I ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED A DUNGEON

"What?" Felix looked between the two of them, surprised. "If she isn’t your mother, then who is?"

"Georgia Aldric was our only mother." Helen’s answer came flat, final.

"Then Sabrina. Who the hell was she?"

"A lousy mistress father took up with, after mother died."

"So she was your stepmother, then." Felix nodded to himself. Now things start to make sense.

"She wasn’t." Helen’s fingers curled into a fist against her lap. "Sabrina was a greedy, lustful woman. She wanted to replace our mother and take over this family for herself."

"Hmm." Felix thought that over for a second. "Tell me more about her, if you can. From the start."

"I don’t even want to dirty my mouth speaking her name." Helen shook her head. "You already saw what she is. Didn’t you?"

"We did." Felix glanced at Dune briefly before turning back. "But I’m still skeptical. What we saw might not be the whole truth. The Sabrina you knew and the Sabrina we just met could be two different things." He laced his fingers together on the table. "So tell us about her, Helen. The one you actually lived with."

Helen stared at her own hands for a moment, then lifted her gaze, first to Dune, then settling on Felix. "Fine. If that’s what you want."

"The cold season came around again after my mother passed. Father was starting to settle a little, even if he still drank more than he should have. His old manner started coming back to him, slowly. I’d also heard his finances were improving around then, little by little. Then one evening he brought a blond haired woman home with him. Sabrina, he said her name was." Helen shook her head slightly. "At first she seemed elegant enough, beautiful even, but she had no manners, no real principles underneath it. She spoke to us like we’d known each other for ten seasons already, familiar in a way that wasn’t earned. Out of respect for my father, I forgave her, thinking she’d learn better with time. She never did. She never even tried."

"I’d see her with maids running around in the kitchens, in the laundry rooms, always giving orders like the house already belonged to her. Then one day I found nails hidden in Joshua’s food, and I knew right then what she actually wanted from us. I confronted her about it anyway, told her Joshua could’ve been hurt badly, could’ve died. I asked her to apologize, and she just tried to bribe me with that disgusting smile of hers instead."

"Sabrina crossed a line that night. I couldn’t forgive it, and I went to my father about it. He said he’d talk to her. And look what came of that. Shouting. An argument between them. Still no apology from her. And my father never brought it up again after that."

Helen folded her hands together. "I knew even then that it was only the start. Sabrina started involving herself in father’s business, sitting in on meetings with people I’d never seen before. Father put everything he had into paying off the debt, and somehow the debt only grew larger. His friends turned their backs on him one by one, and no one would lend him a hand except the people Sabrina brought around, claiming they’d help."

She tapped the table once. "They did help, or so my father believed. He was grateful to her for it, right up until I saw what she really was. She was spending her nights with those very men. I couldn’t believe what I saw with my own eyes, such a disgusting thing to do to a man who loved her the way father did. I told myself it was some delusion of mine. Then I saw it again. And again. She deserved far worse than death for that. But I kept my mouth shut. I knew what would happen if I didn’t, that witch would come after me next, after Joshua too, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. So I kept acting the same as always, took whatever gifts she handed us, kept my distance where I could, and made sure Joshua stayed as far from her influence as possible."

"Eventually father discovered her true motives on his own. He found the size of the debt, realized every coin he’d worked himself sick over had gone straight into her pleasures. He wanted her gone from the house, but she wouldn’t allow it. I heard her threaten him myself, told him she’d go to her people and have him blamed for mother’s death if he tried. Father had no way to fight that. Not long after, he fell ill. Sabrina took over everything, spent gold on things I didn’t understand, and I saw men in black cloaks coming and going from father’s room. He died that same week. And still she didn’t stop. She sent every servant from the house and did everything herself after that. Joshua snuck into her room one morning and saw circles drawn on the floor, evil ones, he told me."

"Then one night she started screaming from inside her room. Every door in the house sealed shut. I don’t know what happened after that. We woke up like this. Dead. Our bodies are gone."

Felix let out a long breath and pressed both hands over his face. "God Mother. I can’t believe any of this."

Helen looked down at Joshua, soft for the first time since they’d sat down. "I closed the door to my room after that. And I never left it again."

Felix thought for a long moment, fingers tapping against the table, his gaze fixed on the dead flowers slumped in their vase. "You never spoke to her once, after dying."

"She used to come, once in a while. I never opened the door." Helen shook her head. "I can’t stand the thought of seeing her face again. I don’t know what she’s carrying with her either, whatever she’s become. So no. I never answered."

Felix nodded slowly. "Thanks for explaining all this. It lines up with what we ran into."

"I told you already. She’s exactly what she always was. Greedy. Obsessive. Lustful."

"Sabrina isn’t like that."

Every eye in the room turned to Dune. Felix felt the wrongness of it before he even processed the words.

"Are you saying I’m wrong?" Helen’s voice sharpened at once. "That I hate her for no reason? Is everything I just told you false?"

"Hold on." Felix put a hand up between them. "Let Dune finish."

Dune doesn’t say things she doesn’t actually know. She’s got something. He turned to her. "What do you mean, she isn’t like that?"

"When Sabrina was inside me, I saw her memories." Dune turned toward Helen as she said it. "She was in pain. But she never gave up. Everything she did was for this family."

"What kind of joke is this? Are you saying—" Helen’s mouth snapped shut, a card pinned flat across her lips. She shook her head hard, trying to knock it loose.

"I said hold on." Felix smiled faintly and peeled the card away.

"You imbecile. How dare you do that to me."

"I can do it again if you can’t keep your mouth shut." He flicked the card between two fingers. "You listening, or not?"

"Hmph." Helen turned her face away, arms folding.

"Now, Dune." Felix turned back to her. "Can you tell us clearly what you actually saw?"

"Yes." Dune set her hand flat on the table, palm open. "Put your hand here."

Felix hesitated, then placed his hand in hers. Dune glanced toward Helen.

"I am not touching your filthy skin."

Joshua was already on his feet, climbing up onto the table, and lowered his small hand onto Dune’s palm without a word.

Helen stared at the two of them for a long moment, clicked her tongue, and finally set her own hand over Joshua’s. "Make it quick."