Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,28

Serafina asked.

Before he could answer, something caught her eye through the carriage windows. There were trees on either side of the carriage. They were traveling down a narrow dirt road that wound through a thick and darkened forest, the very forest that her pa had warned her to never enter. And the very forest where she had been born. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of trepidation. “Where are we going, exactly?”

“My aunt and uncle are worried about me, so they’re sending me to the Vances’ in Asheville for the night to keep me out of harm’s way. They ordered Crankshod to guard me.”

“That wasn’t very smart,” she said before she could help herself. It wasn’t a very polite thing to say, but for some reason, she was having a dickens of a time not telling Braeden the truth.

“I’ve always detested that man,” Braeden agreed, “but my uncle depends on him.”

As she looked out the window at the forest, she could no longer see the horizon or the sun. All she could see was the thick density of the forest’s huge old trees, black and decrepit, which grew so closely together that she could barely tell one from the other. It seemed a dark and foreboding place for anyone to even visit, let alone live, but there was something that excited her about it, too.

But then she felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. Somewhere, miles behind them, was Biltmore. Her pa would be wondering why she wasn’t showing up for dinner. No chicken or grits tonight, Pa. I’m sorry, she thought. Try not to worry about me. A day ago, she had been leading a perfectly normal life catching rats in the basement, and now everything had turned so bizarre.

Pulling her gaze away from the forest, she finally turned to Braeden, swallowed hard, and began to say what she’d come for. “There is something I need to tell—”

“How come I’ve never seen you before?” he interrupted.

“What?” she asked, taken aback.

“Where do you come from?”

“Yeah, good question,” she said before she could stop herself, imagining the bloody pile of dead creatures her pa had plucked her from.

“I’m serious,” he said, staring at her. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places,” she shot back at him, feeling cornered.

But when she saw his eyes, she realized that he wasn’t going to give up. Her temples began to pound, and she couldn’t think straight. Why was he asking all these infernal questions?

“Well, where do you come from?” she asked, trying to throw him off the trail.

“You know I live at Biltmore,” he said gently. “I’m asking about you.”

“I-I…” she stammered, staring at her lap. “Maybe you met me before and just forgot,” she said.

“I would have remembered you,” he said quietly.

“Well, maybe I’m just visiting for the weekend,” she said weakly, looking at the floor.

He wasn’t buying any of it. “Please tell me where you live, Serafina,” he said firmly.

It surprised her when he said her name like that. It had tremendous power over her, like she had no choice but to look up at him and meet his gaze, which turned out to be a serious mistake. He was looking at her so intently that it felt as if he were casting a spell of truth on her.

“I live in your basement,” she said, and was immediately shocked that she’d actually uttered it out loud. He had powers over her that she did not understand.

He stared at her as her words hung in the air. She could see the confusion in his face and sense the questions forming in his mind.

She had no idea why she said it. It had just come flying out of her mouth.

But she’d done it. She’d said it out loud, straight to his face. Please forgive me, Pa. She’d wrecked everything. She’d ruined their lives. Now her pa would be fired. They’d be kicked out of Biltmore. They’d be forced to wander the streets of Asheville, begging for scraps of food. No one would hire a man who’d lied to his employer, holed up in his basement, and stolen food from him for his eight-toed daughter. No one.

She looked at Braeden. “Please don’t tell anyone…” she said quietly, but she knew there were no claws in that paw, nothing at all to protect her. If he wanted to, he could tell anyone—Mr. Crankshod, Mr. Boseman, even Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt—and then the life she and her pa had made