The End of Us novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Marina's Knife
Isla's POV
Keith stepped in front of me and pulled my coat around my shoulders.
"Don't scream," Marina said.
Her voice was thin and flat.
The baby slept against her collarbone, with one fist at his mouth.
The kitchen knife hung from her other hand, point down.
"Put it on the floor," Keith said.
"I'm not going to use it."
"Then put it on the floor."
She looked down at the knife.
She set it on the stone, and she kicked it away.
"Maud gave it to me an hour ago," she said. "She said you'd be locked in the cold rooms until the Council met, and that it would be kinder to everyone if you didn't live that long."
"And you came to do it?" I said.
"I came to open the door."
"Why?"
Her pale eyes filled with tears.
"Because tomorrow she takes him from me."
I said nothing.
"I heard her tell the housekeeper. She said once the Luna was shut away, the baby would be raised in her own rooms, by her own women, and I could go back to my mother's. I was never going to be keeper of anything."
"You were going to be Luna," I said.
"She promised me the cradle. She promised me the seat."
Her mouth twisted.
"She promised me a lot of things."
"When did you learn about the ring?"
I do not know why I asked that first.
Marina shut her eyes.
"The week after Dorian's funeral. I found her in the study at night, holding it. She told me whose it was. She said it so I'd know what I'd be part of."
"And you stayed."
"She said if I stood by her, my son would be the heir of both packs. Dorian's son."
"And the baby I lost?"
The passage went silent.
Marina's head came up slowly, and I saw it in her face before she said a word.
"There was a tea," she said. "For nausea. The clinic nurse brought it every morning for three weeks, because I asked her to. Maud told me what herbs to ask for."
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