Chapter 321: For Good
The chamber was larger than their usual quarters, Damon’s consolidation having upgraded their accommodations to something defensible and visible.
Reginald stood near the window, his posture suggesting he had been pacing. Gertrude sat on a stool, her hands clasped so tightly that the knuckles showed white, her eyes finding her mother with something that was not relief.
And Jove... Jove lay on the bed, propped on pillows, his face pale, his eyes open and aware in ways that made Vera’s practiced expression falter.
"Mother." Reginald greeted.
"My darlings." She moved toward them, arms opening. "My poor darlings, I have been so worried—"
She reached for Gertrude first, the daughter who had always been receptive and whose need for maternal approval had been her leverage. But Gertrude flinched.
"Mother." The word emerged strange. "You should not be here. The guards said—"
"The guards are Damon’s." Vera let her arms fall. "As is everything now. As is this protection that is also imprisonment. Do you not see? He has killed your father, and now he keeps you from me, from the only one who—"
"Mother." Reginald’s voice again, sharper, interrupted. "Jove said... He said, you..."
Reginald couldn’t finish.
"What?" She turned to face him fully. "Your father wished to show me a gift. Your brother accompanied us. And then—" she let her voice break, telling lies as many times as she could until those who knew otherwise would also believe it, "—and then that man, that assassin, and your brother, my Jove, bleeding, and I could not—"
"You were very quick." Jove’s voice emerged thin. "Everything happened so fast."
Vera felt it then, the shift in the room’s temperature, the transformation of her children from audience to tribunal.
"I was frightened." She moved toward Jove’s bed. "I was frightene—"
She reached for his hand, the one that lay atop the blanket, pale and still. Jove moved it away.
"Don’t." Jove whispered in fear. "Don’t touch me, Mother."
"Jove—"
"Your hand." He looked at her, his eyes that were her eyes, the Leclerc color, the legacy she had given him, held something that was not trust, not the dependency she had cultivated since his birth. "Your hand was on my neck. Before I felt the pain. I remember."
Vera felt her expression freeze, the practiced sorrow cracking around its edges.
"You were trying to help me." Jove asked. He deliberately denied the truth for her as a test. He was awake when it happened. He was completely coherent, and his memory did not fracture. "Weren’t you?"
She looked at her children, her three children, arranged in this chamber.
"I was trying to save you," she said. "All of you. I was trying to save us all."
"From what?" Gertrude asked, since now she had started to wonder if her mother’s definition of threat might not align with her own.
"From Damon." Vera spat. "From the man who killed your father, who struck me, who would see you all—"
"Mother." Reginald moved between her and the bed, his body having grown in the hours since she had seen him, or perhaps her perception having adjusted to recognize what had always been present.
Even incapable of Damon’s capacity, he was still an Iondora.
"You should go. The healers said Jove needs rest. We all need rest."
"I will not be dismissed from my own children’s presence by—"
"Mother." Gertrude said, soft and final. "Please. We know what we saw. We know what we didn’t see. And we need—" she paused, "—we need to be together. Without anyone else."
This—
Vera looked at them, her children, her investments and future, and saw that she had... miscalculated.
They... They still didn’t understand that it was all for their good.
"Very well." She arranged her expression into acceptance, maternal sacrifice, the sorrow that was also a threat deferred. "I will go. But remember—" she let her eyes find each of them, "—remember that I am your mother. That I have always acted for your good. That when the truth emerges, when Damon’s guilt is proven, you will know who remained faithful."
She turned, the black dress whispering, and moved toward the door where Damon’s guards waited.
Behind her, none of them spoke. None of them called her back.
***
"Let’s think simply. Why do you think that bitch announced the prophecy?"
"I’m not sure, Gigi... but well, she must’ve wanted to gain something from it."
Angela was braiding her hair, the motion automatic under the morning light. The mourning dress lay across the bed, black silk that would transform her from prisoner to grieving daughter, from La Vixenette Princesse to merely bereaved.
"Are you sure she just wanted to gain something from it and not plan something more?"
"Like what?"
"Like... accusing my brother of the murder, and side with the Leclercs."
"..."
"..."
"...wait, you’re right. She can be that stupid. Angela, you’re smart."
"See? Cece, you must think on her level."
"Auuugh... this will be annoying, isn’t it?"
Cecilia put on her Lady Sees disguise. The veil, the desert silks, the draconian tattoo visible everywhere, while Angela put on her mourning dress.
It had been a while since they changed and got ready together in the same room like this.
"Come to think of it, when did you find out about everything?" Angela asked, adjusting the fall of black sleeves.
"About what?"
Angela shrugged. "About Ivy sending the assassin, about the truth of Jove’s incident..."
"Well, Damon told us Ivy was seemingly concerned about the claw wound and blade wound." Cecilia tapped her own lips, looking to the ceiling, thinking through the deduction.
"Then she insisted on asking Jove herself about the incident..." She muttered.
"And... how did you know that in the future that bitch came from Jove didn’t have the same incident?" Angela asked again.
"Ruby came to check on Jove rather than checking the Emperor’s body." Cecilia turned to Angela. "You’d think it was all about Jove, not the Emperor. She was drawn to something she didn’t know."
Cecilia narrowed her eyes. "You should’ve been able to figure it all out by now."
"No, I think your brain grew bigger." Angela denied. "That bitch could’ve lied about not seeing Jove’s incident in her vision!"
"No, if she saw it too, she’d use it too." Cecilia shrugged.
"Augh, right, we must think on her level." Angela sighed. "Our common sense... is not her common sense."
"So... how are you going to handle it?" Cecilia asked then.
They looked at each other.
Then both waved at the same time, dismissive and synchronized.
"Ah, let Damon handle it."
"Yeah."
"Yeah."