Read Chapter 30: The Missing Brother Found

The road home stretched long and grey, the sea wind at our backs slowly giving way to the smell of turned earth and hedgerow. Roderick rode close beside me, his horse’s shoulder nearly brushing mine, and I found myself stealing glances at him the way a thief might count coins—afraid the treasure would vanish if I looked too long.

He had not let go of my hand since we left the lighthouse.

“You keep staring,” he said, without turning his head.

“You keep being stared at,” I replied.

The corner of his mouth lifted, the first true smile I had seen on him since before Marlow End, and it warmed me more than any spell ever had. That was the wonder of it—there was no magic left in me to explain the feeling. Only him. Only the steady, unmagical fact of Roderick Chase, who had loved me when I had nothing left to give.

“We should reach the crossroads by—” He stopped mid-sentence.

I followed his gaze. A figure had emerged from the tree line ahead, staggering onto the road like a man who had forgotten how roads worked. He was thin, gaunt, his clothes hanging off him in tatters that might once have been a gentleman’s travelling coat. His hair was long and unkempt, his face shadowed with weeks of dirt and beard.

But I would have known him anywhere.

“Benedict.”

I was off my horse before I knew I had moved, my boots hitting the packed earth hard enough to jar my teeth. I ran. The figure looked up, blinking as if he could not trust the sight of me, and then his legs buckled.

I caught him before he fell, my arms wrapping around a frame that felt half the size of the brother I remembered. He smelled of salt and captivity and something sour I did not wish to name.

“Cordelia,” he breathed against my hair. “You’re alive. You’re actually alive.”

“I should say the same of you, you impossible—” My voice cracked. I pulled back to look at him, at the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the raw marks around his wrists where irons had bitten. “They told us you were dead. We mourned you, Benedict. Mother lit a candle every single night.”

“They wanted me dead.” His fingers found my sleeve and held on as if I might dissolve. “Sir Hugh’s men took me off the ship before it ever reached France. They kept me in a prison near Calais, a private cell where no one would think to look for a dead man. I escaped three weeks ago. Walked most of the way.”

“Why?” Roderick had dismounted and approached, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword out of habit, though there was no threat here. “Why imprison you instead of killing you outright?”

Benedict’s eyes moved to Roderick, and something flickered in them—recognition, wariness, calculation. “You’re the husband. The Ashworth who isn’t an Ashworth.”

“I am.”

“She chose well, then, if you came for her.” Benedict’s voice rasped, but there was steel beneath the exhaustion. He straightened slightly, leaning on me less. “I knew things. That was my crime. I discovered Sir Hugh’s smuggling operation—silks, brandy, and other cargo that had nothing to do with trade. Human cargo, Cordelia. Young women with the Ashworth blood, sold to families who wanted to breed the gift into their lines.”

My stomach turned. “The twins,” I said. “Amelia and her sister. They were part of it.”

“Everyone was part of it.” Benedict’s voice dropped low. “But Sir Hugh was only the face of it. He had a partner, someone who moved in circles he could not, someone who knew the Ashworth bloodline better than we did ourselves. A woman. Veiled, always. He never spoke her name to me, but I heard the guards whisper it when they thought I was asleep.”

I felt Roderick go still beside me. “What did they call her?”

“The widow.” Benedict’s gaze met mine, dark and haunted. “She married into another name years ago, took a husband from a family of some standing so she could move freely in society while Sir Hugh did the dirty work. I never learned who, but she still lives. She paid the guards who held me. She’s the one who wanted me kept alive, not dead. Said I might be useful bait for the girl who escaped.”

The girl who escaped. Bile rose in my throat. “She wanted me.”

“She wanted the full Ashworth power, from what I gathered.” Benedict’s voice faltered. “Sir Hugh thought he could unlock it through sacrifice. But the widow believed it could be bred, cultivated, harvested through the bloodline. She was patient. He was not. That was their quarrel—that was why he acted so rashly at the end. He was trying to beat her to it.”

Roderick stepped forward and placed his hand on Benedict’s shoulder. “Sir Hugh is dead. He fell at the lighthouse.”

Benedict stared at him, then at me. “Then she’ll know soon, if she doesn’t already. She’ll come for you herself. She won’t make his mistakes.”

I looked down at the torn grimoire page I had tucked inside my bodice, the spell I had never cast, the words that might have broken the curse but had instead been spent in desperate improvisation. If the widow wanted the Ashworth power, and my magic was now gone—

“I’m worthless to her now,” I said slowly. “The power she wanted died with Sir Hugh. I used it all.”

Benedict’s brow furrowed. “You don’t understand, Cordelia. The gift isn’t the only thing in our blood. The curse lives there too. And curses are never spent. They’re only passed on.”

The road was silent save for the wind. Somewhere behind us, the sea still crashed against the rocks where a man had fallen, and before us, the home I had fled held a brother I had thought lost, a husband I had chosen without magic, and a future I could not begin to see.

“We need to get you to Old Meg,” I said finally, taking Benedict’s arm. “She’ll know what the widow’s presence means.”

“She’ll know what you’ve done,” Benedict said quietly, glancing at me with something like pity. “The cost of a broken gift is never borne alone.”

Roderick’s hand found mine, warm and steady, and I held on as we began the slow walk home.