"What do you mean?" Sylvia stamped a hand on her hip. "Once again I'm the last to know everything."
"I had no choice," Langley said to Jack, ignoring her. He shrugged, as if it were nothing. As if manipulating my emotions and making me believe Jack lied didn't matter, as long as he got the outcome he wanted.
The heat rose within me again, but not enough to produce sparks or flames. Unlike Jack. He looked like he wanted to set something alight. His breathing had become ragged, his nostrils flared. At least there were no sparks.
"What happened in your room, Uncle?" Sylvia asked.
Jack gave a low, bitter laugh. "Our dear Uncle August knew that anger would cure Violet of her narcolepsy and was also the trigger that would ignite the heat inside her. He decided to set up a little experiment."
"Not an experiment," Langley said. "An experiment is where you test a hypothesis within a controlled environment. I bypassed the experiment and went straight to administering the cure."
Sylvia gasped. "Good lord. Was that wise?"
"I think we all saw how unwise it was," Jack muttered.
"Now it makes sense," Sylvia said. "You deliberately made her angry with a lie about her being kept prisoner here. Uncle, how could you?"
"Enough! I did what was necessary to remove the narcolepsy and memory block. Now we can start her training anew."
I pressed my fingers to my temples. My head ached. My heart was sore. I should be disturbed by Langley's admission, but I couldn't muster any thoughts in that direction. All I knew was that Vi and Miss Levine had lied to me for many years. My world had been turned upside down and shaken about. I felt like I was watching a grand illusionist working his magic so cleverly and subtly that the sleight of hand went unnoticed. Nothing was as it seemed anymore.
"I think you need to lie down," Jack said, once more crouching in front of me. He peered at me as if he would see my thoughts. It was clear from his earnest gaze that he wanted to hold me, just as I wanted to be held by him. But touching of an intimate nature was impossible. He may have been able to carry me to safety, but there'd been no desire in his touch then, only urgency.
It would seem that anger caused me to light fires, but mutual desire caused us both to combust.
"I'll find out if the maids have made up any of the bedrooms," Sylvia said.
"Wait." Langley tapped his finger on the arm of his chair. "You owe me an explanation, Violet."
"She doesn't," Jack growled.
"It's all right," I said. "I want to tell you." I needed to, if only to help me make sense of it.
"Why did you not tell us you thought you couldn't light fires?" Langley asked. "If you didn't want to stay here, why not inform us of what you thought was the truth?"
Three sets of eyes watched me intently. Only Bollard seemed disinterested. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly before beginning. "I was protecting my friend. I thought she was the fire starter, not me. She's not as strong as me, you see. She scares easily and I wanted to protect her from...your experiments. If your intentions truly were to do harm or to study her then I wanted to keep her safely at Windamere."
"That's so sweet of you," Sylvia said, sniffing and dabbing at the corners of her eyes.
"She's lucky to have a friend like you," Jack said.
"Except we're not friends, are we?" I said, bitterness souring my tongue. "How can we be? She's been lying to me for years. She knew I was the one who started the fires, yet she allowed me to think it was her and that my narcolepsy was somehow tied to it." I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous now that I thought about it. Why would my narcolepsy have been caused by her being able to start fires, or vice versa?
"Why would she do that?" Langley asked.
"Yes," Jack said. "Why lie at all?"
I shrugged. I felt like the stupidest fool that ever lived. "I don't know. They were all lying. Miss Levine, Lord Wade and Violet—"
"Violet?" Jack frowned. "But you're Violet?"
I chewed the inside of my cheek and tasted blood. "My name is Hannah Smith."
Langley's fingers gripped his chair arms. "Hannah...Smith," he muttered.
"You've heard of me?"
He lifted a hand in dismissal, but the distance in his eyes remained.
"You're not the daughter of Lord Wade?" Jack asked.
"No. Violet Jamieson, my friend, is. I was her companion, confined to the attic alongside her because she couldn't be let out with her condition." I twisted my hands together, knotting the fingers. "Or so I thought. But since I am the fire starter, and she isn't...I don't understand why Lord Wade kept me at all. Or why she's in the attic."