He told the whisper to be quiet. What he had to tell her first was so much worse.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “And before we go into the drawing room, I wished to apologize. What I said about your father in the Ossuarium was unforgivable, and my sending him away was something I will always regret—”
But she was shaking her head. “I have been wanting to apologize to you. You have nothing to be sorry for. You could not have saved my father. By awful luck, you were the last one to see him, and he was—oh, the shame of him demanding money from you.” There was a cold passion of anger in her voice. She shook her head, her hair straining against the few pins still confining it. “Alastair set me right, of all people. You did what you should have, James.”
“There’s more,” he said, forcing the words past his dry throat. “More that I have to tell you. I do not know if you will still feel as kindly toward me when I am done.”
He saw her flinch, saw her steel herself. It was a reminder of how much her childhood must have taught her to brace for bad news. “Tell me.”
In a way, it was easier to tell her than it had been to explain himself to the others. Daisy already knew of his screaming awakenings from nightmare, of the open window in his bedroom, the things he saw when he dreamed. Daisy, like him, had met Belial. It was one thing to imagine you could face down a Prince of Hell. It was another entirely to stand near one, to feel the freezing blast of their hatred, their evil, their power.
He forced himself through the last of it—explaining his experiment, the ropes, the mark on the sill—as she stared at him, her expression very still.
“I see,” she said, when he was done, “that I should not have left you alone last night.”
His hair was in his eyes; he raised a shaking hand to push it back. “The worst of it is, I know precious little more now than I did then. And we may need to hire another maid to replace Effie.”
“And what do the others say?” she asked.
“They refuse to believe it—any of it,” he said. “They may think the shock of what happened with your father has turned my brain.” His breath caught. “Daisy. The hate I have felt, every time I have dreamed, I cannot but imagine it is anything but Belial’s hate. And your father—” His breath caught. “If you want nothing to do with this, with me, I would never blame you.”
“James.” She took hold of his wrist; the small gesture went through him like an electric shock. Her face was set, determined. “Come with me.”
He let her pull him down the hall, into the drawing room, where the others had congregated. Matthew was seated on the back of the sofa; he turned toward James as he entered the room, his eyes dark with worry.
Anna’s blue gaze flicked to Cordelia. “Did you tell her?”
Cordelia released James’s wrist. “I know everything,” she said. Her voice was very level. There was something different about her, James thought, something he could not quite put his finger on. She had changed—since yesterday, even. But then, she had lost her father. Her family would never be the same.
“It’s ridiculous,” Matthew said, sliding off the sofa back. “James, you can’t really believe—”
“I understand why he believes it,” Cordelia said, and Matthew stopped mid-motion. Every face in the room was turned to Cordelia. “There were two things I thought when I met Belial. First, that I would do anything in the world to get away from him. And second, that it would not matter what I did, because his focus was entirely on James. It has been for some time now. If there is a way he can reach him… he will.”
“But James is not a murderer,” said Lucie. “He would never—”
“I don’t think he’s one either,” said Cordelia. “If Belial is controlling him, then none of this is his fault. He cannot be blamed. Any of us would do the same, for the power of a Prince of Hell—” She shook her head. “It is unstoppable.”
“I tried to stop myself, last night,” James said. “And still somehow I woke with the ropes in pieces all around me.”
“You cannot do this alone,” said Cordelia. “In fact, if we are to prove anything at all about what is really going on, you cannot be alone for a moment.”
“She is right,” Anna said. “We will remain here tonight, keeping watch. If you try to leave the house, we will know.”
“Not if he tries to get out the window,” Christopher pointed out, reasonably.