12. Chapter 12
12
Nelle
M y father’s den was one of only a few rooms left untouched in our mansion. It remained unchanged over the centuries. No additional modern amenities like the soft whir of air-conditioning. In the summer, a breeze cooled the room through open windows flanked by heavy brocade curtains. In winter, logs burned in a fireplace.
Power. So much power resided in this room. Power dressed in fine suits. Fates decided over sips of cognac and puffs of rancid-sweet cigars.
My father was holding court with the Heads of the Upper Houses. He wasn’t sitting in his usual favored armchair. Master Sirro was.
As I burst into the den, everyone paused, their conversation drying up and attention swinging my way. The charged atmosphere changed with my sudden appearance. A swelling breath held like a moment of quiet before a storm unleashed itself.
Along with my father, the Heads of Upper Houses sat around the room cast in shadows, filmy silver clouds eddying in whirls from those smoking cigars. Graysen leaned against the wall beside the fireplace, his feet crossed at the ankle.
Ennio Battagli tapped ash into a ceramic dish, the leather armchair creaking with his movement.
What am I doing here?
I’d barged in without a thought given to who was attending the meeting. I should have known it was a stupid thing to do, but I was in desperate need to talk to my father, to make him end Evvie’s engagement to Corné.
Curiosity slithered all over me. I felt it from all sides as the Heads of Houses’ intrigue became fixated on me standing before them, wishing I could spin around and run back out. I even had a desperate impulse to conceal myself behind the man with black eyes, staring at me wide-eyed, as if I’d completely lost my mind.
“Nelle, what are you doing here?” My father frowned, drawing my attention away from Graysen.
But there was so much authority in the room that it rendered me speechless for a moment.
In the corner of my eye, I saw Graysen tipping his chin just? enough to encourage me to hold my ground.
My heart thudded in my chest. Surely everyone could hear it?
Sage brushed up against me. His wisps of cool, misty fur comforted me as he settled on his haunches by my side. I inclined my head politely to Master Sirro, my fingers clutching my adamere beads. “My apologies. I wanted to speak with my father.”
Master Sirro’s Familiar knelt on the floor beside his armchair. She folded her hands on her thighs and bowed her head, causing her long gray hair to fall like a curtain in front of her face. He stroked her head absentmindedly, like she was a pet.
Is that what will happen to me if I’m discovered?
Would I become one of the Horned God’s pets?
Or would I be given to House Pellan? Strapped down to a gurney, my skin and muscles, veins and sinew peeled back to discover just what I was.
“I’ll speak to you later,” my father replied, and I retreated a step, intending to leave.
Master Sirro’s polished voice froze me in place. “Stay, Nelle.” The way he spoke my name, like a caress, had a shudder rippling down my spine.
He slowly angled his head toward Graysen, but kept those golden eyes on me. Something I should have recognized earlier burned in their depth—lust. It didn’t inspire pleasure to see it, it only made my blood chill further. “Ask her. Tell her what you know and ask her to solve our riddle.”
My wide-eyed gaze flitted to Graysen—caught the irritated tic in his jaw—before darting to Master Sirro. He’d eased back into his chair, one elbow on the armrest, an elegant finger tapping his mouth as he waited patiently.
He’s playing with me.
What does he know?
What does he suspect?
Part of me was curious to discover what had rattled Graysen. But most of me didn’t want to know at all.
Graysen pushed off the wall. He circled with slow graceful steps and the ease of a predator. His tall figure cast a shadow over me. “A truckload of stolen souls, a sacrifice to the Horned Gods, was intercepted along the route to the city. They were trapped inside and burned alive.” There was no emotion, no change in Graysen’s voice, its rough timbre delivering the words with his usual bored tone, nothing to indicate how he felt. But the stiffness of his shoulders, the slight curl of his fingers into a fist, and the almost imperceptible way his jaw clenched gave him away to me. He didn’t like what he’d come across. He also didn’t like how Master Sirro was looking at me.
A sick feeling roiled in my stomach at the images his words inspired—terrified people choking on fumes, scrambling at melting metal, trying to free themselves.
I kept my gaze on Master Sirro. The otherworldly glow shimmered about his figure like heat waves from sunbaked asphalt.
“Who, precisely?” I asked, winding my trembling hands behind my back. I wove the adamere beads through my fingertips —My roots are deep. My strength is stone. My breath the wind. I bow to none.
“A collection of men, women, most of them with a trace of other about them,” Graysen replied.
Graysen drew to a halt, angling his body so he was mostly behind me. No one could see, no one would know that his right hand took my left.
For a moment, I almost forgot myself and managed to stifle the sharp gasp before it escaped. But my nerves…my nerves sparked at the intimate touch. Every single inch of me focused on those warm, calloused fingers threading through mine.
I felt his words vibrating from his chest to my back. “There was nothing, no trace, no scent. No lead whatsoever or clue who did this. As if they’d never been there.”
I swallowed. “Nothing whatsoever?”
“Nothing.”
I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do, to reveal this part of me to Master Sirro, but I liked puzzles and I couldn’t stop my mind from churning through possibilities.
The Crowthers had a preternatural ability to hunt. If they couldn’t find anything—
Surely that couldn’t be possible?
Whoever had done this had to have tracked our vehicles, arrived in their own cars to intercept our truck, disabled the men who protected the convoy, did what they came to do, and then left .
Arrived… Then left…
And no trace of any of it. No evidence to even support they’d been there.
And the answer was so simple and yet so obvious I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to any of them.
Master Sirro waited with endless patience, but the others shifted in their seats, the fabric of their suits rubbing together, leather groaning under their displaced weight.
“ Swifting. ” I turned my head up to look up at Graysen, wanting to know what he thought. I encountered a glint of respect in cunning eyes .
“What did you say?” Master Sirro asked quietly.
Graysen brushed a reassuring stroke of his thumb along the back of my hand. I found comfort in his touch, an ally at this moment.
“They swifted in,” I answered, steeling myself as I returned my gaze to golden eyes, holding a level stare with Master Sirro. I bow to no one —not even a Horned God.
Master Sirro’s hand had paused at the crown of his Familiar’s skull. “Nothing living can swift .”
“Why should they be living?”
Master Sirro’s beautiful mouth slowly curved up. “Indeed, why should they?”
I realized I’d pleased him. I’d also intrigued him.
The places Graysen’s body touched mine went taut. His warm fingers tightened around mine.
Shit, what have I done?
I should have just pretended I didn’t know. Batted my eyelashes and played dumb.
Murmuring rippled about the room, words and opinions and questions tossed to one another from those in attendance. Yet Master Sirro kept his silence, his eyes fixed on me while that smile of his became broader and more intense.
Finally, he spoke, staring directly at Graysen. “An act of war.” Threatening words, casually spoken.
Unease snaked through me.
It was a perfect assumption to make. The right one too. But it felt… wrong. Not so much the idea, but Master Sirro’s forced casualness.
“What do you say, Crowther? War?”
He knew if Graysen agreed, it would lend weight to his declaration.
I squeezed Graysen’s hand hard in a warning .
“Perhaps,” he answered Master Sirro. I felt his casual shrug against my arm as if to say— Too early to make assumptions .
Master Sirro made a little murmur in the back of his throat, a displeased sound, yet his smile was light when he said, “Yes, you’re right.”
I inclined my head to Master Sirro. Our fingers became untangled as Graysen bowed deeply and he escorted me out of the room with Sage prowling ahead of us.
This time, Graysen’s hand rested on the small of my back.