I held up my hands. I had no more patience for politics. “Okay, even if this is true, you haven’t begun to explain why either Iris or Ellen would want to kill Tucker, leave alone frame me for it.”
“I believe Ellen caught wind that Tucker was loyal to me.”
“Or disloyal to her, you could say.”
My mother nodded her assent. “That would be Ellen’s view of the situation.” She took a few steps away from me, and then turned back, holding her hands out toward me, her palms turned upward. “That would be Ellen’s motive,” she said, “at least as far as removing Tucker is concerned.”
“What about where I’m concerned?” I asked.
“My dear, as you know, the line has a taste for Savannah Taylors. With you out of the way, there is at least a thirty-three-percent chance Ellen would be chosen as the next anchor. She couldn’t ask for a better position from which to seek revenge for the death of her son.”
I leaned back and considered what she had said, and as I did, I noticed that the dome above us had been covered with frost. “Look,” I said and pointed up. My mother raised her eyes to look at the dome, and I heard a loud whumpf as if something heavy had been slammed against it. Tiny lines formed across the glass, and the sound of stressed panes cracking echoed all around us in the hexagonal hall. Wordlessly, my mother raised both hands toward me, and a force shot from her that knocked me and my chair several feet back. The chair tumbled over me as I landed a little beyond the entranceway, in a side room. The music of a thousand singing shards nearly drowned out my mother’s gasp. I bounded to my feet in time to watch a transparent stake tumble from above, impaling her through her eye. A total collapse followed, the whole weight of what remained of the dome tumbling down and sending shards like fireworks shooting through the hall. I wasn’t screaming. The sound wouldn’t come. I wasn’t moving. My body wouldn’t budge. I didn’t use magic to protect myself. I could not process thought, let alone channel energy. In the instant before the nearest shards sliced through me, hands reached out from behind me and whisked me from the doorway. I heard the door slam behind me and innumerable strikes as the tiny projectiles embedded themselves into its wooden skin.
Strong arms held me, sheltered me. Shaking, horrified, I looked up into Emmet’s face.
TWENTY-FOUR
I didn’t know how I came to be home, or in my room. When I came to myself, a different pair of arms, just as strong, just as sheltering, held me, rocking me gently.
“Peter,” I breathed his name, and his arms tightened around me. He planted a kiss on the top of my head. Images of my mother’s torn body nearly sent me back into shock, and I struggled against his embrace. “My mother, my mother,” was all I could say.
“It’s all right, honey. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m here. Your family is here.” As he said the words, my family’s presence filtered into my awareness. Ellen stood over me, at the foot of the bed. Oliver had positioned himself near the window, facing me, with his back toward the light. Iris sat by Peter’s side of the bed.
“I am here as well,” said Emmet, a tall shadow in the far corner. Strangely, his presence reassured me the most.
“You should sleep now,” Ellen said as she came around to my side. Her voice sounded hoarse and lacked its usual warmth. Dark circles had formed under her eyes. I realized she had been crying. Of course, Tucker. She reached out.
“Please don’t touch me,” I said, and she pulled her hands away as if they’d been burned. Her eyes, already red, moistened. I had both shocked and hurt her. A part of me felt bad for causing pain to the woman I had thought I knew, but the image of my mother’s final moments had been burned into my mind. I couldn’t bear Ellen’s touch. “I’m sorry. I would just like everyone but Peter to leave. And Emmet,” I added.
“Of course, Gingersnap.” Oliver stood. His face showed concern for me combined with a touch of confusion and hurt.
“But sweetheart, you have had some kind of shock,” Ellen protested. “I should stay and keep an eye on you. Make sure you are all right.”
I found myself balling up, moving away from her touch, pushing myself more securely into Peter’s arms. “I’m fine. The baby’s fine. We’re both fine.”
Ellen stopped dead in her tracks and looked to her siblings for guidance.
“You need to take care of yourself. I’m sorry about Tucker.”
Her eyes flashed at me, showing an emotion that fell somewhere between ire and despair, but then her lids tightened and her expression hardened. “Thank you. I assure you I will find out who did this to him.”
“Come on, let’s leave the girl to rest a bit,” Oliver ordered, drawing Ellen away from me and heading to the door. “Iris?” She stood without saying a word, but reluctance was written all over her face.
She joined her siblings at the door, but turned back to me. “We love you,” she said and followed the others out. Emmet crossed and shut the door behind them.
I struggled in Peter’s grasp enough so that he loosened his hold and I could face him. “My mother,” I started, “I think they killed her.” No, I was suddenly certain they had killed her.
Peter’s face broke into a worried smile. “Mercy, you don’t know what you’re saying. They didn’t kill your mother; she wasn’t killed at all. She died.” He paused. “I know you’re worried about having the baby, that you will be like your mama and you won’t make it, but that isn’t going to happen to you. You are so strong—”
“No.” I looked over at Emmet, but his face remained a blank slate. “My mother didn’t die giving birth to me. She was murdered at the Tillandsia house. Today.”
“The Tillandsia house?” His forehead creased, and he shook his head to show he had no idea what I was talking about.
“The big old place, past Richmond Hill. With the black-and-red door. The one you have been working on for Tucker. The dome skylight in the entrance. It shattered and collapsed on her. They caused it to collapse.” I shuddered at the thought of my mother’s bloodied body.
He brushed the hair from my forehead. “That place is just a big old dilapidated Georgian. It only has regular old windows. No dome. No skylight. Not even any higher windows that could be mistaken for a skylight. Nothing modern like that at all. Nobody’s been hurt there. I was there myself until a half hour ago when Oliver called to tell me you weren’t well. You had a bad dream, that’s all.”
With wild force I twisted from his embrace and tried to sit up. The room spun around me, but I managed to lean up on my elbow and face Emmet. “Tell him,” I commanded. “Tell him what happened. You saw it. You saved me.”
“I’m sorry. I can tell him nothing. You had fallen over in the garden, and I found you there. I carried you up to your room, and then called your family. I am afraid whatever you experienced was a hallucination.”
“Why are you are lying?” I shouted at him.
He reacted as if he were dealing with a sick child. He shook his head silently at Peter, and then looked at me with soft and sympathetic eyes. “I don’t mean to cause you further upset. I would confirm what you are saying if I were able to do so.”