“What has Myron ever done to wrong you? For three years he bent over backward for you. What more do you want?”
The guests piled on instantly.
“Ms. Sanchez has the patience of a saint, keeping a man like that around this long.”
“Exactly. Country trash with a rotten heart.”
“I heard he kept insects in the house. Gives you the creeps. Mr. Henson putting up with him this long is a miracle in itself.”
I stood where I was. The cold crept into my fingertips one joint at a time.
My brother never mentioned any of this in his letters.
All he ever wrote was：Stay warm when the weather turns, and stop running barefoot into the mountains.
Stop killing people. Stop piling up sins. Save some grace for yourself.
I shifted my ears toward the service corridor, where two servers were whispering with their heads together.
“Hey, you see him? That's the first husband.”
“Yeah. Poor bastard. I heard last winter they ripped every last hair off his head. Nearly took the scalp with it.”
“Wasn't that his own fault? The butler said he stole one of Mr. Henson's watches and tried to put a hex on him.”
“Stole my ass. A friend of mine works for the Sanchez household. Said they found that watch in Mr. Henson's own closet later. Pinned it on the husband anyway……”
The other one hissed a quick “shh”.
“Keep it down. You want to get fired? Last time a housekeeper stood up for him, she was gone the next morning.”
My eyelid twitched.
Every hair ripped out.
The watch.
The housekeeper, fired.
None of it was in my brother's letters.
Naomi took my silence for fear. Her tone sharpened.
“Apologize to Myron. Now.”
“Then drag that coffin out of here. You're dirtying the venue.”
She paused, then added in a lower voice, like tossing a coin to a beggar.
“For the sake of having once been married, I can pretend today never happened.”
For the sake of having once been married.
I looked at her and wondered how she could say those words without choking on them.
That was when the Natal Hex-insect inside my sleeve pulsed warm.
A faint residual trace of my brother's hex energy, reacting to something.
I followed the thread of that weak pull and turned my gaze toward the groom's dressing room on the second floor.
The door was half open.
Through the gap, a young maid was being dragged by the hair, sobbing and begging：
“It wasn't me who let Lloyd out of the basement! I followed your orders. I never brought him food or water, not once. I don't know how he got out!”
Then Myron's male assistant let out a cold laugh：
“Then explain how he got from the basement to the wedding to cause a scene.”
“Mr. Henson told you to starve him to death!”
The crying upstairs cut off. All that was left was a single dull “smack”, like a body hitting the floor.
The maid was innocent.
My brother never made it out of that basement alive.
Only a corpse, carried home to the Southern Highlands by a kind Corpse Courier.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs, the blood in my veins pulling tighter inch by inch.
Naomi didn't notice. She was too busy straightening Myron's boutonniere, impatient, waving me along.
“Lloyd.”
“I'm telling you one last time. Apologize.”
I lifted my eyes slowly and fixed them on Myron, shielded behind her.
He was watching me over Naomi's shoulder. A flicker of triumph in his eyes, not quite hidden in time, quick as a snake's tongue darting and gone.
And then I understood why my brother refused to let me come, right up until the end.
Not because he was afraid I'd suffer.
Because he was afraid that if I saw all this, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from turning this place into a real funeral.
Myron let go of Naomi's hand, smoothed the front of his suit, and walked toward me.
His eyes were rimmed red.
