Page 57 of Immortal Rose

“Well?” came Foxcourt’s terse, nasal voice. “Are we to be admitted?”

The butler finally tore his gaze away, glancing at the letter before offering it back to me. “Of course. Where would you like to begin?”

“The study.” It was easy to lower the pitch of my voice when it felt like there was a stone wedged in my throat. “Please.”

“Very good,” Becksford said. “If you’ll follow me?”

I passed through the curtain of cool air hovering in the doorway.

My hands clenched and unclenched at my sides with each step into the cavernous marble entry of Briarwood Palace. As the door shut behind us, we were sealed inside of the house’s oppressive calm and deep silence.

Forcing my chin up, I swept my gaze around in quick strokes, as if the shallow glances would somehow help to inoculate myself against the house’s chill. The amount of stone and the glittering crystal dripping from the unlit chandeliers and sconces gave one the feeling of leaving the outside world of summer and entering an endless winter.

The scent of Briarwood Palace only intensified that impression. Musty hints of the house’s age wove through lingering tendrils of perfumes I recognized. But more than anything, the house smelled of the sharp bite of coming snow—of the deep, enduring sadness of grief.

Aside from the inobtrusive lidded vases with their rose and lavender potpourri, it seemed William Rosebourne had kept his home only lightly scented, likely to avoid antagonizing his superior sense of smell. It was what I had done in my own room, albeit with simple pots and my own dried herbs.

I looked back, surprised to find Foxcourt ambling behind me with his cane, his gaze fixed on me even as he allowed for a polite distance between us. The realization he was allowing me my space left me all the more disoriented.

I had the strangest sense of having been here before, but . . . of course not. I had visited Briarwood Palace only in my imagination, reading Mama’s words in her journal or falling asleep to her stories of it. She had described a palace of glass and the way its immense size only deepened the distance between her and her father as the years passed.

The hair on my arms rose as I took in the ghostly shapes of the furniture hidden beneath their protective cloths. The hearths were cold and dark behind their screens.

No. It wasn’t a home at all. Save for the insistent click of my boots on the marble floor, we were submerged in an almost otherworldly silence, that devastating stillness of the dead.

The chill deepened as we entered the main hall, skittering painfully across my skin. I caught myself glancing down at my covered arms, sure I would see the filth of the Brickbats and Fairgate seeping through my jacket sleeves.

Worse than an interloper, I was a secret shame never meant to be brought to light. Every object, every statue with its unseeing eyes, every brass inlay, every ornamental molding, felt accusing.

This is not for you, the house whispered around me. This was never meant for you.

Becksford slowed as we turned down another sumptuous hall, having already seen what lay ahead.

“—didn’t take nufin’!”

A man—a footman by his impressive livery—had a child by the scruff and was shaking him with enough violence to set my teeth on edge. The young boy was a winter’s day—that was to say, short and filthy. He looked as though he’d climbed down through one of the chimneys. Which, I realized in growing horror, he likely had. The soot-stained scamp swung his arms wildly, trying to dislodge himself.

“Becksford!” the footman called. “This rat lifted a silver off me.”

The butler looked to the sky as if silently praying to be struck down. “Are you quite certain?”

Foxcourt appeared at my side then, feigning difficulty in bending down. As he rose, he reached an arm out, and a silver coin appeared in his hand as if summoned by magic. My lips parted in surprise.

“Is this perhaps yours?” he asked, some of Foxcourt’s cold precision slipping through his nasal tone. “Rather careless to have dropped a week’s wage.”

The footman’s eyes latched on to the coin. He released the boy, tossing him to the floor like rubbish. I took a step forward, only to be stayed by the inconspicuous pressure of Foxcourt’s other hand.

“Here you are,” Foxcourt said, pressing it into the other man’s outstretched palm.

The footman huffed, giving him a speculative glance before sauntering past the butler with a rude cluck of the tongue.

Oh, yes. He would be the first set out on the street once I was in control.

“I need to return to my duties in closing the house,” the butler said after a moment. “The study is just at the end of the hall, the last door on your right.”

“Thank you,” I murmured as he hurried away.

The chimney sweep tried to make his own escape, only for Foxcourt to catch him by the shoulder. He leaned down, murmuring something to the boy my ears couldn’t catch. The child gave him a look of extreme skepticism but nodded all the same, dashing off.