Page 121 of Consort's Glory
Both Camille and Cameron, who looked almost identical to his sister except for the heavy silver jewelry he wore up and down the length of his pointed ears, froze momentarily, their catlike eyes fixed on Margot and the sigil between her brows.
Camille recovered first. “I… Are you kidding?” Turning furious violet eyes on her cousin, she gestured sharply to Margot with diamond-clad claws. “She’s the reason you tried to have Valen and Kaz take my mother in for questioning? Why on Burden’s green Earth would she care about you shacking up with a witch?”
Theodore rubbed his forehead, carefully avoiding the place where his new chalk sigil lay. “Cammie, your mother has tried to kill me three times in six months. The person who set up the bombing was a woman, and the money came from a Solbourne account. You think it’s unreasonable that she would go after my consort? Really?”
Camille narrowed her eyes. His cousin was lovely in a doll-like way, but when she jutted out her chin like that, Margot got the impression that she was made of far stronger stuff than porcelain. Behind her, Cameron crossed his arms and peered at Margot from under thick black lashes, like he was trying to put together a particularly troublesome puzzle.
“Mother did not put a bomb in your consort’s house,” Camille announced, each word bitten off with the utmost contempt.
Theodore arched his brows. “Can you prove it?”
Taking half a step closer, she hissed, “Yes, I can. You know why Mother hasn’t tried anything stupid the past two months?” She swept a glittering hand up, gesturing to her temple with a flick of her wrist. “Because she hasn’t been lucid.”
“What?” There was a chorus of low, astonished questions, but Theodore’s voice cut through them all. “Cammie, what happened—”
In a stiff, flat voice, Cameron answered, “Mother is sick.”
But elves didn’t get sick. Not like humans and other races did. The copper in their blood was a nasty surprise for most pathogens, making them immune to all but a select few diseases. Margot shot a questioning look at her husband. Baby, what are they talking about?
Theodore put a hand on her shoulder, the fight draining out of his expression to leave him — and everyone in the room except herself and Petra — pale.
It’s not sickness like you know it, he replied, his inner voice strained. But something that’s become increasingly common among our parents' generation. Mental degradation, then physical weakness and rapid aging. Our healers think it’s a symptom of the generational lack of pheromone binding among consorts.
A light clicked on in the back of her mind. Like the madness that hits if the pull starts and isn’t finished?
Very similar, yes, but this is slower. It can take years to show.
Margot stared at Camille and Cameron with new eyes, her heart squeezing as she spied the lines of stress around their mouths, the shadows in their eyes. No wonder Camille acted so outraged at the possibility of her mother being the bomber. If she was that unwell, there was no chance that it could be true.
Margot’s healer’s heart ached for them, but a quick glance and small shake of Theodore’s head told her there was nothing she could do to help.
Heaving a sigh, he said, “I didn’t know that, Cammie. You should have said something. We would have helped you.”
Camille’s violet eyes, striking against her pale lavender skin, took on a wet sheen even as she lifted her chin into a stubborn angle. “Mother wouldn’t have wanted your help.”
“No,” Theodore allowed. “She probably wouldn’t have.”
Why?
There was a note of raw sorrow in his inner voice when he answered, Because my father killed Cammie and Cameron’s father. He was Marian’s consort. That’s a wound nothing can heal.
Valen’s voice was a hard, grating rumble when he said, “Then we’re back to square one. Someone with access to the Solbourne accounts paid the bomber, but we have no trail to—”
“Oh, that was me.”
Every head turned to look at the statuesque woman in a crisp suit, unquestionably a Solbourne in looks and the way she held herself, standing by the table of refreshments. Her skin was pale blue, her eyes heavy-lidded and her lips full. A double thistle pin held her high collar closed, and she had one leg crossed over the other, displaying a silver-tipped leather boot. Her hip was casually propped up against a chair occupied by a woman Margot immediately recognized from years of entertainment feeds and magazine covers: the most beautiful woman in the world, Winnie Yadav.
Dark-skinned, with a head of electric, corkscrew curls and a face wrought so delicately, so strikingly, it almost hurt to look at, Winnie was one of the most arresting people on the planet.
At that moment, though, she wore a stiff-lipped look of resignation that was at odds with the way her consort, standing over her chair, addressed the room: utterly unbothered, her curvy body relaxed, her dark Solbourne eyes just a little… off. Despite Winnie’s fame, Margot’s eyes barely touched on her before they bounced back to the standing woman. A deep, primal part of her recognized an unfathomable danger in the blue-skinned woman’s familiar face.
Delilah Solbourne, The Executioner.
Theodore’s voice was a croak. “Delilah, no.”
Margot shot a quick glance at Kaz, noting how he closed his eyes and dropped his chin, his hands braced on his hips. In the expressions of everyone else, there was a note of shock, perhaps disappointment. In Kaz, there was only resignation.
He knew, she thought.
