Chapter Thirteen
Azizi
Theodore Villin is a masterpiece wrapped in pale, freckled skin. The way he yields for me so easily, tipping his head back to swallow the thick blood from my cup, makes something hot flare in my stomach. A flame building with every desperate gulp and gasping breath.
His fingers wrap around my wrist, that foggy expression from the other day back in his eyes as they flutter up at me. Like I am his God, pouring salvation into him drop by drop.
He drinks without complaint until my cup runs dry and he is left sucking in air like he's just resurfaced from drowning. A warm satisfaction bubbles within me when he does not release my wrist, nor pull away from my grip.
A single river of blood dribbles from his lips and carves down his chin and throat. I watch it for a moment, as he watches me, and before I can stop myself, I lean in to taste it. To taste him.
The blood tastes the same on the surface as it always does—slightly stale from being bottled rather than fresh—but underneath that is Theodore. The sharp salt of his sweat, the hint of smoke from falling asleep in front of the fire, something deeper that tastes almost woodsy, husky.
It is a challenge not to sink my teeth into him and taste him fully. Instead, I trail my tongue up his jaw, chasing the blood over the curve of his bottom lip.
His lips part in a gasp, his eyes wide when they meet mine. Clearer than before, but still so, so hungry.
"Delicious," I whisper, excitement flooding my veins as his cheeks burn a lovely rose, "isn't it?"
It takes a few seconds for Theodore to get his bearings again, to smack his lips and give me a shaky nod. Before he can respond, however, his eyes dart over my shoulder and widen, his cheeks darkening even further.
I do not have to look to know no one is there. I'd sense them, hear their heart beating long before they made it into the house, but Theodore clearly sees something. Or rather, someone.
"Is that her? Your ghost?"
He jumps at the question, and I use the opportunity to take a step away, loathe as I am to part from him when he smells so lovely.
But he is a jumpy thing, a frightened one too, and moving too quickly in directions he is not familiar with would only spell an end to our fun long before I am satisfied.
So I distance myself, stepping back in the opposite direction of where he glanced earlier. I do not know how ghosts work, or if they even truly exist, but I’d rather not risk scaring this one away.
Theodore blinks at me for a long moment, his brows furrowing in confusion. “My ghost?”
“Mr. Allard told me you’ve befriended the spirits of the house,” I tell him, careful to keep my tone open and encouraging. “I’ve yet to see anyone myself, but this place is old and well-lived. It would not surprise me if there was a spirit or two wandering the halls.”
He swallows, eyes darting between me and the empty air across from us, then gives a slow nod.
“Y-yes, it’s my ghost. Or—I suppose she is your ghost. Some of the stories in the village say the Widow’s Chateau is haunted by the wives of all its previous owners,” he says, “but I have only ever seen the one—ghost, that is.”
Curious. I'd known this house had a dour history when I purchased it, but to know it is truly haunted makes it even more enticing. The tragedy within these walls, the stories this house could tell me, draw me like a moth to flame, even now.
"What does she look like?"
The boy perks up a bit at that, his eyes twinkling with excitement. "I can show you if you’d like! I've actually finished the cleaning since you've been gone! If—I mean, if it's okay that I show her?"
The question is not directed at me, but instead the space beside me. Whatever he sees must be encouragement enough, because he grins, steps forward to grab my hand, and leads me away.
His excitement is adorable and such a drastic change from the hazy pleasure he had only moments ago, but I do not begrudge him for it.
He hides from his beast in a way I never have, craving to be away from it, to ignore it and lock it away.
It is no great shock that he would slide so easily into thinking of other things.
To my surprise, Theodore leads me to the back of the kitchen and through the servant passages, guiding me up and around the narrow stairs and through narrower halls.
We come to a stop in front of a pale blue door at the top of one of the towers, and Theodore pulls out a small key tied with a matching ribbon.
He slips it eagerly into the lock before pushing the door open with a grin.
Inside is a music room. Smaller than I am used to, considering the many musicians in my family, but still cozy and homely.
Despite Theodore’s tireless work on fixing the room up, there are still signs of its age and neglect—stains and scratches marring the wooden floors, a windowpane temporarily replaced with a slab of wood, water damage eating away at the bench built in beneath it.
But there is compassion here too, little signs of life and love hidden in the smaller touches. A small, framed sketch of a blue bird hung on one of the walls. A shelf packed full of old journals and books next to an armchair with a handmade throw tossed over it.
It reminds me a bit of my studio downstairs. Personal, in the way that a diary is personal. An extension of one’s self. A sanctuary.
I pause in the doorway, not daring to cross further with the morning sun peeking through the windows. “This is the room Mr. Allard helped you with a few weeks ago, yes?”
Theodore nods, spinning around in the center of the small attic to smile at me.
“It’s the only room in the house that Mr. Allard said the previous owner left locked.
It didn’t even look like they’d touched it before leaving, and it was fairly unkempt when I found it, but I’ve been working to get it as fixed up as I can.
” There is a pride in the shape of his lips as he brushes a hand over the armchair, his fingers slipping into the worn fabric of the throw.
“I like it up here. It feels a bit like a hidden treasure, you know? And it’s easier, I think. ”
“Easier?” I ask.
