Isadora. The name hovered in the air between them, unspoken but present. Lucien had said mortal girl. He had said seamstress. He had not said Isadora's name, but Clara knew — of course she knew, she had spent her entire life knowing Isadora's business before Isadora knew it herself, because that was what sisters did, they knew, they watched, they catalogued every danger and every joy and every man who looked at their sister too long.
"You know her," Lucien said quietly. "The seamstress. Isadora Wren. You know her because she is your sister, and you are Clara Wren, and the last time I saw you, you were in a corridor at Mirewood Hall with my teeth in your neck, and the last time anyone saw you before that, you were being sold at auction in Viregate, and before that you were on Threadneedle Street, sewing buttons and hanging garlic and living a life that should have been ordinary and was not, because nothing in Bellmere is ordinary, and the Wren family least of all."
