Chapter 28

I’m not sure how long I lay with my head on Mom’s body before the housekeeping staff shows up to retrieve her. When I glance around, everyone has left except Inara, Job, and Frederick.

“What can we do?” Inara asks.

I sit up, startled by her expectation that I’ll simply head for my room to prepare for tomorrow’s challenge, abandoning my mother’s body to be prepared for burial. When I do stand up, I long for Mom’s room, and her smell, and her things. I want to be around something that reminds me of her. Duchess snuggles against Mom, taking the spot I vacated, and my heart contracts again.

I lean over and ruffle the fur on Duchess’s head, and then I force myself to square my shoulders. Each step toward the door feels like a betrayal, like I’ve given up on her, like I’m walking away from her and not the other way around.

Even though I know she’s already gone, it destroys me to let her go.

By the time I reach the door, I recognize what else feels off. I miss the clicking sounds of Cookie’s claws following me. I miss the soothing and commanding presence of my mom, and no matter where I go, I’ll never feel either one again.

When I reach the door to her room, I pull up short. I can’t go inside. I can’t. I spin around and nearly run into Inara, Frederick and Job only a pace behind her.

“I want to be alone right now.” The words emerge as a croak.

“You’re the Empress now,” Frederick says. “Your mother would want me here. You need protection.”

“You sure kept her safe, didn’t you?” I snap.

Frederick stumbles back like I slapped him. Mother’s most trusted guard. He only left her door to sleep.

“I’m sorry, Freddy, I know it’s not your fault.” Tears threaten to fall again. “I’m really sorry. You can wait outside.”

I shove past him and take the dozen steps to my own door, Inara and Job on my heels. I stop on the threshold and rest my forehead on the solid wood of my door. “Why are you both following me?”

“I need a private word,” Job whispers, and glances sideways at Inara.

Frederick takes up his position next to my door, and I meet his eyes. I’m curious what he thinks about Job’s request.

He shrugs infinitesimally, which means he doesn’t consider Job much of a threat. If I had listened to Job earlier when I was still drowning in grief, I wouldn’t have been blindsided about Mom changing the documents. I motion for him to enter my room. “Do you need something too, Inara?”

Her eyes cloud. “I’m here to help you with anything I can. And I thought you might need this.” She leans toward me, her arms wrapping around my waist. I collapse against her. I forgot, in my utter desolation, that Inara is basically a carbon copy of our mother. Strong, kind, intelligent, caring, ferocious, and brilliant. And she didn’t follow Judica out. She stayed with me. Which means when Judica kills me tomorrow, she’ll likely execute Inara, too. I shudder and pull back.

“Give me just a moment with Job, and then we can talk.”

Inara’s lips tighten into a thin line, but she doesn’t argue. She takes up a position near the doorway, on the opposite side from Frederick.

I walk into my room, marveling how different the room looks from the last time I entered, when Mom had just told me to put on a dress to match her.

The whole world looks different now that she’s gone. Drenched in darkness, covered in cobwebs, and dipped in desperation.

Even after the door closes, Job doesn’t speak. He looks down at his feet and shuffles them a bit. He’s been my mom’s physician for centuries. Losing her was hard for him too, and he probably feels to blame. I sympathize, but I’m exhausted and stressed and not up to the job of consoling anyone else right now. “What is it, Job?”

He meets my eyes. “Your mother told me repeatedly that you were her new Heir. But that’s not all she said. Right before her heart stopped, she told me ‘Tell Chancy I sent... something... to Alora.’ I asked her to repeat what she said. I couldn’t understand the word. She could barely talk. But she didn’t hear my question. She was gone, Chancy. I’m sorry to be delivering an incomplete message. But in case it’s important, I wanted to tell you everything I know.”

She sent what to Alora? Alora’s coming here any day. She couldn’t have meant the declaration, since it was here, partially executed. What else could she have sent to New York and why? It makes no sense.

