Chapter 35
Nelle
Before the sun had even risen, I was already tramping through the forest, my flashlight’s beam jittering over roots and trunks as I moved quickly between the trees, careful not to swing the canvas bags in my gloved hand.
The thick shawl wrapped around my shoulders ruffled with each hasty stride, cocooning me in woolen warmth against the chill.
Sage stalked ahead, his ghostly form slipping through dew-damp ferns and saplings.
Yet not even the beauty of birdsong heralding the coming sun could ease my irritation, nor could the crisp forest air soothe the toxicity burning in my lungs.
It had been three days, and every attempt to find the escape tunnel had ended in the same infuriating nothing.
I kicked a stone into the undergrowth, anger slashing through my veins. It wasn’t just anger, it was a noxious plume of frustration poisoning every hopeful thought of getting off this estate.
When I’d been trapped on my family’s land, I’d filled my days with simple things: morning and evening runs to burn out the wyrm’s power, mapping the estate, tracking animals, swimming in the well and basking on sun-heated rocks.
Lessons with my governess, online classes where I mostly learned new curse words, afternoons reading in my father’s office while eavesdropping on House matters.
And in between, I’d chew through the remainder of my time in the library hunting monsters.
Right now, life wasn’t so different.
It was simply a new estate and a new objective to fill in my time.
I’d run through the forest every morning and evening for days, notebook in hand to sketch a rough map of the Crowthers’ land.
I’d traced the adamere boundary as far as I could travel, which wasn’t far.
The collar around my neck kept me from getting within ten feet of the wall.
The cord would snag and tighten every time I approached.
Even if someone blasted a hole through the stone, I wouldn’t make it out.
So Dustin Reed—spy or not—couldn’t free me. Not while Zrenyth’s magic tethered me to the estate. And he still hadn’t returned from the Wormwood Driads with that case of absinthe, either.
I’d mapped more of the Keep with its rabbit-warren hallways and the servants’ hidden passages slicing through the wings like secret highways.
All the while, I pretended to admire their home, which was pretty much a museum with all the artifacts and treasures they’d collected throughout the millennia.
It put my family in its place, nouveau, compared to the Crowthers’ long lineage.
I couldn’t wander freely either. Sentries guarded certain areas, denying entry.
And then there was the library.
The moment Graysen left for the garage each evening, I slipped out and went straight there.
I’d shifted tables, chairs, rugs, feeling for the edge of a hatch.
Then sconces, the fireplace. Anything that could be a trigger.
After that, the books. One at a fucking time.
With how massive the library was, it would take months to double-check the entire room.
Graysen had been off the estate most days too.
He’d return each night grimy, stale air clinging to him, but always with some other scent layered beneath—the earthy musk of the lake, the clay tang of a pottery studio, or the industrial bite of coal and molten iron.
He’d clean his dusty adamere armor, shower, eat, and bury himself in emails.
With him so busy, we’d barely spent time together. But whenever we were both in the tower, we continued trading answers for questions.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Hmm, I can’t choose. I like them all. Why are there so many guards and sentries?”
“The Children of the Harbinger and your Barbie Doll Ken friend Silas Boon were after you. More than likely are still after you. If you could take one drink, and one drink only, with you to a deserted island, which would it be?”
“Bergamot Tea…oh, and honey too if that’s allowed. Why are parts of the Keep locked off from me? You said I could wander anywhere.”
“You can wander anywhere, just not my family’s quarters or places where you’ll be fucking tempted to steal a weapon. Honey would be allowed. I know you’re fond of a teaspoon of honey with your tea. What’s your favorite song?”
“Set Me Free by House Boulevard.” It wasn’t my favorite song, but he didn’t need to know that, and by the tic in his jaw, I’d struck hard. “How did this tower get infused with wild magic?”
“I’ll tell you if you kiss me.”
“Fuck you, Crowther!”
“Is that an offer?”
As I rounded a weeping willow, ducking beneath its moisture-slick fronds, despair trembled along my bones with a melancholy note.
The Crowthers’ estate was truly set up like a fortress, and the Keep was thick with sentries patrolling its hallways and soldiers on the parapets.
