AS I LEFT the room, I grabbed a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around me.
Running down the corridor, across the breezeway, down another corridor and up the winding stone steps, I barged into Beth’s room to find it empty. On the floor, next to her bed, was a set of blueprints. The same plans Dane had shown her for the wing he was going to build for Rhys. MP was printed on the bottom, Max Pinter’s logo, along with the date. June 28 of last year. These were drawn up a week after the solstice. How could he have possibly known I would come here? That Rhys would come here? But that wasn’t the most troubling thing. The file number printed on the top right-hand corner was the same number I scrawled in red wax at the dinner party. The realization worked its way down my spine until it was undeniable. These were the plans Max Pinter was referring to before he was dragged from the party . . . what Timmons was trying to tell me before he died.
The blueprints indicated that the wing was underground, right below the main floor, not at all where Dane had told Beth it was going to be. I hoped to God I was reaching, trying to make connections that didn’t belong together, but I had to know the truth.
Grabbing the plans, I ran down the stairs. As soon as I reached the main hall, the scent of the immortals’ blood filled my nostrils. Their stench should’ve dissipated by now, but it was more than that. Rhys’s blood was laced throughout. I’d know that smell anywhere. Was the council still here? Did they somehow get ahold of my brother? Following the scent to the ballroom, I flung the doors open to unleash a sea of blood, the floor littered with bodies. I wanted to run, to close the doors and never come back, but I could smell my brother among them. I had to make sure he wasn’t one of the dead. As I waded through the viscera, the bottom of my sheet soaking up their foul blood, I made a point to look at each and every face, frozen in a state of final agony. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport, Mr. and Mrs. Bridges, Mr. Jaeger, all of the immortals and the guards that were left behind to protect them. So many bodies.
I was relieved to find that Rhys wasn’t among them, but Lucinda wasn’t there, either. I pried a champagne glass from one of the guards’ hands and took a whiff. There was no trace of my scent. It was Rhys’s blood, and it was fresh, too.
I was racking my brain, trying to figure out how this happened, when I remembered Dane handing the blood bag to the guard, the same guard who went down to fetch the champagne. What if the guard brought up a different bag? Dane could’ve swapped those out in a heartbeat. Classic bait and switch—I’ve seen him do his little magic tricks with rocks, spoons—why not a blood bag? I couldn’t help going over every moment I spent with him, trying to decipher who I was really with, but none of that mattered anymore. I’d let myself be distracted by him for the last time.
Dragging the blood-drenched sheet behind me like a corpse, I followed the lines of the blueprints, searching for a possible entry, when I found myself standing in front of a blank wall, the same wall Beth had urinated in front of when we first arrived, the same spot they found her weeping before they locked her away.
I ran my hands over the wall, noticing Lucinda’s keys dangling from a false electrical socket.
As I leaned down to turn the key, the wall popped open, sending fresh chills over my entire body.
“Underfoot,” I whispered, a hollow sound escaping my throat.
Slipping inside the darkened hallway, down two sets of metal stairs, I came to a glass-paneled door, which led to a small chamber. I peered inside the room; there was a solid metal door on the other side of the room, a half-dozen hazmat suits hanging from hooks in the wall, and a dozen or so metal cylinders lined up against the side wall. As soon as I stepped inside, the door locked behind me, a red light above the metal door on the far end flared, followed by a wet, hissing sound, as a fine mist sprayed down from the vents in the ceiling. It was some kind of hydrogen-peroxide-based solution. It was the same scent I always detected on Lucinda’s skin.
I tried to open the metal door on the other side, but it was locked, too.
“Three minutes,” a weak voice came from the back corner of the room.
I whipped around to see Lucinda, slumped to the floor, blood seeping from her pores. “That’s how long it takes for the disinfection cycle.”
“What is this place?” I asked as I tugged at the door.