Job’s heart rate is elevated and he looks pale.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

He nods. “I am sorry, so sorry to have failed you. I should have done more when I noticed how tired she looked, I should have—”

“I tried to talk to her about it too, Job. It’s not your fault. Mom thought she was bulletproof and obviously she wasn’t.”

He reaches toward me and then pulls back, clearly unsure how he might offer comfort. Finally he shoves his hands in his pockets and heads for the door. He’s gone in a blink.

I wish I could escape the mess of my life so easily. Inara slips through the doorway as he leaves. She looks at me like I looked at Lark earlier. Pity. Empathy. Sorrow. Gratitude floods my body at the knowledge that my amazing, strong, brilliant big sister followed me instead of Judica. I have no idea why Inara’s on my side, but, inexplicably, she is.

“I feel as flayed as you look,” Inara says, “but we need to be tri aging right now.”

“What’s the point?” I ask. “There’s nothing I can do to prepare for tomorrow. I’m either going to beat her or die trying, and we all know which is most likely. In fact, while I love you for it, it was monumentally stupid for you to follow me in here.”

“You need more time,” Inara says. “If you had a month, or even a full week, you might stand a chance against her. But that’s not what I meant by triage. There’s something more pressing than tomorrow’s challenge.”

“What now?” I sink down onto the edge of my bed.

“The ring,” she says.

“What about it?” It’s still clenched in my hand. I was afraid to put it on in front of all those people. I open my palm and look at my mom’s ring, the cursed thing that started this whole mess. It’s sparkling and beautiful ... when it should be black and ugly. I gasp. It shouldn’t be refracting the light from my window, but it is.

Because it’s a fake.

The stone in this ring sparkles whether it’s in contact with a member of the family or not.

“Mom told me once that she had a fake made, in case she ever needed to hide hers.” Inara looks at the ground. “I guess she decided it was time.”

“What’s it made of?” I ask.

“Mystic topaz. The funniest part is that it’s essentially worthless. That’s a manufactured stone. You can buy one online for less than a hundred dollars.”

“Wow,” I say. “I guess we should initiate a lock down and force an immediate search. That will be extremely unpopular with our guests, but we can’t risk one of them flying out with it.”

“Mom was wearing the fake,” Inara says, “which we know because we saw Judica pull it off her finger. I doubt anyone else knew about it, other than me and whoever made it for her. I don’t think it was stolen, because the thief would have needed the forethought to bring a fake and change them out. I think the more likely explanation is that Mother hid it herself and was wearing the fake intentionally.”

“But why?” I ask. “It makes no sense.” I held the ring earlier today, the real one.

Job’s words hit me. Mom sent something to Alora. Would she have sent the real ring? Why? It’s not logical.

Inara throws her hands up in the air. “Nothing makes sense lately.” She ticks things off on her fingers. “You tell Mom you want to leave, and she agrees and sets up a trip to visit Alora.” Inara shoots me a ‘you’re crazy’ look. “Then you try on her ring and blow up the island.”

“I hardly blew up the island,” I say. “I set off one little EMP.”

Inara doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile. “Chancery, that is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. An evian set off an EMP with the stone given our family by Eve herself. Using only a rock, you wiped out our communications, security, and electrical systems. Not to mention, you set the wall on fire. And then blasted a fireball through Mother’s closet wall.”

“I know.” I drop my face in my hands. “Which made Mom name me as Heir. None of that would have mattered though if only...”

Inara sits next to me and pulls me close. “If Mother hadn’t died. I know.”

“I was going to say, ‘if my sociopath sister hadn’t found out and murdered her,’ but you’re technically correct as well.”

In spite of my attempt at a joke, tears stream down my face again, and when I turn to Inara, she’s crying too. Judica may be a monster, and Mom may not have had many daughters in the last few centuries, but at least I have two amazing, involved sisters who love me. It’s more than some people have.