Page 120 of Nightshade

Instead of answering, he stared back, a muscle in his jaw ticcing, which told me I’d nailed the hot button again.

“I’m imagining it’ll be like prom. You pretend to be my date, then you can ditch me at the door for your friends.” Perhaps a little too close to home that time.

His brows pinched to a tight frown. “Someone ditched you?”

“The guy was a jerk. I knew he wasn’t interested in going with me.”

He rolled his shoulders back, and his hand curled into a fist. “Who is he?”

“It was high school. What do I care? I haven’t seen him in almost a decade now.” Tipping my head, I ran my tongue over my back teeth, holding onto a smile. “You’re being protective.”

With a sneer, he turned away from me. “As if I give a damn about some lowly human.”

“He shacked up in a motel room with another girl that night. Left me at the dance. Aunt Nelle had to come pick me up. And trust me, there was nothing more humiliating than Aunt Nelle showing up in her bathrobe, threatening to smack the bejesus out of my date.”

He scoffed at that. “I would’ve killed him.” He didn’t bother to look at me, still staring out the window.

“Killed him for ditching me?”

“No. For asking you in the first place.”

I stared back at him, the carriage suddenly too small. My dress too tight and hot for the warmth that settled over me. “You are a mystifying enigma, Mister Van Croix.”

His gaze swung back to me, devouring me in one sweep. “And you are a frustrating distraction, Miss Ravenshaw.”

39

Lustina

“It is with great urgency that I, and the love of our Holy Father, call upon you good people this day. A young man has gone missing, and his mother fears what may have become of him.” Bishop Venable stood at the pulpit in the monastery’s courtyard, where a crowd had gathered. Fingers curled around the edge of the carved wood, he spoke with fervency, his eyes seemingly directed and fixed on Lustina. He’d already conducted days of inquisition with her, in his search for Drystan, through which she’d held her tongue, even as he incorporated small punishments. “I believe we have a murderer among us.”

The crowd gasped at his accusation, and he raised a hand to quiet them.

“One who stands to face the judgment of our righteous and just Holy Father, lest he, or she, finds the courage to come forward and confess the whereabouts of young Drystan. His mother, as a gracious and pious example of our merciful Lord, has asked that there be no punishment for he who divulges the boy’s state. I vow the confessor shall be protected, their dignity upheld.”

“And what of a reward?” someone shouted from the crowd behind Lustina.

The bishop’s eyes burned with malice. “Does the Lord ask for reward when He grants mercy on your soul?”

“I will offer a reward.” Lord Praecepsia stepped forward and turned to face the crowd. “For anyone with information that may assist in apprehending the boy’s offender.”

Lustina followed the path of the elder Van Croix’s gaze, toward where the baron stood beside him, his face a cool slate of no emotion.

After she’d left the undercroft, heard the screams, Lustina had watched, but neither the baron, nor Drystan, had emerged. Only days later had she brought herself to investigate that horrid room, where she’d feared what still lay within its walls, but there had been no sign of Drystan. Not a single shred of evidence that he’d ever been injured.

A discovery which left her just as baffled as the bishop.

“The witch’s spawn!”

Another voice from the crowd broke Lustina’s musings, and she turned to find an older woman, face red with scorn, pointing at her. “Only she could have accomplished such a thing without anyone seeing!”

The few sounds of agreement from others sent a wave of panic through the girl, and she snapped her gaze toward the bishop.

Chin lifted high, he stared down his nose at her, his lips twitching with what she surmised as pure arrogance. “I can assure you, I have made every effort to reveal the truth. Her dark and deceptive nature cannot rival the glory and immeasurable light of our Holy Father. However, if it is proven that she deludes us, she will suffer unimaginable consequences.”

* * *

In the monastery’s courtyard, Pentash Aurelia brought her two corners of the bed covering toward Lustina, who folded it over before setting it into the laundry basket lying on the grass. “Try not to think about them too much.” She, like Pentash Maria, had been kind since the day Lustina arrived at the monastery, embodying the charitable mindset she considered a virtue.