Notes:

So, I had to revamp the outline. This was supposed to be only a mystery, only five chapters long, and then I realized that it was not just a mystery, but it was, in fact, the second part that answered the questions raised in the second part.

Again, thank you for bearing with me, as I decide what this piece should look like. I've finally found its heart, and I hope you will decide to continue reading it, despite its rough start.

Cain

To my shame, relief washes over me. I thought for a horrid, paralyzing moment that I had been too harsh or too cold with Jezabel, and he had done something foolish and hasty, something he could not take back.

And yet, the memory of Riff returns to me, forever linked to such a ghastly choice.

I think on how Riff preferred to take his own life than cause me harm, and a tremor of terror courses through me, as I wonder if it will ever come to that. Could I? I still have no answers, as to how I feel about Riff's decision. When I despair of my hereditary burden, it is noble and brave and wise to lay down such suffering; yet in moments of respite, when I sit next to my brother, listening to him read Collins or Doyle or any of the thousand voices bound and preserved, if only imperfectly—aware of the fleetingness of being—then it is foolish and hasty.

A horror without bounds.

Life carries on, even when he didn't. It is cruel and reassuring, that one cannot mean all that much to the world. And yet, sometimes, in the briefest of moments, I see him again, and I am on the floor again, clutching at my only—my only—no. I cannot revisit his memory again, not here. It pains me too greatly. And no more is there a servant to rescue me when I become overwhelmed. I must do it myself.

I harden my heart against the past, stilling the shaking of my hands, ignoring the coldness on my skin.

Although the cooling corpse disproves Jezabel's hypothesis, I am just glad I am not staring at his. How strange. A year ago, we were enemies, and he had promised to cut out my eyes for his collection. Two years ago, I thought myself alone, the only one bearing Father's blood. And now, I am just relieved that for now, at least, he's still alive.

A second fear tugs at me. This murder is incompatible with the previous ones, suggesting a different suspect, and I can only hope Jezabel didn't decide to take out his rage on him. I cannot confess any great love for the man, but I will be vexed with my brother if he has decided to revert to his old ways, and in doing so, endanger the both of us—not to mention the already precarious reputation of the family.

I sigh, collecting myself, as I move to survey the corpse amid hushed whispers. The cuts are short, though deep; stabs rather than incisions—not my brother's signature long gouges. Relieved at this, I continue my cursory examination: beyond the wounds, this one bears the tell-tale traces of poison: the scuffs and swelling bruises that mark a seizure, the bit of vomit at his mouth. Different from the others, and yet...this murder seem to be the work of the same hand as before. A botched attempt, carelessly covered up. Again.

I frown. Part of me wonders if this mystery hallucinogen could not also act as a poison: inducing altered states at one dose, death at a higher one. And perhaps, as the corpse suggests, that difference is merely incremental. I resist the urge to smile at this. Nothing pleases me more than discovering a new poison for my collection.

My attention, however, is interrupted by Lady Jane, who quivers in the corner, apart from the crowd. All trembling fear. "It's dreadful. Just dreadful."

"I just hope he didn't suffer much," I reply. "What a ghastly way to go."

"Everyone liked him," she begins, her eyes shining with tears. How terribly dramatic. "Who could hurt him so?"

"Someone with a grudge, I suspect."

She shakes her head, and suddenly struck with a hunch, I offer my hand to her. As she accepts, drying her tears with her other gloved hand, I notice something peculiar. Encircling the forearm of her left glove is a series of clean holes.

Jezabel

Of course, everyone wants Cain. Darling, precious Cain.

Even I want Cain, despite the price his life has exacted from mine. When he slept next to me, silent save for the rustling of the covers and the passage of his breath, an overwhelming warmth crept over me. The sort that suffocates and mends. And in that moment, I could not tell which outcome it would bring, only that I would gladly accept it.

