Chapter 12

The first snow of December clung to Mayfair's Georgian rooftops like spectral lace, its silence broken only by the Samoyed's ecstatic barks. Finn Fitzgerald lay spreadeagled in the drifts, snow melting through his jumper as Cordelia pounced—a white blur against white ground. Somewhere beyond the frosted hedges, Pembroke's laughter mingled with the clink of afternoon tea service.

Inside the conservatory, Lucian Sinclair watched through breath-fogged glass, his wheelchair leaving ghostly trails in the condensation. The morphine pump's rhythmic hiss underscored memories better left buried—Malcolm's fingers brushing snow from his hair that last Oxford winter, the promise "I'll carry you through every storm"now rotting beneath Alpine permafrost.

"Sir?"

Pembroke materialized with a cashmere throw, disapproval etching deeper lines into his face. "You'll catch your death."

Lucian's chuckle misted the pane. "Death and I are old acquaintances."

Beyond the glass, Finn rolled onto his back, snow angel wings framing his laughter. The boy's hair—black as the Earl's regrets—stood in violent contrast to the blanched landscape. Lucian's gloved hand rose, tracing the ghost of a smile reflected in the glass.

***

Dusk found Finn ankle-deep in the Serpentine's frozen shallows, Cordelia's retrieved slipper dripping brackish water. The Samoyed whined, nosing his pocket where Lucian's latest text burned like live coal—Dinner at eight.

"Traitor," Finn muttered, shaking ice from his sleeves. The hybrid monster in his chest purred satisfaction—he'd torn apart the dog's bed, the gardener's shed, even the east wing's wine cellar in his slipper quest. Yet the matching pair remained elusive, like all good things in this gilded cage.

Pembroke's shadow stretched across the ice. "Master Finn. His lordship requests—"

"I know." Finn tossed the sodden slipper. "Tell him I'm hunting revolutionaries."

The butler's mustache twitched. "Revolutionaries generally wear both shoes."

***

The dining hall's chandelier cast knife-edge shadows across Lucian's untouched consommé. Finn's chair sat conspicuously empty, its Louis XIV upholstery mocking the earl's pretense of normalcy.

"Shall I—"

"Leave it."

Pembroke retreated as Lucian's fork tarnished silver. On the surveillance feed above the sideboard, Finn's infrared silhouette prowled the grounds—a heat signature blooming red as shame.

The earl's fingers tightened around his morphine clicker. Pathetic, Malcolm's ghost whispered through the ductwork. Using a boy as weathervane for your dead heart.

***

Finn found the second slipper at moonrise, wedged beneath the Titian in the Long Gallery. Cordelia's tooth marks patterned the leather like some occult sigil—appropriate, given the house's secrets.

"Happy?" He dangled the prize before the Samoyed's nose.

The dog sneezed.

Lucian's door stood ajar, slicing yellow light across Persian runners. Finn hovered at the threshold, slippers in hand, rehearsing apologies that curdled to ash. Through the gap, the earl's wheelchair formed a silhouette straight from Gothic nightmares—head lolled, intravenous lines snaking to floor-mounted monitors.

"Enter or leave." Lucian's voice held the brittleness of antique glass. "But cease your lurking."

Finn stepped into the medicinal gloom. "Your shoes."

"Ah." The earl's eyes remained closed. "The canine insurrection."

The boy's throat tightened. On the bedside table, Malcolm's autopsy photos peeked from beneath a Montegrappa pen set. "You weren't at dinner."

"Astute observation." A monitor beeped counterpoint to Lucian's rasp. "Having satisfied your canine crusade, perhaps you'd care to explain tonight's tantrum?"

Finn's nails bit crescents into the slippers. "It wasn't—"

"Destruction of a 17th-century credenza?" The earl's smile cut glass. "Four shattered Château Lafite '45? Or shall we discuss the security feed showing you—"

"Stop!" The slippers hit the floor. "Just...stop."

Silence pooled, viscous and chemical-scented. Somewhere a drip counted seconds.

Lucian's eyelashes fluttered. "You want honesty? Begin with yourself."

The hybrid monster stirred. "The exam results."

"Ah." The earl's fingers spidered across his morphine clicker. "And?"

Finn's whisper could have etched the windows. "I failed."

"Failed?" Lucian's wheelchair creaked upright. "Or failed him?"

The boy followed his gaze to Malcolm's portrait—the late heir's Cambridge First glowing eternal. "Both."

***

The east wing's hidden lift descended into bedrock chill. Lucian's wheelchair glided past racks of '82 Margaux, their dust-shrouded labels whispering of better vintages. Finn trailed, breath pluming, until the earl halted before a steel door marked Archives.

"Your brother's first failing mark." Lucian tossed over a yellowed report card. "Chemistry. Forty-three percent."

Finn's thumb smudged Malcolm's looping M."But the scholarships—"

"Forged." The earl's laugh echoed through the vault. "We all have our fictions."

The hybrid monster bared its teeth. "Why show me this?"

"To illustrate," Lucian rotated toward a bank of surveillance feeds, "that even saints require sinners."

On the central monitor, Finn's exam paper glowed—63% scrawled in Oxford blue.

***

Dawn found them in the rehabilitation suite, the earl's wasted legs twitching under electrostimulation. Finn monitored the readouts, Corti's Elementa Chemiae open to a treatise on arsenic.

"Your progress—"

"Is irrelevant." Lucian's jaw clenched against a convulsion. "The tumor progresses faster."

Finn's pen stilled. "How long?"

The earl's smile held gallows humor. "Long enough."

Somewhere beyond Mayfair's walls, Big Ben tolled the hour. Finn's fingers brushed the morphine drip. "Let me—"

"Don't." Lucian's hand closed over his wrist. "This path only ends one way."

The boy's laugh startled the cardiac monitor. "Since when do we fear endings?"

***

The Times educational supplement arrived with breakfast. Finn's name nestled between Etonian scions—Fitzgerald, F.: 63% Mathematics, 71% Chemistry, 89% Latin.

Pembroke's tears spotted the newsprint. "Your brother would—"

"Malcolm's dead." Finn folded the paper with surgical precision. "I'm not."

In the rehabilitation suite, Lucian watched security feeds of the boy lecturing Cordelia on stoichiometry. The Samoyed's tail thumped in apparent comprehension.

"Pembroke."

"Sir?"

"Contact Harrow's headmaster. We require...curricular adjustments."

The butler's smile outshone the chandelier. "At once, sir."

***

Dusk bled through the crypt's stained glass as Finn confronted the earl. "Why the donations?"

Lucian's wheelchair carved runes in ancestral dust. "Every monster needs validation."

"Liar." Finn pressed the exam results to Malcolm's urn. "You wanted him back."

The earl's laugh echoed through generations of Sinclair hubris. "I wanted you."

Somewhere beyond the crypt, ice cracked on the Serpentine. Finn's fingers brushed the morphine pump. "Prove it."

Lucian's lips curved against the needle's kiss. "All in good time."