The next village they went to was Haywood. When they walked out of the first tavern, Margaret was afraid they were too late. Edmund may have already met with someone and now they're on the road to nowhere and they may not have a chance of taking her back.

However, there was one last tavern. Cole entered first and made inquiries. The woman he asked nonchalantly pointed them upstairs. Leaving Cole's men outside to keep watch, Margaret and Cole ran up to the room. When they burst inside, Edmund was there, sitting in bed, as if he had been waiting.

"Where's Fiona?" Margaret asked, looking around the room.

"Edmund," Cole said, striding toward the young man. "What were you thinking?"

Edmund's lips pursed and he glared at Cole. "Should I not be asking you that question?" His eyes flew to Margaret, the intensity in his gaze enough to relay what he meant. "I trusted you."

Margaret's jaw tightened, but she kept her silence. If they wanted to Fiona back, they had to be careful.

"Where's Fiona?" Cole asked.

"Why would I tell you?" Edmund asked, fury in his dark eyes. "She's not yours to begin with. I placed her in your care because I trusted you, but you go around the Town talking to people I told you not to talk to! Didn't you trust me when I said I'll help you with your case?"

"You cannot do this alone," Cole told him after a few seconds of silence. "I cannot do this alone. We need people who can help us."

"Like her?" Edmund spat out, looking at Margaret. "She's with the League! She has been spying on us! And do you know who the League answers to? Do you have any idea who they serve? It is not the people! It's the bloody bastards sitting in the parliament!"

"No, you're wrong," Margaret said, stepping forward. "The League answers to no one."

Edmund scoffs. "Tell that to someone who has not seen Leaguers wander in and out of his father's office, my lady."

Margaret stared at Edmund. "You sent men to follow me."

"I had to. You were spending a lot of time with Devitt. I needed to make sure you were not a threat. But my suspicion only grew when my men told me they were compromised. Only someone who's wary would know they're being watched." His eyes were bloodshot with anger as he looked at her. "Then I had to find out you went to Ashmore where Fiona was." He turned to Cole. "I'm not stupid as you might think, Lord Ashmore. I may be young, but I know a threat when I see it. And she went to Sheills and met with Calan Haverston. Mere weeks later, Haverston paid you a visit in Ashmore." He stood and faced Cole. "I'm not stupid. I had to take Fiona before the League gets to her and return her to the wrong Trilbys."

"The wrong Trilbys?"

Edmund shook his head. "You do not understand. You never will unless you are a Trilby."

"Then make us understand, Edmund," Cole said. "Because as far as I know, you have also been a little dishonest. Tell me everything that happened that night. Tell me about the Manor."

At the mention of the Manor, Edmund's face tightened but he blinked it away and shook his head. "It is not what you think."

"You know what I truly think, Edmund?" Cole asked, stepping closer, his face twitching with fury. "I think you have been playing me. I think you know what I'm doing and you want to know more. You're collecting information to give to your family. And I think you're taking Fiona back to the Manor."

"Even if I am, she's safer there."

"You're not making me understand a bloody thing, Edmund. Start talking with sense or you shall be in trouble. Your family is not the only one capable of making things difficult," Cole said. When Edmund's eyes flew to Margaret, he added, "Lady Margaret is staying. And so are you. You're not leaving this room alive unless you tell us everything." He pulled a chair and forced Edmund to sit. "Start why Fiona is safer in the Manor."

"I don't know much about the Manor," Edmund eventually said, voice low, almost a whisper. "I've never been there. All I know is that Fiona is untouchable there. She always had been."

"And why is that?"

"Because they would not hurt her." Cole did not ask the question that followed the question. He waited until Edmund spit it out. "Because she's one of us. She's a Trilby."

Her breath was trapped in her throat as Edmund said the word. But for some reason, Cole did not seem at all surprised.

"I'm certain you already know about Belinda Carrington. How her banishment was orchestrated by her own sister, Julia Trilby. With Noah's help, Julia managed to send her sister to the Manor. And then she married him and became part of the family." Edmund looked at Margaret, and then Cole. "A few years ago, after murdering their mother, Julia was caught trying to kill Belinda after her escape. She was pregnant then with her child. That child is Fiona." Edmund fell quiet for a while, then he scoffed.