Now that Silas Boon’s intentions were known, everyone was on high alert.
Unfortunately, it meant the soldiers’ domain was as heavily protected as Fort Knox.
I’d tried sneaking in, even cajoling Penn, but there was still no way past the guards posted outside.
Discovering Zrenyth’s Mites meant nothing if I couldn’t get anywhere near the Crowthers’ armory.
A glance upward at the dirty wash of sky peeking through the canopy told me dawn was swiftly approaching. I needed to get back to the tower before Graysen returned from the garage and vanished again for whatever the hells he was up to during the day.
I picked up my pace, weaving through the savage, gnarled forest, far more sinister than the airy woodland back home.
Half-bending beneath a curtain of Spanish moss, I glimpsed a small cottage tucked in a clearing with roses climbing its sagging porch, dust clouding its windows.
Curiosity tugged at me, slowing my steps.
Sage gave a halfhearted bark, as if reminding me I was wasting time even looking. He was right. Pale light was now threading through the trees, bleeding into the forest’s deep greens and earthy browns. I needed to push on. Whatever story the abandoned place held would have to wait.
Not long after, we broke through the treeline and plunged straight into the greenery of Tabitha’s shared gardens, jogging along the stone paths.
By the time I reached the eastern gate, my legs burned.
I slowed to catch my breath, Sage bounding beside me.
The yellow glow of my flashlight slid over the dangerous spikes of the portcullis and the dark walls beyond.
The inner courtyard was waking, not with birdsong, but with voices and scraping footfalls as servants and soldiers filed out for morning drills. Everyone trained here. Everyone was deadly. I’d learned that the hard way with Penn.
They jogged on the spot, rotating arms and hips, some heading out through the gateways and casting curious glances my way.
A few soldiers frowned. Not everyone liked me wandering the Keep alone.
But Graysen kept up the pretense that he had me under control, and I played along—shoulders shrinking inward, keeping my timid gaze averted as if I were afraid.
I felt him before I saw him, that incessant prickling feeling whispering to me he was nearby.
I glanced sideways to see Graysen saunter down the steps from one of the Keep’s inner entrances, wiping the grease from the creases in his palms with a soft cloth before he shoved it into a pocket of his dirty overalls.
His expression was impassive and cold when it fell on me, and I picked up my pace, hurrying toward the lofty tower, darting a terrified glance over my shoulder as he leisurely stalked the space, a cruel slant to his mouth.
The smell of grease pinched my nostrils as his heavy footsteps thudded upon the tower’s spiral staircase behind.
I rushed up, round and round and round, the flickering wildfyre flames still burning in sconces whereupon they’d be extinguished when the sun rose fully.
There was only one room at the very top.
I didn’t know why the rest of the tower wasn’t carved out with further chambers. It seemed a waste of space to me.
I made it to the top landing just as Graysen finished barreling up the staircase with his excessive speed.
Our gazes slid to one another. Mine narrowed. “Morning,” I spat, with a churlish tone.
“Morning,” he replied with a warm smile, ignoring my snarkiness.
The menacing expression he’d worn down at the inner courtyard had been wiped from his features.
Now Graysen just looked like him, the guy who lived with me up in the tower.
A guy who had returned from a night shift of fixing cars, exactly how I’d imagined at the cottage by the lake—him a mechanic and me working at a diner.
After being in his company for the last week, I knew his routine.
He’d shower off the dirt and grease, and then climb into his armor and join in the drills going on down below in the training pit, teaching new defense moves to the servants or assisting with sparring practice and weaponry, before he headed off the estate for the day.
There’d been a change in him too. Ever since my first excursion to the library, he carried himself differently.
He was still his confident, cocky self, but there was an ease about him and some other feeling suffusing his carriage.
It was similar to the way you’d step out of home, greeting blue skies but feeling the air tremble against your skin as if a storm was brewing beyond the horizon.
You couldn’t see it, nor know from what direction it would come, but you accepted that change was on its way and were eager to see the clear sky torn to shreds by wrathful black clouds.
I couldn’t figure out what was going on with him and what he was up to, but I knew there was something. Graysen Crowther always had an agenda.