Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,123

since the Westminster Riots.”

“Should I care?” Grafton looks from me to Rowena. Stiffly, her arms clamp down across her chest. “I’m not the one who—”

“Would you care if they appeared at your old hospital?” I ask, watching her closely. “If they were injured and on the verge of death, would you send them away, Dr. Grafton, just because they aren’t loyal to your queen?”

The arms across her chest squeeze tight and she falls back a step like I’ve struck her. “Why do you care?” she hisses. “You’re Holyrood, aren’t you? You’ve taken an oath to the Crown. If people go missing—anti-loyalists, at that—what does it matter to you?”

“Humanity is a choice.” Digging my fingers into the desk, I feel my jaw clench when I grit, “I’ve spent ten years playing both sides and you know what I’ve learned? People are people, Doctor. They hurt, they bleed, they laugh, they love, and at the end of the day, they pray that when they wake, the goddamn destruction will end. Loyalist, anti-loyalist—you want to know if it matters to me? Then yes. When innocent people die, it all fucking matters.”

As if her legs have gone weak, Rowena’s back hits the door with a quiet thud. Her gaze never wavers from my face. Visceral. Poignant. She stands clear across the room but she might as well have put her hand on my heart. I feel myself grip the desk so hard that its sharp corner pricks the calloused skin of my palm.

“We need him alive,” I say gruffly, tipping my head toward where Guthram lies, “because we need information. When I was . . .” Swallowing tightly, I force the words out past a dry throat: “From the moment I stepped inside Broadmoor Hospital, I knew something was wrong. It wasn’t just that it’s a psych ward. There are others like it across the country but this one—”

“I felt it too,” Rowena says. “And I knew it the minute the guard talked to . . . to Guthram like they were friends. They spoke to each other in a way that a guard and patient rarely do.”

Grafton opens her mouth to speak, but I cut her off: “They’re holding anti-loyalists in those rooms.”

“You . . .” Rowena’s hand finds the doorknob like she needs the support. “You recognized them?”

“Some,” I admit, “not all.”

“How do you know it was them?” Grafton asks. “It could have been anyone.”

“They came to The Bell & Hand.” I’ve attended their funerals, I almost add. They have spouses, siblings, children, who all believe them dead. If I thought . . . Jesus, if Saxon or Guy disappeared without a trace, I’d destroy the world to find them again. “We need to know how they ended up at Broadmoor, and, to do that, I need that man alive. So, you’re going to keep him breathing, Grafton, even if you have to do it with my gun to your head.”

Rowena reaches out and, with a single flip of the latch, she locks the door. “Save him, Sara.”

“It’s not much of a choice,” Grafton mutters, eyeing the lock.

“It’s an ultimatum,” murmurs Rowena, “you’re all out of choices.”

Words that I told her when she was blind and shackled, and I don’t know whether to throw my head back and laugh or pull her close and crush my mouth down over hers. In the end, I don’t get the chance to do either because my mobile vibrates in my pocket. I answer without looking, and the familiar voice of my oldest brother greets me with seething fury:

“What the fucking hell have you done?”

37

Rowena

Holyrood has descended on Holly Village.

Three hours after Guy rang Damien, they trail in one after another with Guy Priest at the helm. No signs of Margaret or Saxon. Instead, all are veritable strangers to me, except for Benjamin Lotts and Dr. Matthews, who pauses awkwardly beside me to say, “I hear your vision returned.”

I recognize him from the sound of his voice—genteel and smooth around the vowels. His hair is stark white, his skin brown. Eyes as black as coal peer down at me, and while they aren’t warm, exactly, I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Nathaniel Matthews is more than the coldhearted bastard who threw me in a cell with Alfie Barker.

Ignoring the obvious answer to the doctor’s question, I clasp my hands behind my back. Angle my frame slightly toward him to keep the floaters on the wall and off his face. “Did they bring you along