Five Mates Let Me Burn, So I Rejected Them All novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Half of Everything

At Fitzalan Hall the steward signs over the deeds while the five men watch; Althea takes Larkspur and the Moonmill, and a Festival wine cask arrives with Dahlia's card.

The steward was waiting on the steps of Fitzalan Hall at noon with a ledger and a very wet forehead.

Behind him the front hall was full of people.

Ronan stood in the middle of it with his arms crossed, and the other four stood around him.

Dahlia sat on the stairs in a pale blue dress, holding a handkerchief.

Half the house staff had found reasons to be dusting the banister.

"The Temple clerk is here with the deeds," the steward said.

"Good," I said. "Read them."

The clerk read for a long time.

Fitzalan Hall belonged to the pack's founding line and could not be split, so it stayed with Ronan.

Everything else could.

"You'll have the east orchard," Corin said at once, "and the quarry, and the sheep pasture past the ridge."

"The orchard burned two summers ago," I said. "The quarry floods every spring."

Corin's mouth closed.

"I'll take Larkspur Manor," I said. "And the Moonmill."

The hall went quiet.

"The mill is not for sale," Ronan said.

"It isn't a sale. It's the law."

"It feeds the whole capital," Corin said. "How do you even know what it makes?"

In my last life the Moonmill had paid for Dahlia's wedding gown.

"I read the books," I said.

That was true, in a way: I had read them as Luna, in a life he could not remember.

Corin looked at Ronan, and Ronan looked at the ceiling.

The clerk held out the pen.

Corin signed with a jerk of his wrist that tore the page.

Nobody on the staff dusted anything after that.

The head housemaid caught my eye over the banister and winked.

"I'll fetch my mother's cedar chest from the upstairs hall," I said.

"It's already moved," Dahlia said, getting to her feet.

She came down the stairs to me, soft and quick, and took my hands.

"I kept it safe for you, Thea. I knew you'd want it. I had Nolan carry it down this morning."

It stood by the door, polished, with my mother's initials burned into the lid.

Yesterday it had stood at the foot of my own bed, in a room I had never given her.

"Thank you," I said.

"Anything," Dahlia said. "Anything at all."

I bent to lift one handle.

Elias reached the other handle first.

He stooped, took his end, and without a word he and I carried the chest down the steps to the carriage.

His fingers brushed mine on the brass.

He did not flinch.

In my first life he had flinched every single time.

He set the chest in the carriage and straightened, and then he stared at his own hands.

"I didn't mean to do that," he said.

"Then don't do it again," I said.

His jaw went tight.

Behind him Ronan came out onto the steps, red hair loose, furious.

"You've had your fortune," he said. "Now get off my land."

"It's not your land," I said. "Half of it is mine."

"Then take the half that's yours and keep it away from the half that's ours."

"Draw me a line, Alpha, and I'll honour it."

Nobody on the steps laughed, though I saw Nolan's shoulders shake.

"If you set foot on the Fitzalan road again," Ronan said, "I'll have the wardens remove you."

"They're temple wardens," I said. "They answer to me when I'm on my own property, and the road to Larkspur is mine."

I climbed into the carriage.

The five of them stood together on the steps, and Dahlia stood in front of them, small and white and weeping.

The healer was the only one who did not watch her.

He was watching me.

Larkspur Manor sat above the river with a tilted gate, a good roof and six cracked windows.

Two tenants who had worked the mill for forty years met me in the yard with their caps in their hands.

"Is it true, miss?" the older one asked. "Is the mill yours?"

"It's yours to run," I said. "I'll want the grain books."

He wept, and the other one slapped his back, and I was embarrassed to find that my eyes stung.

We carried the chest into the front room.

At dusk a cart came up the lane with a full wine cask in the back, sealed in black wax.

The driver tugged his cap. "From Miss Dahlia Ekberg. She says it's a gift."

There was a card tied to the bung with ribbon.

*So we can practise the toast. All my love, D.*

I knew that black wax.

It was the Festival vintage, the one Dahlia had poured for six people while the whole capital cheered.

I thanked the driver and tipped him.

Then I rolled the cask into the cellar myself, locked the door, and put the key in my bodice.

Twenty-nine days.

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