Chapter 33 #2
Except my little bird briefly dropped her gaze to her feet and curled the tips of her dainty toes against the tile. “Is Ferne okay… after how it ended?”
Warmth coiled inside my chest that she should ask.
I nodded. It took a while, but eventually.
Nelle glanced up at me from beneath her feathered lashes and shared softly, “Besides, the ending of it all… Ferne’s birthday celebration sounds so enchanting… I’m glad she enjoyed it.”
Yes, Ferne had. And many more followed. Once she took charge, my sister moved through our world with a quiet certainty that it would be hers to shape.
Nelle finished her drink and placed the empty glass in the sink.
I thought she’d leave for bed, but she remained, fidgeting in place.
She smoothed her hands over the shawl on the counter.
Her fingers plucked at the soft material, and she nibbled on the corner of her mouth as she neatly folded it.
While I chopped up the other half of the foul chicken, I felt her swift glances on my profile.
It seemed as if something else was on her mind, but she wasn’t sure how to voice it.
For a long moment, only the sound of Sage’s tail enthusiastically swishing along the tile and the slice of my adamere dagger against wood and bone and rank flesh filled the room.
“Why do you live in the tower?” she asked quietly.
A cold splash of surprise shocked my insides that she’d ask me. I was pretty sure she’d already deduced the answer with her clever mind.
“I think you know why.” My blade scraped against the wooden chopping block as I slid the foul chicken pieces into Sage’s food bowl.
Washing the dagger and my hands in frothy soap, I dried up on a lime-checkered tea towel hanging on the oven door handle before tucking it away.
Grabbing hold of the bowl, Sage pranced at my heels as I stepped onto the balcony and squatted down to place the bowl beside his water dish.
With an excited yap, the wraith-wolf lunged in, greedily snatching up a rotten morsel.
A ridgeline of hackled fur ran down his spine, and he flattened his ears back, loosening a deep growl, warning me off his food.
As fucking if—he was welcome to the putrid chicken.
Nelle had followed me out onto the balcony. Reluctant to leave the safety of the light, she leaned her shoulder against the pillar-like edge of the wall. “It’s the one place your aunt couldn’t reach you,” she answered.
“Yeah.” As I rose, the thick roping of scars on my back stung in bitter memory.
“Did your dad know what was happening to you?”
My hair swept sideways as I shook my head. “No. He had no idea.”
“Mine either,” she whispered. We shared a brief look of understanding, of darkness and suffering, of fathers promising it would never happen again.
Except my father was unable to keep his promise.
And this tower hadn’t saved me from my aunt’s wrath years later.
A dull burn flared on both of my wrists beneath the silver chains and leather straps my younger brother had tied around them because he couldn’t bear to see the scars. Time and pain had been endless in the well of frigid darkness under the Keep.
Nelle was the one to break our locked gaze, flicking her line of sight toward the velvety night sky.
Shaking the memory off and shoving it down deep, I drew my shoulders back as I tucked my hands into my sweatpants’ pockets.
I cleared my throat, focusing on the here and now and fonder memories.
“Dad brought me here and let me choose whether I wanted to live alone, or with the rest of the family in the Keep.”
Nelle peered into our room, sparkling with curiosity.
The tower had been empty for centuries. Dad helped clean it up and transform it into a self-sufficient home.
He was the one who’d taught me how to cook the old family recipes from vó Bel.
Cooking had been my grandmother’s passion, and the kitchen was Isobel’s sacred space.
Spicy scents and herbs always filled the kitchen, along with her laughter and the tales from her side of the family, the Teixeiras.
“So you learned to cook and to take care of yourself, and to keep your domain in particular order.” Her cheeks rounded in a swift, shrewd grin.
I scowled as annoyance at her jab prickled beneath my skin. “I just like things right. It’s not weird, okay?”
Amusement brightened her eyes. “Not in the slightest.”
A heartbeat later, she rubbed her lips together, dousing the mirth. Her messy bun tipped to the side, casting sweet shadows across the planes of her face as she angled her head toward me. “You can ask me a question if you like.”
It seemed we were continuing to play the game I set in motion early today, a question for a question.
As she waited patiently, unease flitted over her features, and her fingers played anxiously with the messenger bag’s strap.
