I looked up into his face, smoothing my hands over my skirts. “What?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “Don’t ever, ever cross him.”
A stone sank in my stomach as the door swung open and the heat of a fire came rolling out into the hallway, wrapping me in gooseflesh. The room was a study, with a polished wooden desk set before an illuminated fireplace. Stacks of unused parchment were neatly arranged at one corner of the desk, a quill and pot of ink at the other. At its center was a small leather book.
The light didn’t quite make it to the edges of the room, leaving everything slightly dark despite the roaring fire, and the mantel was littered with pipes and mullein boxes, a trinket left here and there. But my gaze was pulled to the wall behind us as we stepped inside. Portraits in gilded frames hung on the short wall, clustered together like a chaotic constellation. The most prominently placed among them was a painting of my great-grandfather Sawyer, who had built both the house and the business that was run in its workshop. To its left was a portrait of his children, Felix and Sariah. Sariah’s son Jori was beneath it, her only child who was lost at sea as a young man. But the place on the wall next to that portrait was missing, leaving behind a discolored circle on the wall.
The painting that hung over the fireplace was the most recognizable to me. Three young men and one young woman were posed together, the tallest of the boys standing behind the others. I guessed it was Henrik. The others had to be Casimir, Noel, and my mother, Eden.
Henrik, the oldest, was followed in age by Casimir and then the youngest of the three brothers, Noel. Eden had been the only daughter, born third in line.
There was something about those faces that felt familiar, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I recognized them or because I wanted to. Everything I knew about my mother had been spoken from Sariah’s lips and only in reverent whispers. When her son, Jori, died, Sariah had taken to Eden and they’d been close when she died. Sariah had once told me it felt like losing another child.
In the portrait, Eden was dressed in a green frock with her brown hair unbound and falling over her shoulders. I took a step closer when I spotted the tattoo on the inside of her arm. The ouroboros, two entwined snakes eating one another’s tails. It was the same mark every member of the Roth family bore. Even Sariah. Only one of the snakes’ heads was visible in the painting, the rest hidden against her frock.
There was no portrait of my father. Only those in the direct bloodline had a place here. In the same way, I’d been given my mother’s name instead of my father’s. It didn’t matter which side of the parentage you had, anyone born in this family was a Roth.
The door on the other side of the study opened and Murrow straightened beside me, clearing his throat. In an instant, he lost his easy, lazy manner and his chin lifted in the air, his shoulders pulled back. Impossibly, he looked even taller.
Across the room, a man I would know anywhere was framed in the open doorway. Not because I remembered him, but because his presence flooded the study around us, filling its dark corners like black ink. His cinnamon-colored hair was combed and tucked behind his ears, his face cleanly shaven except for a thick, curling mustache. His sharp gaze focused as he surveyed me.
“Jacket, Murrow.” His gruff voice was too loud for the small study.
Murrow immediately reached for the buttons of his jacket, rebuttoning them. “Sorry.” He cleared his throat.
A rag was clutched in Henrik’s big hands, and I bristled when I saw the knuckles of his right fingers. They were covered in healing cuts, the skin red, as if they’d recently landed blows on someone’s face.
I stood silent, waiting for him to say something. I knew how to take my cues from others. How to match my behavior to theirs. But this man was difficult to read.
After several agonizingly silent moments, a small smile lifted beneath his mustache. It lit his eyes, changing their shape. “Bryn.” He said my name as if it was heavy on his tongue, but it wasn’t without affection.
I let out the breath I was holding.
He finished wiping his hands and dropped the rag onto the desk before pulling the leather apron he wore over his head. Underneath it, he, too, wore a crisp, white shirt and his shined shoes caught the light. He handed the apron to Murrow, who stepped forward to take it and hang it on the wall.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Henrik said, reaching out to shake my hand. On his third finger, a merchant’s ring for the Narrows looked up at me. It was set with a polished round of tiger’s-eye.
I glanced to Murrow, confused by the sudden shift in his temperament, but he stood silent against the wall. I took Henrik’s hand and he covered my fingers with his, squeezing. He didn’t let it go. “Back where you belong.”
When he finally released me, he leaned into the desk, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s been a long time.”
“A very long time,” I echoed. I wasn’t sure what the rules were for a greeting like this one and Henrik wasn’t giving me any indication of his expectations.
“How is my aunt?”
“She’s well.” I didn’t tell him that she’d sent her regards, because she hadn’t. I had a feeling it would come as no surprise to him. Henrik and Sariah seemed to tolerate each other, at best.
He nodded. “I am happy to hear that. And your journey? Your cabin on the Jasper?”
“All very well,” I answered. “Thank you for arranging everything. I’m grateful.”
Another silence fell over the study as he curiously looked me over. His eyes studied my hair, my frock, my boots. The shimmering bracelet around my wrist. “Murrow will show you to your room. I’m sure you’re very tired. You’ll meet the rest of the family tonight at dinner.”
There was a subtly commanding air in the words, but I relaxed slightly. When I opened my mouth to speak again, Murrow was already opening the door. I looked between them, realizing that Henrik wasn’t giving a polite suggestion. He was dismissing me.
