The two exchanged unhappy glances, and part of me hoped they’d deny us access. A big part. If I couldn’t go down there, then Tips would have to meet me somewhere else. It would be better that way. I wasn’t at my sharpest, and if there was ever a conversation where I needed focus, this was it. Why was it so cursed hot in here?

“As you like, my Lord Comte,” one of the men said, and the platform rotated over the shaft, my stomach contents bobbling as it shifted under our weight.

“Ring the bell when you’re ready to come back up, my lord.”

The platform dropped out from underneath us.

I flung my arms out to keep my balance, my teeth clamping together to prevent a dignity-compromising yelp from filling the air.

“Bastards,” Marc swore, glaring up as we hurtled down the shaft, the gleaming girders lighting our passage. But it wasn’t the speed of our descent that bothered me, it was the amount of rock piling up above our heads.

The lift stopped, and I stumbled off.

“You’re late.” Vincent sat on a crate a few feet away, his arms crossed. “Are you sure it was wise you coming down here, Tristan? I know this is not your favorite place.”

“It seems a long time since wisdom guided my actions,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “Let’s get going.”

“Good.” Vincent’s voice sounded unfamiliar and sour. “You took forever getting here, and I’ve a quota to meet.” Not waiting for a response, he started down one of the narrow tunnels leading under the mountain. Marc and I exchanged weighted looks before starting after him, his lone shape hunched over beneath the low ceiling.

This was Vincent and Victoria’s punishment for having helped me, spending day after day, night after night, in the mines. It was hard, dirty, and dangerous work, but it hit me then that the work wasn’t the punishment. My father had separated them.

The twins’ mother had died in childbirth, and their father had passed only days later from the shock of it. Victoria and Vincent had been raised by half-blood servants with only each other for family. They had always been inseparable, never going more than a few waking hours apart. Now, they’d be lucky to see each other for a quarter-hour each day. It was the worst thing he could have done to them. The twins were broken, Anaïs was dead, and Marc…

“How did he punish you for helping me?” I asked quietly.

Marc took a long time to respond. “I was fined.”

There was something about his tone that told me there was more to it than a fine, but Marc was not one you pressed.

Vincent stopped abruptly and I nearly collided with him. Turning round, he fixed me with a stare. “They came to his house and took all of Pénélope’s things away. All her art. All his portraits of her. Everything.”

My father knew everyone’s weaknesses. And Pénélope was Marc’s. No one knew that better than me.