the amber of a memory he couldn’t escape.
The smell of clinical disinfectant and floor wax. Blackwood Institute. Twenty years ago.
He was small for his age, sickly, abandoned there by a father who couldn’t stand the sight of a weak son. A group of older boys — other discarded heirs — had cornered him behind the equipment shed. They wanted his medication.
“Give it here, cough-boy,” the leader sneered, shoving Julian into the mud.
Julian curled into a ball and waited for the kicks. He was used to the pain. Pain was the only constant.