Thread of Darkness

Ch. 2: do you love him?

Lovely.

Penny blinked.

Blinked again.

"Good gods," Penny said. "Were you planning to meet the Lord of Lucerna in your undergarments?"

Camille frowned. "Go, Penny. I'll meet you there."

Penny sat on the bed. "Why do you have mud on your face?"

"Do I?"

Camille whirled for the mirror. There was a patch of brown smeared above her left eyebrow, and she scrubbed at it, letting out a string of curses that would have made the very Devil blush. Penny arched an eyebrow.

"Careful," Penny said. "You're starting to sound like Isaac."

Camille paused. The mud was crumbling beneath her fingers. She could feel that word lodge under her ribcage, burrowing like a tick in long grass.

Isaac.

She tried not to think about him, but the images came anyway: Anna and Isaac, kissing by the lake; Isaac, finding her and Ryne in the library; Isaac, riding away from Stillwater Castle, his body bent close to the horse.

He'd left her a letter. A short, perfunctory letter, explaining that he was going home for a while. I can no longer stand to be here, Isaac had written. What Ryne is doing to Anna... keeping her in her rooms... it isn't right, Cami. Surely you can see that.

She'd traced each word, feeling the familiar grooves in the parchment. Isaac wrote like he moved, swift and purposeful, the letters bleeding into one another like they couldn't escape his quill fast enough.

Camille lowered her hand.

She turned for the washbasin, picking up a cloth. Handsome men, she thought, did a handsome job at breaking hearts; her father once said that the prettiest swords were the sharpest, all gleaming steel and bright destruction.

She ought to have listened.

Camille could feel Penny watching her as she dunked the cloth in the water. The silence turned jagged, cutting through the room. Penny rose.

"Here," she said. "Let me."

Penny took the cloth, and Camille closed her eyes as Penny dabbed at the mud. Then — apparently satisfied — Penny turned her around, her fingers working at the corset strings. Lacing them tighter.

"He'll come back," Penny murmured. "I know he will."

Camille touched her throat. "Have you heard from him?"

Penny shook her head. "I expect he's busy. There's always a mountain of paperwork when it comes to these things." She met Camille's eyes in the mirror. "You heard his father agreed to name Isaac as his inheritor?"

Camille nodded. "Brigid told me."

"Funny," Penny mused. "I thought he'd give it to Bingham. Since Isaac is..." She trailed off, but Camille understood: since Isaac is powerless. Penny yanked at her stays. "Anyway, you never answered my question. How'd you get like that?" She waved at Camille's face. "The mud, I mean."

Camille took a step back. "I dropped my ring."

Penny's eyebrow went higher. "In a pig pen?"

She winced, rubbing at her ribs. "In the river."

"The river?"

Penny sounded surprised, but not suspicious. Camille sat at her dresser, choosing her next words carefully.

"It was my fault," Camille said, which was technically true. "I bent down to splash some water on my face, and the ring just sort of..." She mimed it popping off. "I had to wade into the stream to get it."