Montague Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

Montague climbed out of the cavern behind Wisteria, the flute heavy in his coat. The night air was still. Too still. Under the pink and red branches of the old tree at the edge of the grove, Alastair stood without moving. He had been there a long time. Long enough for the petals to gather on his shoulders. Montague stopped walking. His brother's face was a closed door. The mouth was a flat line, the red eyes calm in the way deep water is calm. No anger. No surprise. Only the cold work of a man fitting new pieces into an old puzzle. Montague had seen that look once before, two centuries ago, the night everything broke. "How much," Montague said. "All of it," Alastair answered. "From the second throne onward." Montague reached into his coat and drew out a small leather book, its pages stuffed with pressed forest flowers gone brown at the edges. He had carried it through the dirt for two hundred years. He had never shown it to anyone. He held it out across the space between them. "Then you should have the rest. I wrote it down. In case I never came back up." Alastair did not move for a long moment. Then he stepped forward and took the journal. He did not open it. He only looked at his brother, and the closed door of his face cracked, just once, around the eyes. "We will read it together," he said. "Inside. Before anyone else learns you can be used against me." He turned toward the castle, and Montague followed, no longer alone with it.