I run my fingers through the dust on the shelves and laugh in disbelief. “Why doesn’t your library have any books?”
Rowan shrugs. “I packed them away.”
He turns back to Arien and the notebooks, ignoring me.
I walk around the room, past shelf after shelf. They’re all bare, and it looks so forlorn. We had no books in the cottage aside from a small, well-worn collection of litany chants. All of the stories I’ve told Arien were ones I’ve held in my memory, told to me by our parents. And now that I’m faced with this stripped-bare library, I’m full of longing. The same eagerness that lit my hands when I looked into the trunk of dresses.
There’s one final cloth that I haven’t taken down. I grab hold of the edge. Rowan looks up suddenly as I pull the cloth.
“No!” He starts to get up from his chair. “Not that one.”
But the cloth has already fallen free. And instead of another bank of empty shelves, there’s a portrait set high on the wall in an ornate golden frame.
Rowan stands, wordless, frozen in place with his eyes fixed on the portrait.
It shows a family. Two boys, young, just tracing the last edges of childhood. They both have the same tanned skin and wavy hair, much less unruly than my own curls. The taller of the two, the elder, has a serious expression that I recognize instantly.
“Oh, this is—you.” I take a step back. “This is your family.”
His father. Lord Sylvanan, who smiled at me and Arien on that long-ago tithe day. Tall and handsome, with tawny skin and neat, dark hair.
His mother. Small and willowy, with white skin and large brown eyes—the same color as Rowan’s. And her dress … It’s pale and delicate, with gossamer skirts and a ribboned sash and crescent moons embroidered on the collar. It’s my dress, the one I’m wearing now.
Rowan didn’t even want me here, but he gave me all of his mother’s beautiful clothes.
I look over to him, expecting that he’ll be angry at me. But he isn’t. His expression is one of clear, raw shame. I twist the dust cloth between my hands, wanting more than anything to undo this moment. “I didn’t mean…”
He rakes his hand through his hair and heaves out a tense breath. I take a step toward him, but he storms out of the room.
I throw down the cloth and run after him. The corridor is empty, dark and quiet. I go past the closed doors, back toward the staircase. He’s there, on the landing, framed by the carved balustrade. One arm braced against the wall, his head slumped forward, face hidden by the fall of his hair. Florence is beside him, a tray of tea things balanced on her hip.
When she puts her hand on his shoulder, a memory rises, dim and blurred. My mother and me curled into a single chair beside the fire. It rocked, that chair, and she hummed as it swayed back and forth. Her fingers combed through my curls. Gentle, gentle.
Florence puts her hand on Rowan with that same kind of gentleness and leans closer to him, speaking softly. Rowan shakes her off. He looks up, and our eyes meet. His face is stricken, flushed and tear streaked. Everything goes still for one awful, endless moment until he turns away.
He pushes past Florence and goes down the stairs. She sighs. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what that was about?”
“He didn’t say?”
“No.”
I listen to the sound of Rowan’s retreating footsteps, trying to make sense of what just happened. “I upset him.”
“That much is obvious.” Florence sighs again, then continues along the hall with the tray balanced carefully.
I follow her, and we fall into step as we walk. Once we’re inside the library, she looks from me—in my new dress—to the unveiled shelves. Then she sees the portrait.
“Well.” She sets the tray on the table. Her expression is stern, but there’s a flicker of sadness in her flinty eyes. “No wonder he was upset.”
“But why was he upset? Does he regret what he did?”
Florence gives me a sharp look. “What he did?”
I gesture toward the window. Outside, the lake lies far in the distance, a shimmer of sunlit water beside the black expanse of the shore. “He told me that the rumors were true.”
“Listen to me, Violeta. He is no murderer.” She curls her fingers around the keys on her necklace, sliding them back and forth restlessly on the silver chain. “The stories people tell about Lakesedge have a lot of fear and very little truth.”
“But he admitted they were true. He said…” A sliver of doubt begins to prickle at me. There’s another truth, hidden between his words. His scars, his desperation to mend the Corruption. His reaction when I uncovered the portrait.