“Phelan,” I whispered, but my voice turned to ash in my mouth.

“I hope you achieved whatever it was you wanted. I hope all your lies were worth it.” He took a step back; I felt the space between us like a chasm had formed in the floor.

I felt completely hollow.

“Bravo, Miss Madigan.” Phelan held out his arms to grant me a mock bow. He spoke a charm beneath his breath. I had never heard it before, and I tensed until I realized it was not directed at me but at him. I watched him fade away.

He was gone.

Alone, I sank to the floor, to the remains of my vines and thorns and withering magic.

31

He didn’t come home.

I sat in the library at his desk, watching patches of sun travel across the floor. I waited for him, words gathering in my chest, building like water behind a dam. Words I wanted, needed, to say to him. An explanation. An apology, even. Maybe. But Phelan never returned.

My disguise still held firm as my own skin. When I drew a deep breath and held it in my chest, I could feel the small crack within me. I wondered how much longer I had until the stone half of my heart shattered. If I could suffer a few more blows before the spell relinquished me.

Mrs. Stirling found me at noon, concern creasing her brow. “Miss Neven? May I ask what happened in the drawing room?”

I had cleaned it the best I could, but my vines had left a few fissures in the wall and the mirror. “A slight altercation, Mrs. Stirling.”

Her eyes widened. “I hope no one was harmed?”

“No, all is well.” The lies still flowed smoothly from my mouth. Gods above, I sounded just like my father.

She nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “A package has arrived for you.”

At first I thought it must be from Phelan. Something ominous, something to make me pay for all my deceit. But Deacon carried in a narrow clothes box and set it carefully on the desk before me.

“What is this?” I asked, wary.

“Your dress, Miss Neven,” Mrs. Stirling said. “For the countess’s dinner tonight.”

Oh. That was tonight. It was the seventeenth of November, and I had hardly known it.

I rubbed my brow, keenly distressed. But I tempered my feelings before Mrs. Stirling or Deacon could detect them, and I smiled. “Thank you. Have you heard from Phelan this morning? He left early, before I woke.”

“Yes, Miss Neven. He wrote and said he would be away for a few weeks.”

“Oh?” A few weeks? I paled at the thought, wondering where he had gone.

“Did he . . . did he not tell you?” Mrs. Stirling asked kindly. She finally inferred that the “slight altercation” had been between us and that I was completely in the dark.