I forced a polite smile. “I’m glad to finally meet you,” I said.
At that, Henrik seemed to stiffen. “I suppose it feels that way to you.”
My smile fell a little. I wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe that to him, it didn’t feel like a first meeting because he’d known me as a child. Or maybe that I didn’t feel like a stranger to him. Either way, he didn’t exactly look angry and I took that as a good sign.
“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, straightening from where he leaned on the desk. He turned toward the fire, reaching for the small leather book, and I watched him over my shoulder as I stepped back out into the hall.
The chill that hovered outside of the room was a relief. I was too warm beneath my frock from the study’s blazing fire.
“This way.” Murrow gestured to the stairs behind me that Tru had taken.
I followed him up, each step creaking as we climbed their winding path. When we reached the next floor, a bit of sunlight was coming from a high window on the topmost level. Outside, the gray sky had brightened to a soft blue.
Murrow led me around two turns before he stopped in front of a closed door. More light spilled into the hallway as he swung it open. Across the small room, the single window was cracked, letting a breeze skip through the air.
Murrow tapped the top of the trunk sitting at the foot of the bed. Someone had brought it up from the street, along with my cloak that now hung on the hook at the back of the door.
I looked the space over. There was a simple dressing table, a bed, and leaning in one corner was a long mirror with a porcelain washing bowl on one side and a chair on the other. The walls were painted the palest shade of green, but it was chipping, revealing the white plaster beneath.
It was bare and modest, but it had the feeling of once being lived in. I liked it.
In Nimsmire, I’d always felt like a roughly cut jewel set into a shining brooch. My edges were too sharp. My anger too swift. Sariah had done her best to make me into one of the girls from prominent merchant fami
lies who would be matched like shoes to a handsome frock, but I’d never fit seamlessly among them. I’d never wanted to.
In that way, Bastian was more than my destiny. It was my chance at freedom from charades and displays and diplomatic marriages.
“Whose room was this?” I asked, eyeing the tortoiseshell comb on the dressing table. “Before, I mean.”
Murrow’s expression shifted just slightly. “Someone who’s not here anymore.” He stepped back into the hallway. “Welcome home.”
He left me alone, and I took the three steps to the window, reaching up to close it. Outside, the rooftops of Bastian were still glistening with rain as the sun burned off the fog. It was only then that I got a glimpse of just how big the city was. A sea of buildings rolled over the hills in the distance, edging along the shore for as far as I could see. In comparison, the small port city of Nimsmire that had been my whole world seemed tiny. The thought made me feel small in that window.
I went to my cloak and reached into the pocket, removing the two envelopes inside. The first was Henrik’s letter. It was still badly creased, but the other was crisp, the corners sharp. It was the letter Sariah had given me before I left. The envelope was sealed, the wax pressed with her initials, SR. I hadn’t yet had the guts to read it.
I opened the top drawer of the dressing table and dropped them inside before I sat down on the bed and kicked off my boots. I pulled my legs up beneath my skirts and hugged them to my chest, shivering. The quietness of the house returned, like the sound of a cavern. Empty and hollow.
Back where you belong. Henrik’s voice crept through my mind.
I’d never belonged anywhere. Not in Nimsmire. Not with Sariah. But there was a faint, whispering voice that had found me as I crossed the threshold of the house tucked back in the dismal, forgotten alley of Lower Vale. It had snaked its way through me, echoing that single, terrifying word that Murrow had spoken.
Home.
THREE
I wouldn’t write to her. Not yet.
In the hours since I’d arrived in Lower Vale, I’d unpacked my things into the few drawers and wardrobe. I’d set my jewelry into the little glass box on the table and paced the floorboards in front of the long mirror. After I’d spent a good hour at the window, watching the distant water darken in the falling light, I finally sat at the desk and pulled a piece of blank parchment free.
The scribble of the quill was a chaotic flurry of half thoughts and admissions, but the moment I signed my name I’d torn it up, feeding the pieces to the single flame on the candle.
Sariah would see it as weakness to receive word from me so soon. She’d know exactly what lay beneath the prompt message—uncertainty, fear. Worst of all, she’d know that I needed her.
Sariah had never been particularly warm, and I’d always thought it was because I was destined to leave her. Or that the pain of losing her son and my mother haunted her so much that she’d never really let herself grow too attached to me. But there had been an ache that woke in my chest as I stood on the deck of the Jasper, watching her grow small on the docks as the ship left port. Like the tether between us had finally been cut. And for the first time in my life, I was drifting.
I stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the sound of glass clinking and boots on the hollow floors below. Laughter. The house was full of people, missing the emptiness from that afternoon. For a fleeting moment, I thought it stirred a memory somewhere deep in the back of my mind. The smell of lamp oil and mullein smoke. The golden glow of a fire and the sparkle of crystal.
My skirts brushed along the walls of the narrow stairwell as I came down and I paused on the other side of the entrance to the dining room. Shadows moved over the walls and the light cascaded, reflected by the chandelier that hung from the ceiling. It was a piece too beautiful for the run-down house.
