Chapter 96 Sweet Lies

Chapter 96 Sweet Lies
Violet's Pov

Eric came in at eight thirty and sent the guard out.

He was alone.

He brought a tray. Tea, bread, the iron-rich food Helen had been insisting on. He set it on the table by the window.

"You should eat," he said.

"I am in active labor," I said. "Eating is not the priority."

"Helen said small amounts between contractions," he said. "The body needs fuel for what it is doing."

"Helen also said I should not be in a locked room," I said.

"Sit up a little. I will bring the tray to you," he said.

He carried the tray to the bedside table and sat in the chair. He poured the tea. He handed it to me the way he had every morning for six months. The exact temperature. The honey is already in it.

I took it.

"Jacob told you things," Eric said. Not aggressively. Conversationally. The way he opened most difficult conversations, at a low temperature, letting the words do the work rather than the force behind them.

"Jacob has been telling me things for some time," I said.

"About the bloodline," he said. "About this man Caius."

"Yes," I said.

"I need you to think carefully about what Jacob wants from this story," he said. "Not what Caius wants. Not what you want it to mean. What Jacob specifically wants."

"I know what Jacob wants," I said.

"Do you," he said. "Jacob wants you. He has always wanted you. He spent three years without acting on it. Then he lost you. Suddenly there is a convenient story that removes every obstacle between what he wants and what he can have."

"That is one way to look at it," I said.

"It is the logical way," he said. "You were sold to me. You were carrying his child in another man's house. Then a stranger appears and tells him exactly the one thing that resolves everything. That the guilt was never warranted. That you were never related. That he can have you guilt-free."

"I have thought about that," I said.

"And," he said.

"I thought about how Caius described the visions," I said. "In specific terms that are not externally observable. Terms I have never described publicly."

"Jacob has heard you describe them," Eric said. "Privately. Over the years of closeness. He could have given Caius enough to construct a convincing account."

I pressed my hand against Eli. He pushed back.

A contraction built. I breathed through it. When it passed I said, "You are suggesting Jacob coached Caius."

"I am suggesting you consider the possibility," Eric said.

"I have considered it," I said.

"And," he said.

I looked at him. "What does my mother's handwriting look like," I said.

He paused. Very briefly.

"I do not know," he said.

"I do," I said. "I grew up watching her write. Caius has a letter in her handwriting that he has been carrying for twenty-three years. Jacob described the specific details of how she writes."

"Jacob could have seen her writing," Eric said.

"In a letter Caius has carried for twenty-three years in his personal possession," I said. "Before Jacob ever met Caius."

Eric was quiet.

I drank the tea. It was exactly right. It was always exactly right.

"You have been very good to me," I said. "I want you to know I am aware of that."

"Yes," he said.

"The honey from the southern orchards," I said. "The chair pulled close. Sitting on the ground at the ritual. Saying I am sorry without qualification. Those things were real."

"Yes," he said.

"Stephanie has been in the outer building for six weeks," I said.

He held my gaze.

"Whatever I planned at the beginning, whatever Stephanie and I discussed, what has happened in six months in this house is also real," he said. "Both things are true at the same time."

"You have said that before," I said.

"Because it is true," he said.

"It does not resolve the specific one of the two things that involves Eli surviving without me," I said.

He was quiet.

I pressed my hand against Eli. He was moving differently now. A restless, insistent energy. Close to ready.

"If I asked you to let Jacob go," I said. "Right now. Not me. Just Jacob. Would you?"

"No," he said.

"Why not," I said.

"Because Jacob is the reason you have been trying to leave," he said. "Without Jacob, you stop trying to cross the perimeter. We focus on Eli arriving safely."

"I was trying to leave before Jacob got here," I said.

"You were sending messages," he said. "Not attempting to physically cross the perimeter."

"Because I could not cross the perimeter in active labor," I said.

"So we are in agreement that staying is the safest option for Eli right now," he said.

"We are not in agreement about that," I said.

He looked at me. The expression is warm over the cold calculation underneath. I had been watching it for six months. I could read both layers now.

"Jacob is not who you believe he is," Eric said. "He spent three years making you feel invisible. He was publicly engaged to the woman who bullied you throughout your childhood. He denied you in front of your entire pack."

"He came to the border every Tuesday for six months," I said.

"After the damage was done," Eric said. "After you were carrying his child in my house. Then he came."

"Yes," I said. "That is a fair accounting of the timing."

"Before you were here," Eric said. "When you were in your own pack being humiliated and sold. Where was he then?"

I looked at my tea.

"Making mistakes," I said. "Significant ones."

"Significant ones," Eric said. "That is generous."

"I am aware it is generous," I said. "He knows it too. He has said so directly."

"He has said so because he wants something from you," Eric said. "Every apology, every letter through Gorran was in service of getting you back. Ask yourself whether a man who treated you the way he did for three years deserves every generous reading you are giving him."

I pressed my hand against Eli.

I thought about what Jacob had said before Eric came in. Not for the situation. Not for being here in this chair in this room. For the three years before any of this.

He had said it before I asked. Before Eric arrived to make the exact argument Eric was now making.

He had prepared me for this exact conversation.

"Eric," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Tell me what you want from this conversation," I said. "What specific outcome are you working toward?"

He looked at me. The warm expression held.

"I want you to trust me," he said. "Over Jacob. What I have built with you here is more real than anything a man who denied you publicly for three years can offer."

"And if I trust you," I said, "what happens to Jacob?"

He was quiet.

"And if I trust you," I said, "what happens to me after Eli is born?"

He held my gaze.

I reached out and closed my hand around his wrist. The way I would before a vision.

I was not looking for a vision.

I was looking at his face when he understood what I was doing.

His expression shifted. Just slightly. Just enough.

"Violet," he said.

"I see things," I said. "You have known it for six months."

He looked at my hand on his wrist.

"What are you seeing," he said. His voice was careful.

"A man who genuinely cared and also genuinely planned something underneath the caring," I said. "Both things are true at the same time."

"And," he said.

"I cannot trust both things at the same time," I said. "I can only trust one."

I let go of his wrist.

He sat in the chair for a long moment.

Then he stood up.

"Rest," he said. "Helen is coming back at nine."

He went to the door.

"Eric," I said.

He stopped.

"The tea was exactly right," I said. "It always was."

He said nothing. He went out.

The lock turned.

I pressed both hands on Eli and I breathed and I thought about Jacob in the chair working the rope at his left wrist.

Nineteen minutes between checks.

One hand loose.