“I don’t know. Perhaps she fell,” said Diana tightly, but even as she said it, Henry heard the doubt in her voice. Not even she believed it.
As she set her hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off. This was his fault—if he hadn’t let Diana convince him to do this, if he had just stepped down and faded as he’d wanted, Ingrid would still be alive. She would grow old, she would have children and she would have a full and satisfying life. But because she’d had the misfortune of knowing him, she was nothing more than a lifeless body now.
Calliope knelt beside him, her eyes huge as she clasped her hands between her knees. “Henry?” she whispered, but he couldn’t bear the pity in her voice. They were all there now, the entire council watching him, some horrified and others grimly neutral.
“Leave,” he said thickly. “I will have no more of this.”
He expected a fight, but miraculously they all backed away, disappearing one by one. And once only he and Diana remained, he looked at her, her face swimming through his tears.
“Please go,” he whispered, rocking Ingrid’s body back and forth. Diana touched his cheek, her own eyes red.
“I’m so sorry, Henry. I’ll find another girl—”
“I don’t want another girl.” His voice cracked, and he turned from her, burying his face in Ingrid’s hair. She grew colder by the second.
“Henry, you must—”
“I will not risk another life,” he said, and she took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
“Very well. Then I will have another daughter.”
“No.”
“I’ve been thinking about it anyway, and if you don’t want to risk another girl’s life—”
“I said no.”
She sniffed. “Those are your choices, Henry. You may either allow me to select another girl, and we will do our utmost to protect her now that we know there is a threat, or I will have another child. It is up to you.”
He shook his head as tears streamed down his cheeks. She didn’t understand. How could she, when her goal was to keep him in this hell of an existence? “I wish to fade.”
“I’m sorry, brother, but you gave us a hundred years,” she said in a gentler voice, placing her hand over his. “We all love you too much to give up.”
He closed his eyes, struggling against the flood of anger and guilt and sadness inside him. “You will not have a child because of me. Any daughter you bring into this world will live the life she wants, and you will not force her to be with me. You owe Persephone that much.”
Diana swallowed, growing still for a fraction of a second. “And you will allow me to choose another girl not only so we can find you a companion, but so we can flush out the killer and bring them to justice. You owe Ingrid that much.”
The knife her words formed burrowed deep within him, becoming as much a part of him as his very essence. And as she stood and walked away, her bare feet silent against the thick carpet, he knew she was right. He owed Ingrid everything—even if it meant losing himself in the process.
* * *
Eleven girls.
That was how many he lost. After Ingrid, it was Charlotte; after her, Maria. And so on and so forth, as each name and face scarred another part of him until there was nothing left inside him but guilt and misery.
Some girls made it only a few days. Others, weeks—and the worst deaths were the ones who made it months, who came so close to the halfway point that he nearly let himself hope. But no matter how well protected they were, no matter what security measures he implemented, they always turned up dead. Some were clearly murder; others were questionable, with no visible signs of struggle or attack. Diana, Walter and other members of his family were certain they’d cracked under the pressure of the tests, which had never been meant for mortals. Henry wasn’t so sure.
After each girl, he tried to fade. And after each girl, another member of the council convinced him to keep going. Murder after murder, body after body, he selfishly allowed another girl to risk her life for him in hope that perhaps this time, they would discover the killer. Perhaps this time, they would win.
They never did.
“How did it happen this time?”
Henry tensed at the sound of her voice, and he tore his eyes away from the lifeless body on the bed long enough to look at her. Diana stood in the doorway, a beacon of calm in the middle of the storm that was his existence, but even her presence didn’t help rein in his temper.
“Drowned,” said Henry thickly, turning back to the body on the bed. “I found her floating in the river early this morning.”
He didn’t hear her move toward him, but he felt her hand on his shoulder. “And we still don’t know…?”
“No.” His voice was sharper than he’d intended, and he forced himself to soften it. “No witnesses, no footprints, no traces of anything to indicate she didn’t jump in the river because she wanted to.”
“Maybe she did,” said Diana. “Maybe she panicked. Or maybe it was an accident.”
“Or maybe somebody did this to her.” He broke away from her, pacing the length of the room in an attempt to get as far away from the body as possible. He hadn’t known Bethany nearly as long as he’d known Ingrid, but the pain still slithered through his body, choking the life out of him. “Eleven girls in eighty years. Don’t tell me this was an accident.”
She sighed and brushed her fingertips across the girl’s white cheek. “We were so close with this one, weren’t we?”