I Won't Cry

"Miss! The blood—!"

Butler Noel raised his voice the instant he saw me come through the door.

He kept hovering in my path as I walked, and it grated on me. Everything grated on me right now.

"Noel, I want to be alone."

I managed to get the words out, sent the butler away, and went back to my room, letting my heavy body drop onto the sofa.

I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, and I did not move until the sun had gone down behind me. No. I couldn't.

I resented Dorothy. I resented Countess Heinrich. I resented Viscount Cecilia. And I resented myself. The anger would flare at them and then turn back on me, and that rage, with nowhere else to go, circled inside my chest and grew. And when the fury swelled until I thought I would burst, the bruises came again.

It hurt.

"I thought I'd find you crying."

A voice came out of the dark.

I lifted my head from between my knees, and a large shadow approached and struck a light. He lit a lantern, then the candles, came toward me, and set whatever he was carrying down on the table.

I tracked him dully with my eyes as he moved. A hand reached out without warning and lifted my chin.

"What in the world..."

He cut himself off and clicked his tongue. Then he pressed a damp gauze to the corner of my mouth.

Is he going to kidnap me again?

I let him.

The wet gauze rubbed over my lips and along my chin. The harsh smell of antiseptic reached me a beat late, and my lips stung.

"You'd be better off crying."

"I'm not crying."

The words left my mouth before I had even decided to speak.

Hearing my own voice, I felt the deadened sensation in my body start to return. My numbed awareness seemed to stir awake as well.

I am taking my sister home to Dvorden. Until then, I will not cry. And before that, one more thing: I will put a hole through Viscount Cecilia's forehead. And one more after that: I will learn who that man is.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I pushed away Lyft's hand, which was still wiping at my chin, and asked.

He frowned, withdrew the gauze, and opened a tin of ointment as he answered with a question of his own.

"Would it have been better to hear it from me?"

I didn't know. Would his indifference have been even crueler? Perhaps not as vicious as Countess Heinrich, at least.

"The man Count Heinrich wanted to curry favor with. Who is he?"

Lyft didn't answer. Instead, he held out a finger smeared with ointment.

I turned my head away from the finger heading for my lower lip and asked again.

"Who is he?"

"Countess Heinrich doesn't know everything."

"But you do. The man who toyed with my sister and threw her away. Who is he?"

"Not everything she knows is true, either."

What?

I stared at Lyft with wide eyes, and his finger caught my lip by surprise. It stung again. His finger spread ointment over the split and withdrew.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Lyft was closing the ointment tin, avoiding my gaze.

Come to think of it, Lyft had said from the beginning that Dorothy had likely been murdered. That was a different story from what I had heard from Countess Heinrich today.

Impatience seized me. I grabbed his hand and raised my voice.

"I asked you what that's supposed to mean! What else do I need to know?"

"My lady."

"Tell me!"

Lyft finally set the ointment down. The warmth drained from the eyes that met mine, leaving only a numb, empty light.

"What I'm about to tell you is, at this point, only conjecture. Nothing has been confirmed with certainty. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand. Just tell me."

"The Caliwood Imperial Direct Police Bureau has been watching a social club of high-ranking nobles called the 27th Street Club for a long time. Four years ago, when Viscount Cecilia joined the 27th Street Club, he became a subject of investigation as well."

"Four years ago..."

"The Police Department believes he used the viscountess to gain membership in the club."

"So Viscount Cecilia married Dorothy from the start intending to use her that way?"

"...The man who effectively leads the 27th Street Club is known to prefer women with pale blonde hair and blue eyes."

Lyft put it delicately, but that did not make the hideous truth any prettier. There had never been any love. Dorothy had never flushed and fluttered over anything real. She had been thoroughly used by a vile, filthy man's desire. For four years, no less.

I clutched the right side of my head as a stabbing pain began there, and Lyft went on.

"The Police Department began a full investigation of the 27th Street Club two years ago, when young women started disappearing. Viscount Cecilia and the viscountess came under investigation at the same time."

