Page 82 of Consort's Glory
The paint was thickly laid in the brightest areas and gossamer thin in the darkest; the subject a crystalline lake with a rough, pebbled beach, ringed by a forest that appeared to lean toward the water as if drawn.
A ping of alarm went off in the back of Margot’s mind as she squinted at the painting.
With the stroke of a brush, an old dock was rendered in the far corner — almost an afterthought. A familiar red tackle box was just a dot of color.
Margot stepped closer, her heart a hammering beat in her throat.
Was that a figure sitting alone, legs dangling over the edge? It was so small that the artist had only given the form life with a stroke, a smudge, a hint of light on something orange, but—
“Do you like the painting?” Big hands, smooth leather, the faintest bite of cold claws. Her fiancé. Theodore slid his hands into the wide neck of her borrowed coat to rub the tense muscles of her nape.
Her throat was tight when she said, “These look like the ones in the Tower. Same artist?”
It was like he couldn’t get close enough to her. If nothing else proved that Theodore was sincere in his desire to be her bondmate, her husband, the way he constantly tugged her closer, petted her, kissed her hair and her face and her hands, did.
Not that she could really process that truth yet, but…
Curling an arm around her shoulders to draw her back against his chest, he rumbled a delightfully soothing purr. “Yes. My sister painted them all.”
Delilah Solbourne. A sense of foreboding swept a chill down her spine. The Executioner.
Theodore’s sister was the former sovereign, legendary for her swift action, lack of explanations, and the cold-hearted execution of her own father. Margot had read about her in articles and heard her name mentioned on the news countless times. Her image, glossy and gorgeous, was as familiar to her as the ancient High Gloriae’s was.
Personally, Margot had always found something in Delilah’s dark-eyed gaze a little… wrong. Like she wasn’t entirely there.
Now that feeling of unease came rushing back with a vengeance.
Without thinking, Margot reached up to grasp Theodore’s wrist. The contact soothed the restless pacing and clawing of her other half, while the witch-forged bond between them sang a high note of pleasure.
Fighting to keep her voice even, she asked, “Do you know where this place is?”
“Hm, no.” She could feel him shrug. “I don’t normally ask, though. She just sends them to me with a note about where to hang them. It’s an easy enough way to make her happy, so I don’t think about it too hard.”
“I know where it is,” she croaked. “It’s Goode Lake.” Margot pointed at the dock, to the tiny, indistinct figure perched on the wood. The longer she looked, the more she saw. A familiar pink flip-flop, a dot of color to represent the edge of a much-loved beach towel. “Theodore, is that me?”
He took his time answering. Tentatively, he answered, “That is… very possible.”
“Have you been watching me?” Her stomach tightened into a hard, anxious little ball. “Do you have surveillance on the Goodeland?”
Didn’t Theodore say that he didn’t know who she was until she “came into range”? But this — Margot couldn’t recall the last time she sat on the dock. She had no time to relax like she once did, not with the apprenticeship and her studies and getting her papers published anonymously so no one could track them back to her, something that took way more work than one would think.
Her mind raced, trying to place when she would have owned that pair of bright pink flip-flops with a time when she would have had a moment to spare. A nervous sweat broke across her chest. I would have been nineteen.
“Margot, no.” Theodore turned her around with firm hands. His expression was thunderous, his eyebrows sharply angled over dark, troubled eyes. “Don’t get upset, darling. It’s not what you think.”
She made a high noise in the back of her throat just as she spotted another painting across the room. Margot didn’t need to get close to it to recognize the familiar lines of a white-washed house almost overgrown with climbing roses. “That’s my grandma’s house,” she gasped, horrified. “That’s— you can see my curtains!”
Yellow. Her curtains were yellow. Delilah rendered them with a jaunty splash of color peeking out from behind a fringe of wild roses about to bloom. Was Margot standing just inside that window, unsuspecting? Just how long did the Solbournes have the Goodeland under surveillance? Their wards were the best in the world. How could they have managed such a feat?
Why?
Warm, leather-covered hands on her cheeks pulled her attention away from the painting of her grandmother’s house. Theodore fixed her with a hard look. A deep rumbling in his chest made the other half of her settle into a watchful crouch. “Hush now, darling. Let me answer your questions before you start jumping to the worst possible scenario.”
He ran the pads of his thumbs over her cheeks in a soothing rhythm as he explained, “This is a secret I can only share with you. This is a family secret. I need to know that you won’t share it with anyone before I tell you.”
Margot gave him the look the words deserved. “If it’s a secret that jeopardizes the safety of my Coven, I absolutely will not keep it to myself, Theodore.”
His lips curled in a slight smile. “I’m not asking you to. This isn’t what you think. But this isn’t just my secret. I need you to understand that if I tell you this, it’s a lot of trust I’m giving you. It’s about my family. Do you understand?”
