A House of Cloaks & Daggers (The Gift War #1)

29. Until My Lungs Were Starving

Chapter twenty-nine

Until My Lungs Were Starving

I was used to being alone in the bookstore back home, but Wren’s disappearance rattled me. After he vanished from his own bedroom that day, I didn’t see or hear from him again for three weeks. They felt much longer than they should have, and that was partly due to the fact that Lucais also became absent most of the time.

The High King remained at the House in physical form, at least. He was sometimes distant but never unkind.

We dined together in the evening most days, and it quickly stopped feeling so awkward. He made me laugh and then pretended that he wasn’t trying to be funny, which made me laugh even more.

We sat in the library together a few times a week, which was a massive room on the third floor that was far grander than the shabby reading nook downstairs. He would flip through something, and I would read another book, and it felt like we had known each other forever. He’d pull my legs onto his lap, and I’d watch his eyes widen while I read the steamy passages from my books out loud to him.

He would stop and talk to me if he was ever passing through a part of the House that I was in, and one time, he sought me out on one of my twice-daily walks around the perimeter of the gardens.

He even took me down to the inlet one afternoon when the sun finally came out again. We lay on the sand between the long grasses, bathing in its warmth together, while he asked me about all the books I’d read and loved, and then he kissed me until my lungs were starving and my lips were swollen, and we both got sand everywhere.

He never came to my bedroom, though, and we never specifically mentioned what had transpired between us in Wren’s.

He didn’t mention Wren at all, actually. No one did, and I didn’t ask.

Delia came and went, some days more often than others, and some days not at all. She couldn’t tell me what she was doing or where she was the rest of the time, and I could never find her when I went looking. Still, I was grateful for her presence, even if it was inconsistent. It was keeping me sane, reminding me of when Amelia would drop by Dante’s Bookstore and disturb the monotony of a long day without customers or deliveries.

I stayed mostly within the boundaries of the House since the slaughter in the clearing, per Lucais’s request. He explained that the House was protected by runes and enchantments, shielding us from outside threats, and told me I would be safe if I remained within the boundary lines while he was unavailable.

He hadn’t informed me of any new caenim sightings, but I was confident that the Malum knew my location. I’d stepped out of bounds, beyond the fence line, for a split second once or twice a day every day for the last three weeks—simply in case they needed a reminder of where my scent would lead to and where it would not. I had to do something to ensure that my decision to travel there and remain in the strange House was worth it for my mother and sister, especially when I had no idea what Wren or even Lucais were really doing since the attack.

Delia gave me a healing tonic that cleaned up the mess Lucais’s sentry had made of one side of my face, and nobody had spoken of it again. I didn’t think the man was allowed anywhere near the House now.

In those three weeks, when I wasn’t with Lucais, I spent most of my time searching for clues. Anything to suggest that there might be a dungeon hidden somewhere underground or that Wren might have been involved in other nefarious activities.

I found nothing.

The House was back to speaking with me when it felt like it, but it did not help me with my searches. In fact, I had cause to believe that it was deliberately getting in my way. Every door I came upon was suspiciously locked, and every abandoned corridor was left in the dark. It refused to let me move the ladder in the library to different sections so that I could reach the higher shelves that contained most of the non-fiction and historical artefacts, and it often kept me waiting for things like meal trays and hot water in the mornings, which felt like a delay tactic.

In the end, I gave in. The House was an enigma. There was probably no dungeon. Wren was likely out on a bender somewhere, blowing off steam. And Lucais was…

Well, I wasn’t sure.

Sometimes, I caught him looking at me in such a way that could very nearly set me on fire. But then he would glance away. I would receive the affectionate brush of a thumb across my cheekbone or a foot massage in the library. Maybe even a kiss like that day on the sand, but it never went any further, even when I showed interest. In fact, he had abruptly left me panting and hot on more than one occasion with no explanation.

I actually felt like he was avoiding me some days, so I didn’t tell him about my dreams and my search for the dungeon. Not even the books I was trying to reach in the library on the days he didn’t join me there. I didn’t say very much at all about it, and to be perfectly honest, neither did he.

Until sometime after my third week in the House, when he knocked on my bedroom door.