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And always had been.
ChapterThirty-Two
Valentine
Three months passed.
I’d scratched marks into the wall beside my bed, each one indicating another day in Hell.
Six months away from Devere.Too long.He’d be all right. He was always all right. He’d been fine without me for fifteen years. What were a few months? He’d understand. Unless Adair had made him forget again.
Perhaps it’s a good thing… to forget. Forget the heartache, forget the loss, forget the… kiss.No, Devere had feared forgetting. To forget was a curse.
I’d get back to him.
I’d beenobedient. I’d lie to Russo and tell him the toymaker’s murder had been a fantasy. None of it was real.
Today was my chance to prove I’d been cured. I was now an upstanding member of society, and certainly not the ranting lunatic who talked to the voices in his head.
Guards escorted me to Russo’s office.
No more lashing out. Whatever he did, whatever happened, I’d accept it, and in doing so, he’d release me from this forsaken place.
The guards opened Russo’s office door, and there he sat behind his desk, as he had before. But today, of all days, he was not alone.
Lord Rochefort stood beside the office’s barred window. His blond hair had been swept back into a tight tail, and his sharp blue eyes pierced my soul. He appeared to be the epitome of gentlemanly poise.
The floor fell away from under my slippered feet. I stumbled but quickly caught myself.
Devere had said Rochefort didn’t exist outside Minerva…
Yet there he was, as real as the rest of this room, as real as my thudding heart,Russo’s tapping pen, and the creak of his chair as he leaned back.
The real and unreal swirled around my head. I didn’t know where reality ended and the pantomime began. If Rochefort was here, then he was real. He existed outside Minerva, and Devere had either lied or been misled. Nothing made sense. Everything was a lie and misdirection and chaos.
I knew only what my heart told me. My heart demanded I find Devere, whatever the cost.
I pushed the madness aside. None of that mattered. Only Russo and convincing him to let me go mattered.
“Ah, Valentine, do sit,” Russo said, as satisfied as a cat who had gotten the cream.
This was real. The chair I sat in was real. The guards unlocking my cuffs and slipping them free—the lightness of my wrists was also real.
Russo leaned forward, picked up a pen, and asked, “How are you today?”
Such a loaded question. Were we not going to mention Lord Rochefort standing at the window? Was he even here? I tried not to look, but he arrested my gaze. So perfectly handsome, how could anyone think him human? Nobody was that perfect.
“Ah, our guest,” Russo said, acknowledging we weren’t alone.
Then Russo saw him too. I almost sighed aloud in relief.
Russo gestured at the lord. “Lord Rochefort will be joining your assessment today, as your sponsor.”
“My…?”
“Sponsor, yes. You must recall how Lord Rochefort graciously paid for your treatment all these years.”
This was a trap, wasn’t it? “Oh, of course, yes, yes,” I spluttered.
