Chapter 15
Delphi knew it had to be the full moon that evening. She'd woken up agitated and stayed that way all day. It always got under her skin, the energy of it setting her teeth on edge.
She hadn't seen Tenebrys or Felix for the whole day. If they were up patrolling the woods at night or whatever the shifters did to keep themselves amused, then it was no wonder they slept all day.
Delphi had tossed and turned all night, her nightmares full of summoned demons, strange sigils, and hearts of magic beating in crypts.
That morning, things had been moved in the kitchen and her rooms. She would have woken up if Tenebrys had been snooping amongst her things. He didn't need to anyway; if he wanted to look at something, he would just do it.
Still, she had found the small dish of fruit she put out for the house spirits had been tipped over, and salt had been spilled over the counter.
The vegetables in the kitchen had been rearranged, and when she had gone outside to get blackberries for breakfast, she had found a strawberry patch blooming that she was positive hadn't been there the day before.
At midday, she had been distracted by a tap tap tap sound of dripping water, and when she investigated, she found a faucet in the bathroom running. She had only ever seen indoor plumbing at one of the rich houses Narcisse had worked for in the capital.
When she had turned the taps days earlier, nothing had happened. Now, when she tried, water gushed out, first brown and then clear, as if they were cleaning out the dirt that had built up in them.
Delphi had doubted Tenebrys when he said that he believed her presence and magic were waking the chateau back up. Now, she wasn't sure. She wished she could do more with her magic than heat water and start a few fires.
Sometimes when she closed her eyes, she could feel something thrumming deep inside of her.
It was the same place that her inner voice seemed to come from.
If she had listened to it at the crossroads that day and left Narcisse, then she never would have had to deal with Louis's threats or crashed into Tenebrys.
Most of all, she never would have had to face the fact that her parents were awful people.
Narcisse had always had moral flexibility, but she had never thought he would be capable of doing dubious experiments on already ill people and then making a deal with demons.
Had he known that the magic he had been given would curse and kill them? Or had he been sold a lie that the magic would cure them?
Delphi had seen for herself the way Narcisse would dispassionately write about the sick shifters, but that wasn't real evidence. It could have been him trying to be clinical and focused.
Delphi had never known her mother and had created a childish fantasy in her head that she had been a wonderful, caring person.
Someone who would have raised Delphi like a daughter, instead of her barely being tolerated by the few faceless women Narcisse had paid to sometimes watch her until she was old enough to care for herself and him too.
But Cassia had married Narcisse. Perhaps they were more alike than Delphi had wanted to imagine. Cassia knew about the heart of the chateau, and it was her handwriting that noted how it might be able to be used to power their own sigils.
Tenebrys had said that the heart had died the day Narcisse detonated the curse. They had used it for something, or they had killed it in the process.
The way Tenebrys had talked about it made it sound like it was a living entity. It had just been one more thing her parents had destroyed. Having to face the fact that both your parents were monsters was soul-destroying.
Delphi had gone through their notebook again and had started to match up the loose papers with dates in them. She was trying to get a full picture of what had happened, but her mother shared Narcisse's chaotic way of doing things.
As the day wore on, Delphi had a twisted feeling that something was rotted in her like it had been in them.
She had always tried to be better than Narcisse, but she had done things in the name of survival that she wasn't proud of.
She had stolen food, used her beauty to gain charity, and had sold her body for coin.
Even her arrangement with Gregoire for books had felt necessary at the time.
Now it left her feeling dirty, and it annoyed her.
Narcisse was a controlling, manipulative bastard, and he had raised her to think of everyone she met as a potential mark. She had tried not to do anything that would hurt others, but she had still taken advantage of them.
It all paled beside the enormity of what her parents had done to Tenebrys and his people, and yet that insidious feeling that she was just like them still gnawed at her.
"I did what I had to do to survive," she whispered to herself and tried desperately to believe it.
So much of her life had been driven by fear. Fear of going hungry, fear of Narcisse selling her off, fear that she would be discovered with witch blood, fear that she would never break free and have a life of her own.
If she had been stronger, she would have left Narcisse years ago. Now Tenebrys had taken her in his place for all the pain her father caused, and she would never have her own life again.
To distract herself, she had tried doing some different experiments with her magic.
If she blew up the place, Tenebrys would only have himself to blame for encouraging her to test her magic to begin with.
All that had happened was a few tiny flames, and three cracked glass beakers from being unable to keep the heat in her hands steady.
By sunset, Delphi was frustrated and caught in her own mind's hell loop. She paced up and down her rooms, her skirt swishing. She had been forced to wear the hated thing that day because all the other clothes she had were wet from being washed.
