Chapter 6
1109words
Three days earlier, word had arrived of Alistair's imminent return.
During those three days, she'd not only safeguarded her drawing of the Night Shadow's Tear, but had also ventured to the greenhouse where she'd carefully harvested an actual leaf from the plant lurking beneath the jagged stones. This she'd wrapped in a handkerchief and hidden in her innermost pocket.
Now, hearing the bustle from the entrance hall, she knew her moment approached.
She arranged her hair and donned a somber dress, its loose fit a reminder of how much weight grief had stolen from her frame.
The woman in the mirror wore a face white as parchment, yet her eyes burned with an unsettling calm.
She tucked both evidence and drawing securely into her pocket, touched her mother's badge pinned beneath her clothes for courage, and set out for the study.
The study door stood slightly ajar. Ella knocked once, then pushed it open without waiting for permission.
Alistair stood by his desk, unwinding his travel cloak.
Seraphina hovered nearby, offering him a glass of wine.
Both turned at her entrance—surprise flickered across Alistair's face while Seraphina's smile froze momentarily before returning with calculated sweetness.
"Ella?" Alistair frowned, taking in her ghostly pallor and diminished frame. "You look… ill. What's wrong?"
"Yes, Your Grace." Ella's voice remained eerily steady as she strode to the center of the room, ignoring Seraphina completely. "I lost your child. Not by accident, but by murder."
The study plunged into shocked silence.
Alistair's expression darkened instantly. "Murder? Mind your accusations! The doctor confirmed it was natural—"
"The doctor was either deceived or bought," Ella cut in, unflinching.
She withdrew the folded drawing from her pocket and slapped it onto the polished desk. "This is Night Shadow's Tear, a deadly poison. Someone has been lacing my food with it for weeks."
Next came the handkerchief, which she unwrapped with deliberate care to reveal the deep purple leaf with its blood-red veins. She placed it beside the drawing. "And here is the actual plant, which I found growing in your greenhouse. Still believe this is mere female hysteria, Your Grace?"
Alistair stared at the evidence, his gaze lingering on the actual leaf. His brows knitted together, and for a moment, he seemed to stop breathing entirely.
Seraphina's face drained of color, but she quickly recovered with a theatrical gasp.
"Oh, Ella… my poor dear…" Seraphina pressed a hand to her mouth, tears welling perfectly on cue. She turned to Alistair, her voice dripping with concern. "Cousin, don't you see? Grief has unhinged her mind! She's actually handling deadly poison to support her delusions. She needs help before she harms herself!"
Alistair's gaze shifted from the evidence to Ella's face, doubt clouding his features. Seraphina's performance was having its intended effect.
"Not delusions!" Ella's eyes blazed as she rounded on Seraphina. "It was you! You with your 'thoughtful' meals and special sour berry jam! You plotted to kill my child—your own blood!"
"Ella!" Seraphina's voice broke with perfectly timed emotion, tears streaming down her porcelain cheeks. "I only wanted to help you! I noticed your cravings, tried to make you comfortable… How could you think—? When my sister Lillian died, I was shattered. How could I inflict such pain on another? These accusations are monstrous!"
She clutched Alistair's arm desperately. "Cousin, remember my promise to Lillian… you know what I swore!"
At the names "Lillian" and "promise," Alistair's entire body went rigid.
Whatever doubt the evidence had planted vanished instantly, replaced by irritation and barely contained anger.
"Look at yourself, Miss Fairchild!" he growled, advancing on Ella with ice in his eyes. "Hysterical, hurling wild accusations! Is this how a duchess behaves? You're proving yourself exactly like those mad women from your family's history—completely unhinged and utterly disgraceful!"
"Reason and dignity?" Ella echoed, as if he'd spoken in a foreign tongue. She stared at this man who had just denied not just her truth, but her very sanity and bloodline. Something vital snapped inside her—the final thread connecting them. All warmth drained from her body, leaving only glacial emptiness.
She abandoned argument. Without looking at him again, her gaze swept the study, finally settling on a small box among Alistair's travel items.
With eerie composure, she crossed to it, opened the lid, and retrieved her mother's nightingale badge—the bird forever trapped in its circle of thorns.
"You're right, Your Grace," she said, clutching the badge until its edges bit into her palm. "I have lost much. Including my last illusion about you."
She raised her eyes to his, and what he saw there wasn't anger or hurt, but something far more disturbing—the absolute stillness of a frozen lake, and something almost like pity. "My property belongs with me."
Badge clutched in her fist, she turned and walked out without a backward glance. Her steps faltered slightly, but her spine remained steel-straight.
The study plunged into stunned silence.
Seraphina sidled up to the motionless Alistair, pressing against his arm. "Cousin, don't be too harsh with her," she murmured. "She's to be pitied. Remember, the Fairchild women have always been… unstable. Her mother died so young too… I worry she might harm herself in this state…"
Alistair remained frozen.
He stood unmoving, staring at the empty doorway, the poisonous leaf still pinched between his fingers.
His knuckles whitened around the leaf. Seraphina's carefully planted suggestions about Fairchild madness coiled in his mind like venomous serpents.
Did he truly disbelieve her entirely? The evidence lay literally in his hand.
Yet between Seraphina's invocation of "Lillian's promise" and the specter of the Fairchild "curse," he'd chosen the coward's path—silencing the uncomfortable truth with cruelty.
Had he lashed out to shield her from more dangerous truths, or simply to restore his comfortable illusion of control?
Perhaps even he couldn't answer that question. He felt only bone-deep weariness and a strange, choking panic—as if he'd just extinguished something precious with his own hands.
Ella returned to her frigid chamber. She uncurled her fingers, revealing her mother's badge.
Thorns encircled the nightingale, just as fate had ensnared her.
Yet her heart no longer ached—it had turned to stone.
Her truth had been rejected, her dignity trampled, the final thread of connection severed.
In this gilded prison, she had nothing left to lose—and therefore nothing left to fear.
What would Ella—with her heart turned to ash—do now?
She clutched the badge tightly, moved to the window, and stared toward the abandoned greenhouse. Something cold and determined flickered in her eyes.
A path—clear and terrible—crystallized in her mind.