And yet, I could not reconcile my newfound feelings of kinship with my hatred towards him. Part of me wanted nothing more than to slowly, slowly eviscerate his sleeping form, to separate him from the flesh, until that beauty finally belonged to me—and me alone. His blood on my hands, his warmth on my skin. Those eyes, pained yet defiant, on me.

(These thoughts come so easily, so naturally, that I forget that they have not always been a part of me.)

I dreamt that night in red, as I always do—but a paler red, not the pulsing red of my nightmares. The red of a fading leaf, perhaps. (Fading, fading, fading. Until only the skeletal cellulose remains.)

And then, soon after Cassian returned, Cain stopped sleeping beside me. At first, I hardly noticed it, enveloped in my impossible joy, but as the days dragged on and novelty faded, its absence made itself known. And I do not know what to make of it—and the coldness that it has left. It seems cruel that I should finally be allowed to experience some semblance of warmth again, a warmth almost like Snark's, and then have it revoked so quickly.

(What do you want?)

The forest, the wilderness at the edge of the estate, invites me back, and I lose myself, fleeing from the question that cannot leave me. Again and again, Neil's foolish words reverberate. Receding and ringing. They splinter in my mind, the sounds coming undone until there is no more sense to the syllables, only pockets of sound and fury. (I wonder, only half-interested, if I have finally gone mad.) But I take no joy in this chaos.

My inability to answer pains me in a way that I never foresaw, for it reminds me what I have given up—and what I have lost. In suppressing my nature—only Father knew whether or not it is my true nature—I have relinquished my life's purpose; to make Cain suffer for what his life has cost me. But nothing has materialized to fill that void, and so I remain without a reason. There is no crueler existence than to be meaningless. Meaningless and disposable. Anything is bearable with a reason, but without reason, there is only the inevitable question of suffering's worth.

What I have lost is far more distressing. It seems that I have found myself bound to Cain. I can no more leave him than I could Father. And so, I wait for the day he will inherit the title, and the day he marries, and the day he looks into the gurgling face of his newborn—with the dark Hargreaves hair and the curse in its tiny, filthy veins—and forgets all about me.

It seems I still haven't learned anything. If I was more vengeful, I might take a lover, just to spite Cain, but that doesn't interest me. It never has.

With a surge of anger, I throw myself onto the raised roots, the moss smooth and slippery like gauze, as I give into this uncontrollable loss. Clutching at the roughness of the tree. It is not love, with all the danger that such feelings entail, that drives me to such melancholy, for I do not think I will ever love anyone the way I loved Father. A blessing and a curse. And yet, I am no helpless child, to be bent to the will of others, even if I have no dreams and no family.

It is a cruel punishment to be left to wander aimlessly, to know home once but never again. Cain and Mary think that they can ward off the past with their facsimile of home—with words and gestures as study as paper. It sickens me to see her bustling about, at once a little mother and a street-child. And Cain lets her, because he wants his dream fulfilled, and he keeps me here, because he wants to prove to himself that the past no longer holds any sway over him. But a little fear, creeping about at the edge of his eyes, so easily mistaken for concern, says otherwise: he cannot forget, as I cannot, and so we remain here, stuck fast like nettles, at an impasse. He cannot allay the past, and I cannot change.

I have been here a year, now. A year with him. Is that not enough time to know if I have changed? I thought once, that perhaps I could, but such feats seem to be relegated to fairy stories. Even though Cassian has returned, taking a different form, but still unmistakably there, I have not.

I cannot fathom what he saw in me, to inspire such a foolish, one-sided devotion. I used to wonder if it would have been best to leave Delilah with him, to take that train to anywhere—the country or beyond; I could have easily made my living on my own, setting up some residence in a village, far from Father's reach. I used to tell myself that Father would have found me, and taken me back, and part of me wanted to test my scheme, just to prove to myself that I was still valuable enough to be hunted again. (Like Cain.) What stilled my hand was the knowledge that I was nothing more to him than a tool, worth more for my abilities than my being. And in the end, he decided that my use to him had ended.

