Chapter 9 · The Bone Room

I was on my knees in front of my family's bones when Dorian found me.

I didn't hear him come down. Didn't hear the stone door grind open again. I was holding something small and white in my hand—a finger bone, maybe a child's—and I couldn't let go.

The room smelled like dust and old blood. Like three hundred years of pretending this place didn't exist.

"Iris."

His voice cut through the cold.

I didn't look up. "How many?"

"What are you—" He stopped. I heard his breath catch. He was seeing it now. The shelves. The rows and rows of bones stacked like library books. Some still had scraps of cloth stuck to them. Wren family colors. Hunter green and silver.

"How many people did your family kill?" My voice came out flat. Dead.

Silence.

I finally looked at him. He stood in the doorway, still dressed for court in that ridiculous black jacket with the silver buttons. His face had gone white. Not vampire pale—shocked pale.

"You didn't know this was here," I said.

He stepped inside. Slow. Like the floor might give out. "No."

"Liar."

"I'm not—