“For Kolfina—that’s her name. I think it’s easier for her to be visible here?” His voice rises up into a question, but he does not wait for an answer. “More present, I suppose. So I come up here a lot to spend time with her.”
Kolfina. 'The White Lady.' A fitting title for a spirit. I find myself curious if it is a name she chose, or one that she has always had.
“You can come in, you know. She says it’s alright.”
I offer him a returning smile and shake my head.
“I appreciate the invitation, but I am limited in regards to where I can go when the sun is up.” I gesture to the windows where the light casts fractals of blues and oranges and yellows across the floor.
“Direct sunlight burns us—an unfortunate side-effect of our condition. With enough protection we are able to tolerate it in small amounts, but we are, at our core, creatures of night and shadow now.”
Theodore blinks, only allowing himself a moment of shock before stumbling over an apology and rushing to close the curtains. They aren't as heavy as the ones Allard has put up in the rest of the house, but they block the light enough to let me step into the room without fear of incineration.
"I still have questions about that," the boy says when he rejoins my side. "If you're still willing to answer them, of course."
Oh, he is an adorable little thing.
My father has always warned us to be careful about our secret.
People fear what they cannot understand, especially when it comes to those who appear above them in power and ability, but Theodore is different.
That strange hunger I saw in his eyes, the way he licked the blood off my fingers, drank it obediently from my cup—it draws me closer to him in a way I can barely understand.
Makes me want to splay him out before me and copy his image onto canvas, to pry every secret from him and cast each one in careful strokes of charcoal and paint.
If I wish to do so, I surely cannot withhold my own secrets. Besides, something tells me that Theodore is not the kind to break the trust that he is given.
"I will endeavor to sate your curiosity, if you are willing to sate mine as well."
His smile tapers off a bit at the edges, but he does not disagree or deny me. Instead, he takes a step back and turns slightly, waving a hand at a portrait on the wall behind the piano.
"This is Kolfina, or it was her. I don't think it does her justice really, but if you can't see her, well…"
The painting is a bit too close to the window for my liking, but Theodore has taken the space closest to the piano, so I am able to keep a watchful eye on the curtains as I follow him closer.
And indeed, the painting is beautiful. Or rather, the woman in it is beautiful.
Her large eyes are the colour of fallen leaves in autumn; her hair falls in ringlets of pale yellow around her plump, rosy face.
But there is an emptiness in her gaze. The colour work of the artist is perfectly fine in catching the depth of her eyes, but there is no life there. No breath or blood.
She is nothing but colours on cotton, painted by someone who looked but could not see. Like the landscape in the foyer and Theodore’s words—hesitant, unsure, but truthful all the same.
“It’s a perfect image. Pretty to look at, yes, but there is nothing to see.”
My fingers itch for my sketch pad, for my brushes and palette. To put charcoal to paper and pigment to canvas. To bring life to the ghost from my dreams.
And it is the woman from my dreams, I am sure of it.
I have never seen her face, but I recognize the shade of her dress—robin’s egg blue with white floral stitching and delicate lace trim—and the tight curl of her flaxen hair.
Each day I chase her, reaching and reaching; each night I wake hunched over dozens of sketches, unfinished and messy.
To think this whole time, she has been only a breath away.
"She is quite lovely," I finally manage to say. "I wonder why it is only you who can see her."
Theodore scrunches his nose in consideration, glancing off to the side where I can only assume the ghost in question is watching.
"I'm not sure, but I've been thinking about it as well.
" He taps his fingers on the top of the piano, an anxious beat that he doesn't look aware he is doing.
"When I first saw her, she was very... fuzzy, I suppose you could say.
And she was only there for a moment. It wasn't until recently, when I found this room and started fixing it up, that she's become more solid.
Or… solid is the wrong word, but she's become more. .."
"Real?" I supply, and Theodore beams at me.
"Yes! I've been speaking to her more as I clean, and I read to her or ask her questions about the things I find in the house.
" He gives a hesitant shrug, like he's shy about admitting to such kind acts for a dead woman.
"She can't speak back, but I think maybe just talking to her makes her more real, in a way.
Like an anchor drawing her back from wherever it is she goes when she's not here. "
Interesting. I know nothing of ghosts, but my mere existence is enough to prove that there are things in the world that are other. I cannot help finding myself curious as to the limits of Kolfina’s existence.
"If you'd like, I can write my brother and ask him about it.
" I glance at the space that Theodore had stared at, hoping the Lady Kolfina could understand that I was speaking to her as well.
"Our father is what made us, and his father before him was the first of us.
As such, my brother has always been rather interested in the occult, and he has a very large variety of sources and connections within our…
community, so to speak. Perhaps he knows something that might shed some light on your situation, and if he does not, our father might know. "
I do not hear a reply, of course, but Theodore's eyes are wide as he looks at me, and even wider still as he turns to his ghost. For a moment, I swear the air shimmers beside the piano, but I cannot be sure it wasn't just the light shifting behind the curtains, or a hope in the back of my mind that I might see her if I look hard enough.
"Yes," Theodore answers. "Yes, that would—that would be very kind of you."
He looks relieved, grateful. It makes the beast inside me rumble with a happy purr. "Then consider it done."