I pasted on my softest, most proper smile before I stepped through the open doorway. My fingers tangled together at my lower back and the voices promptly silenced when the family saw me. I counted seven pairs of eyes, all glistening in the firelight. Among them there was only one woman, a slight, dark-haired figure with a toddler on her hip. She was the only one who didn’t look directly at me, absently tucking the little boy’s hair behind his ear.
“Ah.” Henrik stepped out from behind the others, a grin spread wide on his face.
He clapped his hands together and walked toward me as I stood frozen, unable to move beneath the heavy stares. He took his place beside me, wrapping one arm around my shoulder, and I tried not to go rigid. The smell of leather polish and spice enveloped me, distinctly male scents that rarely filled my home in Nimsmire.
“Bryn, I’d like to introduce you, once again, to your uncles.” He lifted a hand toward the man standing beside Murrow. He had the same straight edge to his shoulders, but he wasn’t quite as tall as his son. The greatest difference between them was the pensive look on his face. Murrow had a perpetual humor in his eyes. “This is Casimir.”
The man lifted one of his hands from where it was tucked into his elbow in a silent greeting.
“And you know your cousin Murrow,” Henrik added.
Murrow gave me a nod and he looked as if he was about to laugh, making me feel embarrassed. I probably looked as uncomfortable on the outside as I felt on the inside.
“This is Noel.” Henrik pointed to a shorter man on the other side of the fire. He was younger and handsome, with wide, open eyes and a gentle set to his mouth. “He and his family live in the flat on the third floor.”
“Hello,” he said, quietly.
“His wife, Anthelia,” Henrik continued. “And their sons, Tru and Jameson.”
The young woman finally did look at me, but her eyes dropped almost as quickly as they found mine. The young boy, Tru, who’d answered the door that afternoon, poked his head out from behind her, formally tipping his hat as if he were a grown man.
“I’m sure you will all join me in welcoming our Bryn back to Bastian.”
Our Bryn.
The words put gooseflesh on my skin again.
Henrik clapped me on the back suddenly, sending me forward just enough so that I had to take a steadying step, and the room erupted with laughter, making me blush. Their manners were as confusing as their empty expressions. I couldn’t tell if they were happy to see me or if they were going to set me on a platter and have me for supper.
“All right.” Henrik moved to the head of the table and almost in unison, everyone broke from the fire, lining up behind the empty chairs.
A hand touched my arm, and I glanced up to see Murrow motioning me to the seat beside his. I was grateful. There was no decorum about these people. No apparent order. They were smartly dressed and groomed, but something about them had the look of feral creatures who’d been tamed. The only thing that seemed clear was Henrik’s leadership over the rest of them.
Everyone stood, waiting patiently, and I eyed the chair across from mine. It was the only one that was empty.
The table was set with fine china and silver, crystal goblets and linen napkins. There was a roasted pig in the center, wreathed in herbed potatoes and cooked apples. It was a familiar scene to me, except for the dark glass bottles that were poised at each end. Rye. Never in my life had I seen rye served at a proper dinner. It was the drink of filthy taverns and surly ship crews.
Henrik pulled out his chair to sit and the others followed, taking their seats in what looked like a choreographed movement. The fire was at his back, illuminating the small leather-bound book that sat at his right, the very same I’d seen on his desk.
“That chair’s been empty too long,” he said, giving me a smile.
I realized then that it must have been my mother’s seat at the table. The thought made me feel uneasy, but it was quickly followed by a sense of grounding. That’s why I was here, after all. To take her place. Carve out my own stake in the family. Help Henrik bridge the gap between Lower Vale and the guilds.
Murrow picked up a basket
of bread and passed it to me. I stared at it, unsure of what he wanted me to do, and he stifled another laugh, plucking one of the rolls from inside and setting it on my plate. “You look like you’re about to crawl under the table,” he murmured, reaching over me to hand the basket to Noel, who sat at my other side.
“Sorry.” I attempted a smile, unfolding my napkin in my lap and at the same time watching the way everyone else left theirs crumpled beside their plates.
Heat crept up out of the collar of my frock, stinging my skin. I didn’t know how to act. What to do. And everyone but Murrow and Henrik seemed to be watching my every move, sending me side glances every few bites.
A door opened and closed somewhere in the house and I felt a shift in the warm air, as if someone had come in from the street. But no one seemed to notice, refilling their glasses with rye and roughly cutting into their food. Boots sounded through the doorway and a figure appeared, slipping into the dining room without a word. My eyes followed him as he moved around the table, finding the empty chair across from me.
He was a young man, dressed in a clean, white shirt and suspenders, with a dark brow set over even darker eyes. He was cut from a different cloth from the others entirely, with smooth, pale skin and defined features.
“You’re late,” Henrik said, his voice heavy and deep with reproach. He didn’t even look up from his plate, but the air in the room went cold.
“I apologize” was his only reply. He took his seat, sitting straight-backed, his eyes pinned to his plate.
The young man picked up his fork, serving himself silently as Murrow reached across the table to fill his glass. My grip tightened around the stem of my goblet when I noticed a patchwork of silver scars tracing over his hands. They wrapped around his knuckles and fingers, disappearing beneath the cuffs of his shirt.
The Last Legacy Page 2
