Chapter 16: Dawn at the Chapel

Nobody slept.

They stayed in the greenhouse until the rain thinned, Odette dozing under Rhys's coat on the iron bench, Marguerite keeping watch at the door. Elara sat on an overturned crate among the ruined iris, turning the enamel box over and over in her hands.

Rhys stood at the far window with his back to her, looking out at the lightening dark.

"I should be angry," he said at last. "I have been lied to about my own family for a year. I do not feel angry. I feel as if someone has handed me a map to a house I have lived in all my life and told me there are rooms I have never seen."

Elara pulled a crushed iris petal from the soil. It left a smear of violet on her thumb. She lifted it to her nose and breathed in, green and cool and faintly sweet.

"What does it smell like?" Rhys asked without turning.

She hesitated. "You can't—"

"I know. Tell me anyway."

She closed her eyes.

"Like the moment before rain," she said slowly. "Cold earth and green stems. A little bitter underneath, like something that wants to be left alone." She opened her eyes and found him watching her over his shoulder. "A little like you."

Something crossed his face. It was quick, and strange, and almost unguarded.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "No one has ever described a smell to me."

"No one ever asked?"

"No one ever thought it mattered."

The gray light grew. Somewhere beyond the glass, a bird began to sing.

The Calloway chapel stood at the edge of the estate, a small gray church half hidden by yews. Mist lay on the grass like spilled milk. The door was ajar.

Rhys stopped at the lych-gate.

"I'll wait here," he said. His voice was steady. His hand was not. He tucked his own coat around her shoulders, brusquely, as if he hated himself for the gesture. "If anything feels wrong, say my name. I will hear you."

"I know."

"Elara." He caught her sleeve. "Whatever he tells you. Whatever it is. I am still here."

She looked at the cold gray eyes, and for the first time she did not look for the lie. She nodded once and went in.

The chapel smelled of candle wax, old stone, and lilies. Pale dawn spilled through the high windows and lay in colored pools on the flagstones. At the front, in the first pew, sat a man with a rug across his knees and a silver-topped cane resting beside him.

He did not turn.

"Close the door, child," said Augustin Calloway. "There are drafts."

Elara closed it.

She walked down the aisle on legs that did not feel like hers. Up close, he was smaller than the portrait. His hair was white as ash, his hands spotted and thin, his skin the gray-yellow of old paper. But his eyes were Rhys's eyes. Cold, clear, sharp as winter glass.

"You have her nose," he said, as she sat down beside him. "Lucille's. I could smell you coming across the nave." A faint smile. "Forgive an old man his vanity."

"Did you write the note?"

"I did." He lifted a trembling hand toward her face, then lowered it. "I wrote it the day I knew I was dying. I wanted you to find that room before they did."

"Who are they?"

"The men who killed your mother." His voice was soft and level. "I have spent twenty-five years pretending I did not know their names. It is the great shame of my life."

Elara's heart hammered. "Tell me."

Augustin closed his eyes. A breath rattled in his chest.

"Your mother and I made something together," he said. "The most beautiful thing either of us ever made. Others wanted it. One man in particular wanted it enough to burn her for it." His eyes opened, bright and wet. "The man who lit the match that night—"

A crack split the air.

It came from above. From the organ loft. Flat and sharp, rolling through the nave like a clap of thunder.

Augustin Calloway stiffened.

His hand closed around Elara's wrist. His mouth opened as if to finish the sentence. A dark stain bloomed across the front of his gray coat.

Then he slumped sideways against her shoulder.

"No," Elara whispered. "No, no—"

From somewhere above, in the shadows of the loft, a man's voice drifted down, calm and almost kind.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Quinn. He was going to say my name."