Some nights, when night stiffens the air and the blankets are too heavy, I want to ask Cassian if he felt a lot of pain before he died. If he dreams about it, like I do. I used to dream about it so often that I hated sleeping, because I would, without fail, watch him die, (and die and die and die). But I never do. I'm ashamed of what my choices cost him.

On those nights of blood and terror, before Cassian returned, I used to tap Cain awake, just lightly enough that he thought that he woke of his own accord, and have him tell me about anything, in a soft, sleep-heavy voice. The poisons behind the wall. The way Mary annoyed her governess. Anything. He'd drift off, inevitably, the pauses in his words increasing, until his stories dissolved into a series of soft exhales.

(I wonder, not for the first time, if Cain dreams about it too.)

The lamb-white moon reminds me of Snark. Sheep rarely live past twelve years, but if he had been allowed to live, then—no, I try not to think too long on traveling the countryside with Snark. A doctor and his sheep. That's but another future that never came to pass. (I dreamt about Snark last night. I led him back to a pen, and left him there to die. There, surrounded by the white walls. Only when I awoke, did I remember that he never had a pen. Am I leaving him again? Is such an action inevitable or a choice?)

Perhaps it is only a trick of my memories of the time spent with Snark, but I finally come to my senses. The air, though sharp with cold, is calmer here, among the wild creatures, and I collect myself, brushing off the dirt, the branches; the dampness of the leaves, however, remains, and I cannot do anything about the stains. Those will be the bane of some faceless, nameless maid.

I survey the undulating expanse of grass, just outside the wilderness. Is home, as the English believe, in the land, bequeathed from father to (legitimate) son? Is it in a person, as I believed for far too long? Is it a state, something not beholden to the bonds of life but rather found in one's mind? Can home be chosen or bestowed? Finding no answers, as always, I move to return to the manor, calmed by the wild.

The gardens, though darkened, prove just as beautiful as in the daylight. Against the black boughs ripple the paleness of blossoms. I frown. It's too late for apple blossoms, and I can hardly remember what blooms in mid-summer. As I continue to wonder, a crow regards me with his ink eyes, framed by the darkness of the branches.

Unable to resist the allure of meeting one of God's creatures, I offer up a bit of bread. While he contemplates my trustworthiness, two more birds make themselves known—two unmistakably tame parrots. Shuffling over, they eagerly greet me and snatch the bread away. Dividing it unfairly between themselves. I half smile, despite myself. Perhaps they are brothers.

"Share it," I admonish, only half-serious. "Set a good example for your friend."

"Cold," one of them replies.

I frown. "Sorry?"

"Cold," they repeat. "Cold in the cellar. Cold. "

Although I am initially taken aback, I quickly realize what has transpired. Someone has taught the birds to mimic a human voice, and in doing so, drove the men to their suicides. The drug was administered, no doubt, to facilitate such a scenario. I can't say I care about how some filthy human met his end, rightly or wrongly, but the use of animals angers me. To carelessly involve an innocent—

I suppose murder is out of the question. Cain has inherited Father's cold practicality, but prefers to keep up a charming facade in front of his peers. Much like Father. Again, the circumstances of one's birth will protect the killer from Cain's more typical methods of revenge, but Cain plays a foolish game, for one day they'll trace the poisons back to him. The Earl of Poisons. When I informed him of this likelihood, Cain just shrugged, uncomfortable and yet unwilling to change.

Still, I suppose I must return to that dreadfully hot and stuffy place, to make my amends to whatever fool girl I offended. I resent her for trying to possess my brother's affections, and in the end, all the murders have the same motive: revenge or obsession. A dullness mitigated by the allure of the puzzles each corpse presents.

The human heart holds little interest to me, the one who does not have one anymore. And yet, I sense that I have overlooked a crucial part in this case as a result of such blindness. In retrospect, such brutal murders suggest revenge of a sort.

