Chapter 76 — The Precaution

Chapter 76: Chapter 76 — The Precaution

~ Aldric ~

For several seconds after the mirror went dark, neither of them spoke.

Then Sharon said, "Which Cardinal?"

Aldric remained facing the glass. "I don’t know."

"You have a suspicion."

"Not yet."

She gave him a look, and he sighed.

"When Alaric first entered Valerius, I had him send me what he could learn about all four of them. Not gossip. I wanted to know how they behaved when challenged, what they took personally, what they ignored and what they preferred to make official."

Sharon’s expression shifted slightly.

"Rowan was the easiest to understand," Aldric continued. "He likes rules when rules can be made useful. Complaints. Petitions. Formal challenges. He would rather put his seal on a grievance and make the institution answer it than start something he cannot later justify."

Sharon waited.

"He knows all four of them well enough by now." Aldric finally turned from the mirror. "If Rowan had been the one involved, Alaric would probably have given me his name."

"So not Rowan."

"Probably not."

"Then who?"

"I said I don’t know."

Sharon watched him for another moment. "And you’re going to find out."

"Obviously."

"How?"

Aldric crossed toward the side table, though he left the cold cup untouched.

"The Prymonts would be the easiest place to start."

Her brows rose. "You think it was Dante?"

"I think their steward owes me a favor from spring, and favors are wasted if you wait until you desperately need them." His mouth tightened. "I don’t need to ask about the girl. If there is anything worth hearing, people will talk."

"And if there isn’t?"

"Then I move to the next House."

Sharon folded her arms. "Or you could call your favorite son back and ask him."

Aldric turned his head.

There it was.

He chose not to take the bait.

"I asked once."

He sighed tiredly.

"He chose not to answer."

"That sounds prettier."

"Sharon."

She looked toward the dark mirror.

"He told you enough, apparently."

"He told me what mattered."

"Did he?"

Her tone had changed.

Aldric knew that tone too.

"He told you the girl is at Valerius. He told you she has a wolf. He told you something happened during her assessment that four people cannot properly explain."

Sharon looked back at him. "Days after she put a knife to Celeste’s throat."

Aldric’s jaw tightened.

"I remember."

"She cut our daughter."

"I was standing there."

"And then she got away."

So that was the real anger.

Not the knife.

Not even the blood.

But that she escaped afterward.

Sharon came away from the dressing table.

"You gave her time because you had no choice. Fine. Then we sent hunters after her."

She stared at her fingers.

"And she still got away."

Aldric said nothing.

"Now she is inside Valerius," Sharon continued, "telling people what happened in this House while our sons are left dealing with the consequences."

"She is hardly the first person to speak badly of Blackthorn."

"No. But she is the first kitchen maid to put a knife to our daughter’s throat, force her way out of this territory and turn up days later inside Valerius with a wolf none of us knew existed."

Aldric’s expression tightened.

Sharon stepped closer.

"That is what I am trying to make you understand. Whatever the girl was when she lived under this roof, that is no longer the only thing we are dealing with."

"I understand perfectly well."

"Do you?"

His eyes hardened.

She did not back down.

"You keep talking about her as though she is still the girl who scrubbed plates downstairs and picked fights with servants. She isn’t. Not anymore."

Aldric was silent for a moment.

That, more than anything else she had said, irritated him because there was enough truth in it that he could not dismiss it outright.

"Yes," he said. "Which is why Alaric is watching her."

Sharon stared at him for a moment, and when she spoke again, some of the anger had gone out of her voice.

"Why not tell him the rest?"

"No."

"Aldric."

"He knows enough."

"He knows pieces."

"And he has handled those pieces for nine years without giving me a reason to regret trusting him."

Sharon’s mouth tightened. "He was eleven when he realized there was something to know."

"Yes."

"And instead of explaining it to him, you gave him orders."

"I gave him what he needed."

"You told him to watch Raven."

"And he did."

"To tell no one."

"He told no one."

"Not even Kieran."

Aldric looked at her as a phantom headache began to build behind his eyes. "Especially not Kieran."

That earned him a longer stare.

He knew what she was thinking before she asked.

"And if Kieran had been the one who overheard us?"

Aldric’s expression shifted.

"This is not about Kieran."

"No," Sharon said quietly. "It rarely is."

His eyes narrowed.

She turned away before he could answer, crossing toward the fire and holding her hands near what little warmth remained.

Aldric let the remark go.

For now.

After a moment, Sharon said, "You stopped watching her long before Alaric did."

"There was nothing left to watch Sharon."

"That was what you decided."

"For years there was no shift, no manifestation, nothing remotely close to what we were waiting for." His patience thinned. "How long would you have preferred I continue?"

Sharon looked over her shoulder.

"I don’t know."

That answer surprised him.

She turned back toward the fire.

"But I know what happened after you stopped."

Aldric said nothing.

"Raven became ordinary to you."

He almost corrected her.

Then didn’t.

Because she was right.

At some point there had stopped being anything unusual about seeing Raven in an apron, hearing that she had fought with another servant or receiving some complaint about her temper.

She had become another irritation inside a House already full of larger ones.

Aldric had stopped wondering what she might be.

He had simply accepted what she appeared to be.

"You dismissed her," Sharon said.

"Yes."

There was no reason to soften it.

Her gaze drifted toward the dead mirror.

"And now Valerius says she has a wolf."

Aldric’s jaw tightened.

"Whatever happened during that assessment—"

"We still do not know what happened."

"But Alaric believes something came from her."

"Yes."

"And you believe him."

Aldric looked at the black glass.

"I believe him enough to start watching again."

Sharon breathed out slowly.

"So do I."

That was what finally stripped the argument out of the room.

Aldric crossed back toward the dressing table. One hairpin still lay where he had dropped it before answering Alaric’s call. He picked it up and turned it once between his fingers.

Behind him, Sharon spoke more quietly.

"What if we chose wrong?"

His hand stopped.

Neither of them needed to explain the question.

Aldric looked toward the mirror.

For years Raven had been inside Blackthorn, where he could keep an eye on her if he ever needed to.

Then days ago she had forced her way out.

Now she was at Valerius.

A place designed to take whatever potential a young wolf possessed and drag it to the surface.

His fingers closed around the hairpin.

"If we chose wrong," he said, "then we correct it before Valerius gives her the chance to prove how badly."

Sharon did not answer.

Aldric set the pin beside the others.

"That is the precaution now."