"But the thing about the Trilbys is that we also protect our own. Only in a different way. Because of Julia's crime, they had to protect their names. Noah was a member of the Town Leaders and the family has big plans for him. He had to keep his status in society. They took Fiona away from him and sent her to the Manor. Noah didn't like that. Last year, he took Fiona back, the only child he had with his crazy wife."

Edmund sighed and leaned back against the chair. "But my father, the Prime Minister, didn't like it. He took Fiona away from his brother and she had been staying in our home since, promising the family he would take her back to the Manor." At his last words, Edmund's face crumpled and his shoulders shook with rage. "I should have known then. I should have known what he—" He was not able to finish. His hands flew to his face and he bent over the chair like a ball, crying and shaking. "I didn't know what to do..." he sobbed in his palms.

Margaret and Cole shared a look. They waited until Edmund mastered himself and his cries turned into choking sounds and slowly died. "What I told you about Fiona overhearing their plans after your visit was true," he said to Cole, sniffling and wiping his tears with his sleeves.

"But that's not the entire story."

Edmund swallowed hard. "No." He stared blankly in space, his tears welling his eyes. He was already lost in his own memory of that night. "I was in that meeting. They talked about how Lord Ashmore's investigation will cause problems to their operations and everything else they're planning for the Town. And I was there when they caught Fiona. We didn't know how she got in there. She must have been playing in the room and hid in one of the closets when we arrived. She knew that room was off-limits. Her father, Noah, wanted to take her back but my father wouldn't allow him. He said she'd return to the Manor. Fiona was locked in her room. I visited her and she told me she wants to go away. She's afraid. At first I thought her concern was about the punishment she'd get for being in that room. But that night..."

His lips trembled and it took a while for him to recover. "That night, I couldn't sleep. I knew she would be taken back to the Manor and I may never see her again. With that thought, I went to her room only to find that she was not there. I searched and I..."

Margaret held her breath as she waited for Edmund to continue. A part of her didn't want to hear the rest of the story, another hoped it would not lead to something she was already thinking. But what she was thinking was nothing close to what happened.

"I found her in my father's bedchamber." Edmund's voice shook with anger and disgust that it did not take more words to explain what he meant. Margaret gasped and choked with tears.

Cole's fists tightened into a ball beside her.

"The bloody bastard said he was just..." Edmund choked on his words and even Margaret did not want him to continue. "He denied it and even until now, I don't know if he was telling the truth. But that night, I saw in Fiona's innocent eyes the fear and confusion. She's—She's just a child!"

Margaret shivered at the sound of anguish in Edmund's voice. And she, too, felt the underlying wrath in his tone. Cole must be feeling the same because he was too stiff, his fists tight and shaking.

"He was foxed that night and attacked him. I told him never to lay his bloody filthy hands on her ever again. I asked how many other Trilbys, how many servants and children he had touched, but he wouldn't answer. I carried Fiona away, but he lurched at me, furiously shouting about how I could be such an ungrateful bastard." Edmund seemed to be in a trance and the words simply rolled out of his tongue. "He tackled me to the floor. He was a big man and he managed to pin me with his weight. He wrapped his hands around my neck."

Edmund unclenched his hands, and formed them into a choking form. "I could still remember feeling my life being drawn out of me, him breathing down on me, his wrathful eyes fading as my ears blocked everything." His hand absently held his neck as though he could still feel his father's hands around it. "And then his hold loosened and I could breathe again. My vision cleared and when I realized that I was indeed alive, I pushed him off me.

"I jumped to my feet and realized that my father was barely moving. At first, I thought he was in a stupor—fell asleep or something. But his eyes were open, looking at me as though I betrayed him. The thought came to me slowly. I realized he was dying. I searched the room and found Fiona standing behind me, her eyes covered with tears and she was shaking."

Margaret felt her heart stop and began again to race faster than before.

Edmund stifled a sob. He searched their eyes. With a shaking voice, he said the words Margaret and Cole were not ready to hear. "She was holding a knife." A tear dropped straight from his eye. "Fiona," Edmund choked out. "It was Fiona who killed my father."