But I can no more understand why than a fish could crawl. It's not how I was made. Father had no use for empathy, and so he made certain that I would be unhindered by it.

For some reason, that loss strikes me as unspeakably painful.

A little coo distracts me from myself, my ugly insides that will kill me one day. One parrot nudges closer to me. Its eyes warm with affection. I cannot resist.

I hope Neil will not be too upset.

Cain

All the pieces fall into place, as I remember my brother's words about the killer being exceedingly sloppy. I seize her forearm, against her indigent protests, turning over the glove to see the set of pinholes that so clearly mark the presence of a bird.

"Your glove... You killed him," I begin. "He must have wronged you in the past—blackmail, perhaps, and so you killed him."

"Are you mad, Lord Hargreaves?" she replies, trying to wrench her arm away from me. "I know it runs in your family, but I never thought that you might be so afflicted. To handle a lady in such a vile manner, and then to accuse me of such a heinous act—"

Still, given my reputation as London's gentleman detective, the room lapses into a hushed silence. Glasses are clutched tightly, and eyes dart from her to me. Watching us, to see which of us is correct.

My blood, however, runs cold at her casual mention of Aunt Augusta's state. How has it come to be such common knowledge among the gentry? Still, I note the way she distances herself with formality, and sense that I have guessed correctly about her. "No, Lady Jane. You killed him, and you killed the others."

She pales. "That's slander, Lord Hargreaves."

"Your gloves are fresh," I continue, more slowly as I put the evidence together, "and yet they bear holes from a bird perching there." I rip her glove off, revealing the corresponding pinpricks in her flesh. "Had the gloves been old, not only would it have been a grievous oversight on the part of your maid. But they would have frayed in the wash." I catch her gaze; her eyes shine with hatred. "How careless of you. And so predictable, to drive men to their deaths by using birds to feign a human voice."

"And where are these pretend birds?" she counters, clearly distressed. "Prove it, Lord Hargreaves."

I pause, my mind furiously spinning. Leaping from evidence "They must be outside somewhere. Out of sight—"

"They're here."

I turn to find my brother, dirtied but unaccountably pleased with himself. And sure enough, two plump parrots coo, shuffling along his forearm—leaving holes in his coat. Uncle Neil will be unhappy about that. With an expression of tenderness that I have only seen him give to animals, Jezabel strokes one on the head. "They were in the garden."

(For all his disavowal of flamboyance, my brother has an undeniable flair for the dramatic. I wonder just how long he has been standing there, petting the birds and waiting for the right moment.)

I cannot help but smirk. "It's over. Scotland Yard will be here momentarily, to examine the corpse—and arrest you for six counts of murder."

She shakes her head slightly, and I am almost inclined to pity her, but then I remember how she had begun to seek me out. A chill runs down my neck at the thought that I might have been her next victim. Could have I counted on Jezabel to set my death to right?

Unconcerned, Jezabel feeds one of the birds another piece of bread. "Who died in the cellar?" he asks, nonchalantly. "Was it a friend, whom you felt some need to avenge? A relative?"

Surprise gives way to anger on her face, as she fumbles for a nasty retort. Than she falls silent, resigned to her fate. "It was my father's maid. Eliza. She was like a sister to me—and they left her to die in the cellar. In the middle of winter. It was a game to them. Seduce the hapless maid, and then—" She shakes her head at the thought of it all. "You'd never understand what happens to him that hath no helper."

Someone takes the parrots from Jezabel, citing them as evidence; amid their eerie chirps of "cold, cold," he parts with them reluctantly, and I suspect that they will be the newest additions to his collection the moment that Scotland Yard finishes its investigation.

"So you took the law into your own hands." Jezabel surveys Lord Gilroy's corpse with a disinterested eye. "The dose was off for this one, wasn't it? And so, you panicked and tried to cover it up, badly. Poor choice. Tell me, what did you use to make the incisions? The cuts are jagged. A kitchen knife, perhaps? Whatever was still on hand from the supper?"

