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A scheidung—twin divorce—was the worst fate that could befall a woelfin. Even if someone was exiled from her family, a twin usually chose to leave along with her.
Twins were forever. Woelfin weren’t meant to live alone.
And, sure, Bastion and I had been off on our own for much of the last decade. But we’d checked in with our cousins. We’d stayed in contact. Learning to stand on our own two feet was normal young-adult behavior.
A scheidung was most definitely not.
“Grace....” I reached out, touching only thin air as she stooped to gather up my clothes before disappearing into the bathroom. I’d learned the hard way that she could amuse herself for hours in similar tiny tiled prisons. There was no point trying to wait her out.
So I donned Grace’s armor—high-heeled shoes and white gloves and a tiny hat that didn’t quite manage to cover my untamable curls. Then I headed toward the chatter in the back garden.
I’d have to fix this misunderstanding later. For now, I had a murderer to catch.
***
UNFORTUNATELY, I DIDN’T make it more than twenty feet before a male voice waylaid me. “Honor. Do you have a minute?”
There were dark circles underneath Mr. Smythewhite’s eyes. His jaw was tight. It was clear he’d recognized me from his lover’s house...and I really couldn’t afford to be fired right now.
I started to brush past him. “Not right at this instant.” My gaze was carefully averted, which was all the opening he needed to reach out and grab my arm.
“Let me rephrase that,” he said, pulling me down the hall in the same direction I’d come from. “We need to talk. Now.”
I wasn’t a fan of being manhandled. No wonder my pelt vibrated around my neck, urging me onto the offensive.
Unfortunately, Slim possessed most of my weaponry. Grace had claimed my backup dagger. My pelt was all I had left.
Well, my pelt and my charm. Since I couldn’t use the former, I decided to channel my sister and pretend I possessed the latter. “Your wife is expecting me....”
Mr. Smythewhite froze, spinning to face me so fast my elbow banged into a door frame. “So you’ve told her.”
At least he was no longer dragging me down the hall toward his office. But his grip didn’t loosen and his face remained grim.
“Told her...?” For a moment, I had no idea what we were discussing. In my defense, my funny bone ached like crazy.
“About my extracurricular activities.”
Then it all became clear. Mr. Smythewhite thought his wife had asked me to spy on him as part of my duties. He expected me to report on his infidelities.
Or, no, he expected to bribe his way out of trouble. Because he’d pulled out a thick leather wallet and started peeling off hundreds.
I laughed. This was absurd. “No.”
“What do you want then?”
It felt strange being on the other end of attempted blackmail. Mr. Smythewhite no longer squeezed my arm. Instead, I was the one squeezing his fears like an overripe pimple.
For half a second, the power was heady...until I realized I wanted nothing Mr. Smythewhite possessed.
He had a sick son. A murderous wife. And a lover who didn’t even know he was married. I felt sorry for him.
“I won’t tell her,” I promised. “But you should.”
Assuming, of course, his wife wasn’t locked up for murder before he got the chance.
***
HUSBAND SHAKEN OFF, I went in search of the wife. And I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into the garden. The trouble was, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what.
It certainly wasn’t the decor, which had transformed the space from wooded lawn into fairy banquet hall. There were silk streamers and cut flowers and pockets of ladies clustered around waiters serving hors d’oeuvres.
Dead in the center of the bustle was Mrs. Smythewhite. Classy and collected as only a cold-blooded murderer could be hours after the death of her third victim.
“Grace!” She met my eyes from the far side of a long, cloth-covered table. More forks, spoons, and knives than I could imagine being used for one meal were arranged around sparkling china. “You’re just in time. Come sit by me.”
The other ladies had appeared to be deep in conversation when I entered. But the moment Mrs. Smythewhite moved toward the table, they followed her like a flock of starlings swirling in perfect synchrony around a corn field. For a split second, I wondered if our hostess could have possibly drugged the punch.
“Unlikely,” I muttered aloud, reddening when a passing lady glanced pointedly away from me. Chemical manipulation wasn’t the killer’s MO. And what kind of drug, outside of fiction, could mold so many women into instant obedience? No, it was merely good manners to pay attention to your hostess...something I should try to emulate since I was currently presenting myself as Grace.
All this time, Mrs. Smythewhite’s eyes hadn’t left mine. Now, she patted the seat beside her, one eyebrow raised in what was more command than question. There was no solution other than smoothing my skirt over my knees and sinking down into the designated space.
