Chapter Twenty Two

Mira didn’t wake up again until well after dark. She was in a very Dickensian hospital room with plain, utilitarian furniture and the smell of carbolic acid in the air, but at least her bed had the virtue of not being in an open ward.

Vesper was asleep in a faded wingback chair opposite Mira’s bed. Cecily was sitting on the floor with her head in Vesper’s lap. They were both covered with thin hospital grade blankets.

Mira startled when a patch of shadow near the door asked, “Are you awake, miss?” and Colvin stepped out of it.

He looked like crap. He’d lost his jacket somewhere and the starch in his shirt had wilted long ago, leaving him looking like he’d slept in his clothes, although he clearly had not slept at all. He looked tired and worried and something about that brought tears to Mira’s eye. This was not how she would have wanted to learn that she only had tear ducts still on one side.

Colvin crossed the room in response to her first hitching sob. He produced a handkerchief and stroked her back as all Violet’s feelings came pouring out of her on top of her own frustration and helplessness.

“This is b-bullshit!” she gasped once the worst of it was past, so upset and pissed off that she forgot to screen her language for the current setting. “I s-should not b-be this fragile!”

Colvin took the kerchief away from her before she tore it in half and used it to dry her face. “This is not what fragility looks like,” he told her. “You’re alive when someone else might not be. How are you feeling?”

“Like I was run down by a cart horse,” she sighed and flopped over on her back. “Do we know what happened?”

He settled down on his heels so that they were at eye level and answered, “Miss Cecily thinks you might have seen the fourth prince right before the attack hit.”

“I think it was already coming on before that,” Mira admitted. “My feelings were becoming overwhelming for no reason and I think that happened last time as well. I did get some upsetting memories back, though. That couldn’t have helped.” She squinted up at the ceiling, trying to recall. “Did she say the inscription was amplifying the seizure?”

“It’s a theory,” Colvin said. “The doctors aren’t sure yet. His highness’s presence at the scene complicates matters since, as you say, he stimulated your memory.” He paused with his mouth in an unhappy twist. “May I ask…?”

“He was a terrible fiance,” Mira said bluntly. “I’m glad I don’t have to marry him.”

“You were clutching your face at one point during the episode,” Colvin said, very clearly trying to be gentle. “You screamed like you were dying.”

Huh.

Mira had absolutely no recollection of that. What else was she missing?

“I remembered the acid attack,” she said bluntly. “Some of it. I don’t remember my attacker exactly, but they were connected to him somehow. I think that person was also the one who startled my pony. I remember someone standing outside my bedroom window and saying that it would be worse next time if I didn’t behave. That memory triggered another memory of the acid attack, so it must have been the same person.”

Colvin covered his mouth with one hand and dropped his gaze for a little bit. Something about the watery light of the moon seeping into the room through the curtains made it look a bit like his red eyes were glowing in the moonlight. That wasn’t possible, of course, humans didn’t come with photo-emitters in their irises.

“It was Prince Andrei’s valet and childhood playmate,” Colvin explained after a while. His voice sounded hoarse. “This happened during a house party that the fourth prince was obligated to attend as your fiance. You two had an argument earlier in the day, shortly before ponies were brought out for the children to ride and that was when you fell. There was a maid sleeping by your bed that night on the side opposite from the window who heard him when he threatened you and she reported it to Lady Vesper.”

“What happened from there?” Mira asked, trying to match the story up to the disjointed scenes floating in her head.

Colvin snorted, “Vesper informed Prince Andrei’s steward that if the boy was ever seen on Coventry land again then it would be the last time he would be seen anywhere. They locked up the valet straightaway, but— then he escaped.”

“Escaped and got his hands on some acid?” she guessed.

Colvin nodded gravely. “There was a poorly secured supply of vitriol in the barracks attached to Fort Nightfall,” he said.

Mira squinted as she recalled that Fort Nightfall was the name of the Lord Warden’s seat of power. It was equal parts estate and fortress so it made sense that they might have sulfuric acid hanging around where a cruel child could get his hands on it.

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At least that answered the question of why her head injury was never properly treated. The acid attack happened so soon afterwards that they’d likely had to prioritize the acid burn. Her caregivers might have even forgotten about the first incident in the wake of the second until it was too late.