“But Gedeon’s grown hardened, of course,” said Hester, as if she’d read the direction of Ilsa’s thoughts. “He makes better decisions every day. With each dire mistake he changes, and he listens. I’ve learned how to make him listen to me. I may not be the true alpha any more, but I’m his voice of reason.” She gave a brittle laugh. “Or I was. I thought he listened. Perhaps our young alpha has tired of making better decisions.”
“So he din’t ask you ’bout this?” challenged Ilsa. “Nothing that might be a clue?”
Hester sighed. “I can’t be of any help. I spent a week in a healing potion haze, and when I came to, they told me my back was broken, my magic was gone, and I was in charge. That’s all I know.”
“And before the attack?”
“Before?”
Ilsa shifted in her chair. “I been thinking p’raps something else got Gedeon worked up. Cassia said she and him had a fight…”
“Yes, about Millwater.”
Hester said no more, and a weighty silence fell between them. As Ilsa studied her cousin for potential tells, she had the unshakable feeling that Hester was doing the same. The gaze that met hers was bold, unwavering, and cut straight through her in a way even Alitz Dicer had failed to do. Ilsa had forgotten who was interrogating whom by the time Hester tossed her braid over her shoulder and sighed.
“I suspect Cassia came down a little too hard on his decision, and it riled him. Powerful men often like to think they can take advice from us, but it’s seldom the case.”
“D’you know why he cancelled the trip?”
“Cancelled? That was the day of the attack,” said Hester matter-of-factly, her eyebrows raised.
“But I thought the attack weren’t ’til after.”
Hester opened her mouth, and closed it again, frowning. She made a small sound of displeasure. “You’re right, I’m sure. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about that either. I don’t know if I hurt my head or what else, but it’s all a bit of a blur.”
Hester shook her head regretfully, then pushed her obvious frustration with herself aside. Her hands lay calmly in her lap. Her shoulders were straight but relaxed.
“Memory loss?” Ilsa probed lightly.
Hester, so obviously loath to admit to weakness, narrowed her eyes. Then that cruel smile curled the corner of her lips. “And what of it? I would give up all my memories and start afresh in exchange for my legs and my wings back. Wouldn’t you?”
Hester had seen her scars; she knew the answer. But Ilsa whispered anyway, “I’d give up mine for a lot less than that.”
Her honesty took Hester by surprise, and the cruelty evaporated. She cocked her head to one side. “You know, perhaps I would too,” she said, in a tone that suggested lamenting the horrors of their pasts was a delightful way to bond.
Now that her heart had stopped skittering from Eliot’s touch, she remembered a dozen reasons, besides Fyfe, that she should have thought twice. She believed that Eliot didn’t know where Gedeon was, but he was definitely hiding something.
“What d’you think of Eliot?” Disdain flashed across Hester’s features, and Ilsa added, “Need I ask?”
Hester gave a short, forced laugh.
“Have you always detested him? ’Cause he thinks really highly of you.”
“I know he does. I was his alpha for sixteen years before little Gedeon came of age, and a loyal soldier will always love his queen.”
Ilsa shook her head. “If Eliot was a good soldier, why’d you remove him as commander of the wolves?”
Hester faltered, her expression pained. Her attention roamed to the window. Eventually, she took a shaky breath. “Eliot is loyal to a fault,” she said, almost to herself. “To a hopeless, impossible fault.”
If Hester was being dishonest, she didn’t have a tell. Her memory of the attack was missing. Her knowledge of Gedeon’s behaviour was as Cassia had told her. And her opinion of Eliot wasn’t muddied by resentment like Cassia’s, or infatuation like Fyfe’s – and yet it was more damning than anyone’s. The way Hester said it, loyalty sounded like a curse.
She wouldn’t meet Ilsa’s eye as she said, “I stripped him of his command because I was angry. And paranoid.”
Whether that was anything close to the truth, Ilsa couldn’t tell. “You don’t hate him, then?” she probed.
A slow breath. “I don’t know.”
Another loaded silence settled between them, and when it became clear Hester wouldn’t be the one to break it, Ilsa stood to leave. “May I speak plainly?”
“It would be an utter blessing if somebody would.”
“I just can’t decide what to make of you, Hester.”
“And I know just what to make of you,” she said, her bitterness spent. When their identical hazel eyes met, Hester was looking at her like an old friend. “I know you, cousin dearest. You’re drawn to the damage in others; to their darkness.”
Ilsa opened her mouth to argue, but she couldn’t form the words. Was Hester right? Was that the real reason she had never severed ties with Bill Blume? Why, of all the sorry cases in her boarding house, the orphaned and abused Martha had been her ally of choice?
“It’s alright,” Hester said lightly. “You’re not a monster. We respond to the parts of ourselves we see in other people, whether we realise it or not. It’s what makes them real to us. It’s why you’re here, in my room.”
“I was just passing.”
“The room you’ve claimed is the other way.”
“I—” Ilsa realised with a thud that she was right.
“On a personal note, cousin dearest.” Hester inclined her head towards the window overlooking the rose garden. “A word of warning. Eliot’s darkness runs deeper than you believe. He is a ticking time bomb, and if you are too attached you will be obliterated.”
She said the last almost triumphantly, and even as a shudder ran through her, it took all of Ilsa’s
