Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

I don’t know.

Is my reason to save Dare, like Jane saved Mr. Rochester?

I don’t know.

All I know is I have to uncover his truth if I am ever to save anything.

The truth will set us all free.

Chapter 7

I’m lost again.

Whitley is so large that I find I’m perpetually lost. Somehow, I find myself outside of Eleanor’s study today, and I hear her voice coming from within.

Reaching out to grip the doorknobs, I pause because she doesn’t seem happy. With the door already cracked, I can hear the words loud and clear.

“She’s not well, Eleanor,” Sabine says in her creaky voice. “She needs rest and solitude, I fear.”

“Then she’ll get it here at Whitley,” Eleanor says impatiently. “I don’t see the reason for your concern.”

“She’s lost everything,” Sabine offers. “And you don’t offer her anything but shelter. Perhaps if you would just tell her…”

“Tell her what?” Eleanor snaps. “Remind her that…”

“Haven’t you heard it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”

Dare steps around me, studying me curiously. He’s handsome, he’s enigmatic, he’s in my personal space. He also doesn’t want me to hear what they’re saying.

I take a breath. “What is everyone hiding from me?” I ask him bluntly.

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

It’s everything. I feel it.

“I need to know,” I insist. He stares at me.

“You’re here to recover, Calla. To rest, to come back to yourself…”

“But you said that I’m not safe,” I remind him. “Shouldn’t I know from what?”

He’s uncomfortable now, and his dark eyes seem to shimmer. “So much has happened to this family. You don’t need to think about it right now. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

I wish I could.

“This is madness,” I whisper.

“We’re all a bit mad, I suppose,” he quotes Lewis Carroll for what, I assume, is a lack of a better answer. My fingernails dig into my palm because I’m so frustrated.

“I love you, you know,” he offers, and his face is suddenly gentle. “God, I hate this, Calla.”

He walks away, like standing near me is painful.

I do the only thing I can do. I retreat to my room, where I’m alone and no one is watching. The room is lonely and quiet, and I can’t take the silence.

“Finn, you’d hate this place.”

Of course there’s no answer, but it makes me feel better to talk to him, to pretend my other half is still living, still making me whole.