“You look so much like your mother,” she said once I was finally seated. The ache of wrongness in my stomach was now so intense that I would have suspected poison if I hadn’t known I’d yet to put anything in my mouth.
Something is very, very wrong. The knowledge pounded against the inside of my cranium. Instead of letting the weakness consume me, however, I attacked the obvious lie.
“Really?” I raised my eyebrows. Did Mrs. Smythewhite say this to everyone? Did she really get away with these fictitious friendships with complete strangers’ dead parents?
The older woman was saved from answering when a waiter leaned between us, ladling steaming soup out of a wide tureen. Another followed, doling hot bread out of a cloth-covered basket.
Everything smelled delicious. I couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten. No wonder my mouth was full of glutinous fibers when Mrs. Smythewhite finally responded to my jab.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I...” I covered my mouth, realizing I was presenting the lady across from me with an excellent view of half-chewed bread crumbs. Definitely not DAR lunch appropriate. Grace would have been mortified.
Of course, my twin wasn’t present. Instead, it was Mrs. Smythewhite’s follow-up that hit me like a brick to the head.
“Promise and I were college roommates.” She paused, reaching out to almost but not quite touch the high cheekbones Grace and I had both inherited from our mother. “Or wait, you’re not Promise’s daughter, are you? You’re Charity’s.”
A sob—silent but earthquake-caliber—caught in my chest at the familiar names. I swallowed, croaked out a question. “You really knew my aunt?”
Murderer or not, Mrs. Smythewhite was a magnet. I leaned in close as she told me about a time I’d never imagined.
“Promise and I were as close as sisters,” she confirmed. “It was hard for her when your mother decided to go to a different college.”
“But”—this didn’t match up with my understanding of the past—“Mom and Aunt Promise were so close they could finish each other’s sentences. I thought they came out of the womb holding hands.”
Not like me and Grace. Different as night and day the moment we were born. I squalled like a thunderstorm; she cooed like a rainbow. For a long time, our disparate pieces had fit together with the sturdy strength of a log cabin. Now, our differences were spikes pushing us apart.
The notion that our mother and aunt might have felt similarly in their twenties....
“It’s natural to have trouble finding your identity. Especially as a twin.” Mrs. Smythewhite took my hand underneath the table, the cool contact somehow warmer than the sun beginning to heat up the brunch space. “It was like a scene out of a movie when they reunited on graduation day. Charity broke into the ceremony halfway through, pushing through the crowd to drag her sister out of line for her diploma. A grand gesture. I ended up walking across the stage alone.”
I had so many questions that it was hard to choose one of them. “Was...?”
Before I could spit it out, a familiar voice interrupted from behind our heads. “I apologize for the intrusion, but your sister needs you immediately.”
Clipboard lady stood behind us, brows drawn together. I was one item on a thousand-item list, but she took the time to provide proof that Grace had indeed sent her.
“She was behind the bathroom door, so I might not have understood her perfectly. I think she said something about a wolfsfell though. Did I get that right?”
***
THE NAPKIN IN MY LAP fluttered to the ground as I left without excusing myself. Surely Mrs. Smythewhite wouldn’t do anything terrible in the midst of all these people. Surely....
The memory of Serena shrieking as she plummeted from the second-floor landing froze me. I grabbed clipboard lady’s arm before she could turn away.
“I need you to stick to Mrs. Smythewhite like a flea on a dog.”
Her mouth twisted. “Such colorful language.”
“I mean it. This is important.”
She had no reason to trust me. No reason to obey when I was asking her to keep an eye on her employer.
But something in my voice must have relayed the urgency, because she did treat me to a nod after one moment of consideration. “Okay, but....”
The pain in my gut was a pounding throb now. That hadn’t been poison. It was my twin-sense, telling me something was desperately wrong with my sister. Without waiting for further confirmation from clipboard lady, I ran.
I hadn’t taken time to ask which bathroom Grace was in, but I didn’t need to. Because my gut told me she wasn’t inside at all. Instead, it led me around the other side of the house, the part of the lawn that non-guest bedrooms opened onto. There, a dark shape on a balcony materialized into two figures as I raced in the direction my gut led.
I slowed. They were embracing. This wasn’t my twin; it was a tryst to which I had most definitely not been invited.
Then I took one step sideways and the pair materialized into Grace and Clarence. Not kissing. Instead, the dagger I’d given my sister was clenched in his fist and pressed up against her unprotected throat.