I pondered, searching her face, wondering what to ask.
Tension ran along her lithe body, and I could tell she was steeling herself for a question regarding Silas Boon, perhaps the wyrm or her family.
There were more serious questions I should be asking, but I couldn’t resist this one. “What’s your favorite childhood memory?”
Nelle’s grip on the bag strap went slack as she blinked rapidly, taken by surprise.
Her brows nudged together, and she chewed on her plump bottom lip, thinking about it.
“The day I saw the sea for the first time.” She smiled.
A real smile, vibrant in its openness and perfectly crooked, like the smile she shared with me this morning up in my mother’s reading nook.
Her loveliness stole my breath.
Nelle turned her diminutive figure and leaned her back against the stone wall, her gaze captured by the dark horizon.
The edges of the forest and rolling hills were a rough brushstroke, detailed only by the scattering of stars beyond.
She glanced sidelong, still smiling. “I was five years old, and we’d all gone together.
My parents, Lise, and Evvie. We traveled right across the States to the West Coast so I could see the Pacific Ocean with my very own eyes.
I’d never seen the sea before. I’d only seen pictures of it, and I had no idea at all of how endless it appeared.
It went on forever. It was all I could see.
This majestic blue world with brine caught in the air.
And the sand,” she breathed. “I never knew how soft sand could be. Every time a wave rolled out, the water sucked the tiny grains from beneath my toes and tickled the soles of my feet. It was the most incredible sensation.”
Nelle stared ahead where darkness gathered.
Her smile faltered, and her voice grew quieter, melancholy shadowing her tone.
“It was the last time we went anywhere as a family. The last time I left the estate for anything but dress fittings or the odd High Tea at the Monarch Tower and the rare appearance at a House Gathering.”
A cold feeling trickled down my spine. “Why?”
Sharpness haunted her gaze. “It was the first time fire showed itself.”
Nelle abruptly pushed off the wall, hurrying into our rooms, obviously done for the night.
A desolate wind whispered through me at what I was a part of. There was a vast world out there, waiting for her to spread her wings and soar amidst its wonder. She had a little over two weeks to find a way to free herself.
A sudden rush of fear skated across my skin.
I knew I would have felt her despair and terror trembling beneath my flesh.
I knew Penn had lied to protect Nelle from my brothers.
But I had to know for sure. I darted inside my quarters, my voice ringing out, and the question stopped her mid-step.
“You’re not crying when you’re alone, are you? ”
Nelle turned back slowly, her delicate features lined with confusion. “Crying?”
Fuck. I dragged my fingers through my hair, searching for the right way to ask. I anxiously motioned toward her with a hand. “Feeling hopeless and terrified of my family? Of my brothers?” Of what was going to happen later if she didn’t escape me.
Her expression smoothed into a blank slate.
The questions were fired rapidly with each footstep closer. “You think I’m breaking when I’m alone? That I’m huddled in a corner sobbing in despair? Trembling in fear of your brothers?”
I nodded, worried it might be true.
Nelle stared back, scanning my face, giving nothing away.
All of a sudden, her upper body buckled forward with a stifled chortle she tried to hide by slapping a palm over her mouth. A second later, her hand dropped to her chest, and an obnoxiously loud cackle of laughter erupted.
My eyelids flattened and my jaw went—tic, tic, tic—as I watched her slender shoulders quake and her cute, messy hair tremble when she fell into one of those deep belly laughs. The kind of hearty belly laugh you couldn’t stop. The kind of laugh where you laughed so much you ended up crying.
Nelle did that.
She howled with laughter for a full two minutes. I knew because, like a fucking masochist, I stood there and actually counted in my head.
Every time she glanced at me, her cackling grew rougher and more uneven. Tears streamed down her rosy, puffy cheeks. She even snort-laughed in between, “All alone and crying… Oh my gods, that’s priceless.”
Eventually, because it happened to the best of us, she got intoxicated on laughter, swayed drunkenly, and collapsed into a heap on the carpet.
I threw up my arms.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Swiveling around, I stalked to my makeshift wardrobe, grabbed a pair of overalls marred with old stains of oil and grease, and left. The tower’s door slammed behind me with a loud bang as I shut away Nelle lying on the floor holding her jiggling stomach and sob-laughing like a fucking hyena.