Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I n the following days, Balthasar felt as if he were walking in a living nightmare. Eli had taken Rosa to his chambers where he wasn't permitted to go. He hadn't seen either since, and it had been up to Saul to comfort and console him. He couldn't forget what Rosa had whispered about seeing Jane. Would her ghost never stop haunting him?

Lily had been devastated to the point that Saul had mentioned locking her up so she didn't hurt herself or anyone else.

"You need to talk to her, Bal," Saul said looking far from his usual positive self. "You have always been able to get through to her where I could not. I'm her Sunshine Boy, but you are the brother she needs right now. She didn't know that Pearl had been sleeping around on her. She is heartbroken."

It wasn't until Saul was questioning him about Rosa's blood that Balthasar had remembered that Rosa had been forced to drink the queen's wine. He had tasted the magic in her, but he could never have imagined that it would have stayed in her blood long enough to eat away at a Gwaed Gam. There had been nothing left of Pearl for Lily to bury or mourn.

Balthasar finally relented and wandered through the silent house to Lily's rooms. He used to frequent them often. They would stay up late, discussing books and music, but since Pearl's arrival, he had kept away. He didn't knock, knowing she wouldn't answer, but let himself in.

The rooms that had always been so elegantly decorated were trashed. Paintings had been slashed and furniture thrown at walls. Lily sat in the corner of the room in a dirty night slip, long scratches up her arms.

"Lily," Balthasar whispered. "Lily, it's okay now. I am here."

Lily's large eyes peered out behind a veil of dirty hair. "Nothing is okay, brother. You don't know. If you knew, you would not be so kind to me right now."

"I don't blame you for Pearl. I won't hold you accountable for her actions. She was a toxic person, but I know that you loved her?—"

"For all the good it did. My love kills. It always has." Lily started to sob pushing Balthasar's hand away from her. "Don't touch me. Don't you dare try to comfort me. You don't know. You don't know..."

"What Lily? Just tell me and stop tormenting yourself."

"It was me," she cried. "I killed her. I killed our Jane. Rosa saw her. She knows! She knows!"

Balthasar sat on the ground beside her, the air knocked out of him. "Why Lily? Why?"

"It was an accident! I swear to you it was," Lily grasped his hands tightly. "I loved her. I loved her more than I felt I could love anything in the whole world. You knew how close we were but she...she loved you. I knew Eli was making things difficult for you. You would have to bring Jane into this world, and he didn't think she could handle it. She was such a sweet loving girl."

"We were down at the lake. I watched her swimming, and I thought my heart was going to burst. I wanted her so badly. We started talking, and she said that she was going to run away with you. You were going to take her far away from me. I would never have interfered with you marrying her or being with her. I just wanted to see her happy. I wanted to be around her even if I could not be with her. Then she told me that you would be leaving. I knew that if anyone could hide in this world from Eli, it would be you. I would never see her again."

Lily's eyes burned bright with pain and madness as the story continued to rush out of her in a flood of memories.

"I tried to talk her out of it. I was so panicked. I threatened to tell Eli everything. We argued, and she was so angry as she ran away from me. I went after her, tried to stop her so I could apologize. In my haste, I grabbed her, and she slipped. She fell backward and hit her head on a rock. She died instantly, a split second. I fed her blood and healed the wound on the back of her head. I did everything I could to save her, but she was dead. I knew that you would never forgive me, so in my fear, I hid her body in the reeds, and I ran."

Tears fell on Balthasar's cheeks for the lost years of anger and pain, for filling the loss of Jane with blood and violence, the memory of the years he had hated and blamed Eli and suffering the torment of never knowing what really happened.

Balthasar got to his feet as Lily sobbed loudly. "I believe you when you say it was an accident, but I can't look at you right now."

Hours later, Balthasar sat in the shelter of the lake pergola, staring sullenly out at the cold gray water. Snow stuck to the wooden boards of the little jetty, making it slippery and treacherous. He had built the pergola when he returned to be able to come and sit and remember Jane, and to remind himself of what he was like before her death. The chest of letters and keepsakes sat beside him, bundles of bittersweet memories and tokens clutched tightly in his hands.

"I am sorry, Jane," he whispered out to the lake. "I'm so sorry. I never knew. I know you wouldn't want me to hurt Lily. You know it was an accident. Maybe one day, I will forgive her like you would want me to. I don't know how I will learn to forgive her for keeping it a secret all this time, but she has suffered from the truth, so perhaps that is punishment enough. I hope you can forgive us both."

He put the trunk into one of the small wooden rowboats before whispering a spell that Eli had taught him. Since his time in Faerie, he could feel the Unseelie power in himself more sharply, and within seconds, the letters and the boat were burning hot.

He pushed it out into the lake, standing on the jetty, watching it burn and sink. "I know you would like Rosa, otherwise you would never have appeared to her. She keeps me in check like you used to. I hope you can be at peace now, my Jane. Be happy for me."