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Hazily, she remembered the press of his hand around her wrist, a sweet warmth where he touched her. Looking down, she found he’d left a small black-inked clover on her skin, his spell for luck. Like he hoped to keep her away, far away, from the Cloaks coming to pound on her door.
Where was she?
Absently rubbing the marking on her wrist, Fia crossed to the window, peering out. Beyond, she saw not the tree-lined walks of Carrow Lane garlanded for All Hallows’ Eve but the thrashing waters of the Fateful Sea. Waves crashed against the rocks, sending up a frothy spray.
Disoriented, she turned. To her left sat a desk, a single sheet of stationery at its center catching her attention as it was meant to. The letterhead, at least, informed Fia of her location—Hotel Hush, where Andromeda had been staying. A place Rowen Fallow wouldn’t have known to come.
But the message wasn’t from Andromeda.
Frowning, Fia lifted the paper, uselessly wishing for Penbrook’s glasses as she squinted at the note and began to read.
HOTEL HUSH
Fia,
I know you haven’t felt much like talking to me, but I hope you’ll read this letter anyway, if not for any other reason than that afterward—if it pleases you—you can rip it up.
I also hope you’ll accept the parcel I tried to give you the other night. At the very least, open it, and then decide if it’s something you’d want to keep. (I think you will.)
Finally, seeing as I’ll likely be dead by tomorrow, please let me tell you again, let me tell you now: I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for all the things I’ve left unspoken.
Yours,
Penn
Fia’s hands trembled, and not—definitely not—at the thought of Penbrook dying. No, she’d only gone shaky because of everything else he’d written.
In fact, she didn’t know what about the letter maddened her more, seeing his name signed so familiarly at the end—dashed off with a Yours, of all things—as though there was still a connection between them, or learning that he did have very good handwriting, certainly much better than her own.
Or maybe it really was that gloomy apology, as lovely and vague as this sea-blue room, and the implication of other things he might have told her. What was left for him to say?
Very purposefully, Fia set the letter aside—because what fun would it be tearing up a note when he expected it of her? With a huff, she turned toward the door and the muted voices coming from the other side—doubtless Penbrook and Andromeda—then stopped, noticing the box propped against the leg of the desk.
The package was much larger than the one he’d handed her the other night, and much more prettily decorated, wrapped in paper the color of whipped cream and tied off with a thick black ribbon of satin. Swinging it up from the floor, she carried the box to the bed. Wondered if Penbrook really thought a gift would earn him her forgiveness.
It wouldn’t.
She was still so furious with him, not for stealing The Book of Ribs in the first place, but for lying about it for so long, after she’d thought she could trust him. Anytime, he might have confided in her. Instead, he’d concocted an elaborate scheme to cover what he’d done. Sebastian Smith was hardly innocent, but for this one thing, he’d been falsely framed. Still, all the while Rowen Fallow and the Cloaks had built their evidence against Fia. Had come to her home last night ready to cart her away.
Oh, she just wanted the grimoire out of her hands. Wanted Penbrook out of her hair.
Except… she didn’t, and that was the problem. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to guard herself. She’d fallen for someone—there was no denying it any longer—who was always bound to hurt her. Just as her mother had expected and tried to warn her away from.
Even now, Fia was charting her life under her mother’s hand, trying to lock her feelings away, to deny what she wanted and hide the truth—she’d embraced her anger because it was an easier thing to suffer than Penbrook’s death, which might undo her.
No matter how she wrote the story of her heart, endings were simply endings. Nothing about them was guaranteed to be fairy-tale happy.
Harder than she had to, Fia tugged the end of the ribbon, and the bow unraveled. With an equal amount of vigor, she tore the lid off the box. Layer upon layer of the palest ivory tissue had been prettily folded like the overlapping petals of a rose, and Fia tore through them, not caring what potentially fragile thing she might break.
She flung more paper to the ground, and beneath all the fluff, she found a dress. Of all things, why would Penbrook give her a gown?
“Fia’s finally up. I hear her clunking around in there.” On the other side of the door, Andromeda’s voice grew louder, and then she half knocked before poking her nose into the room. Finnick, whom they must have corralled as they fled the spellshop and smuggled into the hotel, slipped through the crack only to immediately pounce on the tissue paper scattered all over the floor. “You’ve been asleep for hours, and we’ve been awake. Penbrook thought we’d have to leave without you.”
Fia had bent to scratch Finnick’s belly, but at these words, she looked up. “Leave?”
“For the masque.” Andromeda came more fully into the room, so Fia could see that she was already outfitted for the gala in a dress of champagne tulle. It frilled from her hips to the floor in delicate tiers, her bodice nearly sheer except for the exposed boning, her chest flattered with wispy ruffles. All those ribbon-strung rings rested in their usual place against her collarbone, and she’d done up her golden hair in a braided crown, the frizzy, burnt ends tucked away.
