Chapter 18: Seventeen Circles

The courier was waiting on a stool at the end of Maddox's bar.

A cream envelope lay on the counter in front of him.

Margot came through the door in her coat with Elias half a step behind.

It was eleven at night, and the Wednesday regulars had gone quiet.

"Margot Ellery?" the courier said.

"Yes."

"I'm told to wait while you read it. It's a condition of delivery."

"By who?"

"The sender didn't say."

Bridget came around the bar with a dish towel over one shoulder and a murderous look.

"I offered him a drink," she said. "He said he was working."

"I'll bet he is."

Margot took the envelope.

It was heavy paper, and on the front her name was written in a round, slanting hand.

For one moment she forgot everything else.

It was her mother's handwriting, or very close to it, as she remembered it from birthday notes in her lunchbox.

Her throat closed.

Elias put his hand flat between her shoulder blades and said nothing.

She opened the flap and unfolded three pages.

My dearest Margot, the letter began.

I am writing this in case something happens to me, because I could not say it out loud.

Thaddeus is not your grandfather. I have kept this from you and from him all your life.

Her eyes went down the page.

It said that her mother had been twenty-two, and frightened, and that the man she had loved was not an Ellery.

It said Thaddeus had found out, and paid to keep her quiet.

It said Margot owed the Ellery family nothing, no vote and no loyalty, and ought to take her share and go.

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