“All of this was created for you and your brother. A living tomb. We would keep you here, drain you, feed you just enough so you wouldn’t wither, but we’d have the disease and the cure. Coronado wanted to rule the council . . . rule the world.”
“If my brother’s dead,” I said as I stalked toward her, “if this is some kind of a trap, I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m already dead,” she said as she closed her eyes. “Besides, I have nothing left to lose.”
Pulling my hair back from my face, I took in a deep breath through my nose, trying to keep calm. More than anything, I wanted to paint the walls with her blood, but I needed answers. “Why haven’t you bled out like the others?” I said as I nudged her foot.
Her eyes fluttered open. “Coronado shared his blood with me—your blood. He said it would protect me. I believed him, because when I gave Rhys’s blood to Beth on that first night—”
“Wait. That was the medicine you gave her?” I said as I clenched my fists.
“That was before I knew.” She attempted to swallow.
“Knew? Knew what? That you’re a psycho bitch?” I said as I paced in front of her.
“That Beth wasn’t a seer hell-bent on destroying us . . . that you weren’t Katia, coming here for revenge, and that your brother was just a boy, a frail, sweet boy, caught in the fray.”
“Don’t talk about my brother like you know him—like you care about him,” I said, my hands aching to be around her throat.
“When Beth didn’t die, that was the proof I needed. But it needs to come directly from the source . . . I understand that now. Coronado’s blood only carries traces of yours. It wasn’t enough to protect me. It only slowed the process. I’m dying just the same.”
“Good riddance,” I said as I turned away from her, staring up at the red light above the metal door, desperate for it to change.
“He betrayed us both,” Lucinda said. “He must’ve switched the bag. He was always very good with his hands.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said as I glared back at her. “He’s your brother. Your twin—”
“You’ll never understand what it was like. All those years alone together in this house. He hid me from the world. And as centuries passed, I lost touch with right and wrong, good and bad; he was the only thing I had. But Katia was always hanging over us. My hatred for her clouded my judgment, made me do terrible things, and now I know it was all a lie.”
“Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“I tried to get you to run . . . but you were blinded by his charm . . . blinded by what he wanted you to see. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands . . . to make you run. But Coronado was always one step ahead of me.”
“And what about Timmons and Rennert and Max Pinter and all the other immortals you killed? You’re telling me you had no choice?”
“All that was Coronado’s doing. He must’ve followed me to the alchemist’s, killing him after I left. I tried to stop Timmons’s death, but I was too late. Coronado’s been in control all along. Manipulating us. And when I saw what he was doing to Dane—”
“What about what you were doing to Dane? You hurt him. I saw what happened. You broke his wrist—”
“Inflicting pain is the only way to make Coronado retreat. My brother loves to inflict pain on others, but he will do anything to avoid the heat of an iron, the slice of a blade, the blow of a fist. Inflict pain and Coronado will hide from it like a coward to let Dane suffer in his place. I was trying to help you . . . both of you. The love you and Dane share is so pure. I’ve never seen a love like that. I thought I could reason with my brother, but when he married you, took you to his bed—our bed—I knew there was no going back.” She coughed, splashing blood on the back of her hand. “After sharing a womb, after everything I’ve done for him, sacrificed for him, he killed me along with the others, as if I were nothing. He wanted to be rid of me so he could have you all to himself, but you saw through him, didn’t you?” The slightest hint of a smile passed over her eyes. “You probably realized it wasn’t Dane the moment he touched you.”
A stab of remorse came over me when I thought about what happened last night. I wanted to believe I was genuinely fooled, caught up in the moment, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that, on some level, I knew and did it anyway. The darkest part of me, reaching out for what I thought I truly deserved.
Grabbing one of the chemical tanks, I raised it over my head to bash her head in, when the light turned green. I dropped the canister. “You don’t deserve a swift death. You should suffer.”
“For once we agree on something.” She looked up at me, the pain in her dark eyes piercing right into my soul. I knew that pain . . . the seething guilt pouring out of her matched my own.