&. gideon blackwood. ❪ soulwept. ❫
his eyes finally lift again to adelaide, after more than a few silent moments fixed on the fireplace by the wall. her words are echoing in his head. the rest of their conversation had been lost to this new topic.
part of him is relieved; his fears and suspicions of guinevere’s parting was more than the initial mundane story he had been told. that his sister had not been a victim of such simple circumstances. and yet… he’s read her diary, her notebooks, seen the little things she’d scrawled down. if there was a way to feel his sister’s rage, it would be this.
“then you need to explain, please.” his voice drops, eyes unmoving from her. “there has been a lot not said about her death.”
there are things she leaves out. gideon doesn't need to know about how smirke visited the institute, doesn't need to know about the thing that attacked ms. blake, doesn't need to know how scared guinevere was of what they found under the bed. but she tells him how they found mr. ward's body — part of it, though she doesn't elaborate on which part —, tells him about how ward had figured out that smirke was no longer smirke, tells him about how he it attacked guinevere, took her face and corrupted it in front of all of them.
"i can’t help feel like i should have pieced it together, that i should have noticed. i worked with the man, for years, it— this shouldn't have happened." she sighs, though it comes out shaky, broken. doesn’t tell him about her visit to the museum that morning, doesn’t tell him about how it could have been her.
(doesn’t want to know if he would have preferred if it had been her.)
"there was a book. it hurt the— whatever it was that took them both. i used it against it and it was… destroyed."
adelaide turns to gideon for a moment, sucks in a breath, and immediately looks away. "it was so fast, mr. blackwood. but we didn't even— if there was a way to save her— we didn't try—"
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