Angry tears fall down her face. "You think you're so damn clever, don't you? I know all about you. You're stark-raving mad. That's why you're not going to inherit. There's enough madness in the Hargreaves line already."

Jezabel pales with either horror or anger, and for a moment, I think he is about to strike her. Then he turns on his heel, and leaves, clearly angry. I exhale the breath I did not realize that I had been keeping in. Relinquishing my grip on Lady Jane, I give her over to one of the guests, to detain until Scotland Yard arrives. Suddenly weary.

Far from being pleased that I have solved another string of murders, I find only a disquiet that a not insignificant percentage of the gentry has been privy to my family's secrets. She would not have dared to speak so plainly, had she not thought such things already known. And that frightens me.

How much of my family's secrets are spread about in rumors and gossip. A chill comes over me at the thought that one day, someone will know what Father has done, the depths of his cruelty.

Once I hardly cared what others thought, since they, after all, were not like me—the calamity child who stole the color from his mother's cheeks, leaving her as the ghost I remember. But with Father truly dead, now I find myself longing for the quiet life I should have had all these years. Enlivened by the occasional murder, of course.

To my shame, weakness washes over me, as I wish for Riff to return, to enclose me in his arms and reassure me that I am doing right. That I may yet escape Father.

I cannot ask such a thing of my brother, because I cannot predict how he will react to my wish. True, we slept next to each other, but I fear that asking for such comfort might lead him to read a proposal in my request that was not intended. (That I cannot allow myself to fulfill.) And then I will receive heated accusations that I truly am Father's son, and that I cannot bear.

A second outcome presents itself, unwanted in my mind, that he will just give me that lost look that he has sometimes, when he thinks himself all alone. And then I will despise myself for using him.

(I wonder, futilely, if his arms are like Riff's. Not particularly muscular, but sturdy all the same. A haven.)

I am left with an acute sense of aloneness.

Jezabel

I find no solace that this mystery has been put to rest. Oh, how I hate to be reminded that I am the worthless son, the mad son, the half son.

Cassian bounds onto the bed, pleased to see me again, as he had been kept in the kitchens. I smile, more fond of him now that he has taken on the flesh of an innocent. Still I wonder, what a price that must have been, to relinquish the human joys of speech and learning and community—to be with me, one last time.

Was it worth it?

The only answer I receive is a soft grunt, as he settles beside me, more daring than he ever was as a human, because he knows my heart is boundless and forgiving when it comes to God's creatures.

Although Cassian does comfort me, simply by being there, I cannot help but wait against the demands of the clock, half-hoping that the door will creak open and Cain will join me, to lay side-by-side with me; to turn over in his sleep, with a lazy sigh; to smirk at my scoldings over his inadequate clothing.

But I have always harbored foolish hopes.

My hand reaches across the bed, across the ocean of clean linen, and finds nothing, save my foolish desires. And with that, I slowly, slowly curl on myself.

I am cold again.

Notes:

I know I write that I'm influenced by your feedback as readers, and I actually mean it. I do change plot points if I read something that I agree with. Now that we all know who the killer is, I can let you in on a secret: Lord Gilroy was never intended to be killed off. He was supposed to be some noble that we never saw again, who literally just existed to upset Jizabel, and then Kitart mentioned that they kept thinking he would be killed off, and I thought to myself, well, why not? I'm very, very ok with killing characters off, as you all probably know by now. I don't need much encouragement for that.

And with that, we transition into the narrative format I have realized that I like best—anything but the mystery. I'm a huge fan of reading them, don't really care for writing them. I really like the domestic stuff, so we'll be seeing more of that. And suffering. All the suffering. Because I'm a fan of that too. There is so much suffering ahead. I'm really looking forward to writing it for you all.

Thank you again for reading! I really do mean it. I always love to hear from you all.