And somewhere in the rubble beyond, her tormentors’ bodies lay.
A mad part of Effie longed to stalk to the ruined house and dig through the smoking carnage like a madwoman until she found their blackened bones—she wanted to see the evidence of their deaths with her own eyes, needed it. She forced herself to swallow down the tears that threatened. She was no longer that weak, unsure girl who needed the guarantee of a thing already done. They were both dead. It was over. That was good enough for her.
It must be good enough.
Padraig Boyd, her brother, had come. He was a good man, Effie thought; she’d certainly seen enough evil to be able to tell a keen difference. Perhaps one day she would see that goodness reflected in her own father.
And yet Effie had not waited all these years, suffered for so long just to turn over the house, the people, she had looked after for so long to Padraig Boyd. Caris and Vaughn Hargrave had killed her mother and then ripped Effie from her womb. They had stolen from her not only her parents but her home, her life. She should have grown up knowing the joy of Darlyrede House, not its darkness. Even Lucan Montague had cowed to Vaughn Hargrave’s evil power, allowing his home to remain razed, conferring with the king on Hargrave’s behalf.
She was glad she’d shot him.
And, of course, there was George to consider. Effie was determined that her son would enjoy the benefits of the life denied to his mother. She would stop at nothing, and no one—not her brothers and certainly not Lucan Montague—would prevent her from doing it. Even if George was so very excited at the idea of having an uncle.
And an aunt too now, Effie supposed with a slight smile.
She turned away to circle back through the wood to the caves, treading through the snow. She stopped in the fading gray light halfway through to the stream, noticing the second set of small footprints tracking her initial trail, and crouched down with a wry smile. She’d told him no.
She looked around her through the dark slashes of trees. “George Thomas?” Her chiding inquiry was met with silence.
“George, where are you?” She rose and followed the prints. “It’s all right—I’m not cross that you followed me. Only come out now so we might go home before it’s dark. George?”
Effie walked faster now through the twilight until the footprints halted in a jumble of trampled black mud, contrasted with—
Hoofprints.
Effie turned her head to follow the black, dragging scuffs through snow now tinged pink from the last bursts of the setting sun. Horse tracks. A single horse, coming from the direction of the smoldering rubble that was once Darlyrede House. Effie’s heart stopped in her chest as her head snapped up.
The tracks headed north.
And George’s footprints were gone.
George was gone.
Effie screamed up into the treetops as the sun slipped behind the far-off, rolling hills of Northumberland. She screamed and screamed, but the silence around the moors swallowed up her agony with an indifferent sigh of wind.