"Wait. I have no idea what you're talking about, Count. Women disappeared? Are you saying there were missing persons cases?"

The conversation had taken such an abrupt turn that I was still reeling, but Lyft's expression didn't change. No. His gaze only hardened further as he slowly nodded. It was an affirmation as absolute as they came.

"Missing? Missing persons cases?"

"Eight confirmed cases so far. And we believe there are more victims."

"Wait. So you're saying that social club was kidnapping people?"

"That's what we believe."

The story was taking a grotesque turn. Eight serial disappearances, and I still could not understand why my sister had ended up on the list of suspects.

Lyft seemed to read the question in my eyes. The gold irises looking straight at me wavered for the briefest instant, but the voice that followed was as numb as ever.

"The Imperial Direct Police Bureau believes Viscount Cecilia and the viscountess were supplying victims to the 27th Street Club."

"What?!"

"We also believe that every one of the missing women is dead."

Lyft's last words drove in like a spike. I shot to my feet before I knew what I was doing, then staggered as a sharp pain lanced through me. The headache felt like an axe splitting my skull. I crumpled, and Lyft caught me.

I all but hung from his arm as I sank back onto the sofa, and a shallow sigh sounded above my head. I pressed my hands to my skull, gasping, and shook my head.

"That's impossible. It's impossible. Dorothy would never have done something like that."

"A considerable body of evidence supporting the circumstances has already been secured."

He keeps saying we believe, we estimate—and then he says they already have evidence. He's saying Dorothy went along with disappearances, maybe even murders. That my little sister was an accomplice to a monstrous crime.

Countess Heinrich's malice would have been easier than this.

Dorothy. Dorothy. What in God's name did you do? And what in God's name did I not know?

"My lady. Open your mouth. Lady Dvorden."

Lyft's words weren't quite reaching me. My head felt as if it had finally split open. The world swam, and all I could do was clench my teeth against the fear that I might lose consciousness again.

"Pardon me."

Lyft apologized without warning. Something pushed into my mouth. It forced its way between my teeth, holding my mouth open so I couldn't close it again.

It was Lyft's finger. His other hand was pressing gauze to my chin. More precisely, he was wiping the blood running from beneath my lower lip.

I'd thought I was clenching my teeth. Apparently I had bitten through my lip again.

He forced my face toward him and spoke quickly.

"I don't believe the viscountess joined of her own free will. More likely, she cooperated because she had no choice—to keep from becoming another victim herself."

"What do you mean?"

I mumbled the question around Lyft's finger, and he withdrew his hand to answer.

"Every one of the missing women had blonde hair and blue eyes."

I stared blankly at his gold eyes. Lyft's gaze slid slightly aside as he continued.

"The Imperial Direct Police Bureau believes Viscountess Cecilia was also murdered, for reasons we have yet to determine. It's highly likely the death was staged as a suicide."

"Staged..."

"Right now, determining the cause of the viscountess's death is our only way to find a lead on the serial murders. She's the only person whose movements before and after death we can establish with any certainty. That's why I asked for your cooperation, my lady."

The headache that had started on the right side was spreading through my entire skull, but I forced my eyes wide open with everything I had. I seized Lyft by the collar and hung on, screaming at him.

"Arrest Viscount Cecilia and interrogate him. He might have killed my sister. At the very least, he'd know who did!"

"If we arrest Viscount Cecilia, the 27th Street Club will pin every crime on him and cut him loose."

"Then catch the real killer. You said all the missing women had blonde hair and blue eyes. Isn't it obvious? The leader of that insane club is the one who did it!"

"He... cannot be investigated or arrested without ironclad evidence."

"Why? How important can he possibly be that you can't even investigate him? You're the head of the Imperial Direct Police Bureau!"

Lyft didn't answer, but even as I screamed at him, I understood.

A man that even Count Cayder—head of the Imperial Direct Police Bureau, investigating under the protection of the Marchioness of Derian herself, the Crown Prince's own aunt—could not lay a hand on.

Royalty.