She was still pacing and muttering when she saw Tenebrys standing by her door.
"What?" she demanded. "Why are you staring at me?"
"I wasn't sure if I should interrupt the argument you were having with yourself," he replied, folding his arms. "Research going well, I see."
"Oh, fuck you. I'm trying, okay? It's not my fault that both my parents were crazy, and I've been forced to suppress my magic my whole life," she replied.
She gestured at the piles of papers she had been trying to collate into some sort of order.
"The more I try to understand what they did, the more frustrated I get.
Did you come here just to annoy me or do you actually want something? "
"I only wanted to tell you that I've left more meat in the kitchen for you." Tenebrys's eyes glowed a fierce gold as they trailed over her from her toes to the tip of her head. "And to make sure that you were making some progress."
"It's only been a few days, and I'm trying to sort out their mess of notes.
I also want to see whatever this heart of the chateau is.
It might help me understand what they did," Delphi replied, trying not to read too much in the look he was giving her.
She needed to remain impervious to them and what they implied.
She could never forget that she was his prisoner.
"I told you, the heart is dead," Tenebrys said, his voice going flat and the heat dying in his eyes.
"You also said that you wanted me to try to break this curse," Delphi pointed out. "I need to see it to make more sense of these notes."
Tenebrys shook his head. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because the last time I let outsiders know about it, they fucking killed it. It's no use to you now that it's dead."
Delphi threw up her hands in frustration. "I don't know how many times I need to tell you that I'm not them."
"I don't trust you enough to believe it yet," Tenebrys snapped, all traces of politeness gone. "You don't need to see the heart. You need to do as you're told and don't try to dig where you aren't welcome."
"If you aren't going to work with me on this, I might as well give up and leave," Delphi argued back.
Tenebrys was suddenly looming over her. "Tonight is not the night to push my patience, female."
Delphi narrowed her eyes. "I'm trying to help you, and you go from giving me books and saying that maybe I can break the curse, to you snarling at me and telling me to mind my business. What do you actually want from me, Tenebrys? Do you even know?"
His expression was all beast as he leaned in closer to her. "I want you to stay in the chateau and not test me tonight."
"And if I don't?" Delphi asked. His eyes turned so feral that a flicker of adrenaline shot through her veins.
"Just fucking try and leave this place and see what happens," he snarled before storming away.
"Asshole." Delphi's breath whooshed out of her, and she swore again. She was sick of Tenebrys hating her one second and then making her feel things she shouldn't the next. She was done being pushed around.
Delphi grabbed her dagger and slid it down the side of her boot before picking up her cloak. She was so tired of feeling powerless and having men telling her what to do. She had to get away from the lab and all it held before she burned the fucking place to the ground.
She needed to do what she always did on nights like this and go outside and scream at the full moon just to keep herself from breaking. It was when she had always drifted the closest to the Mistwood, far enough away where no one could hear her.
Maybe being under the moon's light would help calm the irritable current under her skin that made her want to tear it off and yell at Tenebrys some more.
The halls were empty as Delphi slipped out of her room and down to the kitchen. She ignored the meat Tenebrys had left in a cloth bag on the counter and went out the back door and into the garden. The moon had begun to rise, casting enough light to see by.
Delphi walked slowly through the gardens, trying to let the coiled energy inside of her relax.
Before long, she came to a stone wall that separated the garden from the rest of the grounds. The wooden door that led out of it had long since rotted away and was covered partially by thorny brambles. Delphi wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders before pushing her way through.
"Damn fucking skirts," she snarled, the fabric snagging in the vines' thorns. They scratched at her bare legs, and she hissed. She would have to clean them up before she went to bed, but in the pale light, she could see they weren't bleeding much.
The gardens she found herself in were wilder than the ones she came through. Overgrown trees and bushes that may have once been hedges were broken up by the occasional bit of statuary.
Delphi followed what remained of a white stone path and tried not to jump whenever she encountered a snarling lion statue or a scantily clad nymph.
The path looped around until she came to the stone road Tenebrys had carried her along. The Mistwood loomed ahead of her, and she knew she had come to the edge of the boundaries. Tenebrys had demanded that she not leave the chateau, and technically, she hadn't.
Delphi turned back toward it when a man appeared on the bridge behind her. He was as pale as the moonlight with black eyes.
"Are you lost, lamb?" he asked in a sweet voice.
"No, I live here," she replied, backing away.
How in the hell had he found this place? Her hand itched for the dagger in her boot. She was good in a street fight. She had learned the hard way how to defend herself, and she wasn't afraid to stab a man that had it coming.
"You smell that, brothers? Sweet, sweet life.
Magic like pure sunlight," a voice said, making Delphi whirl around.
Another figure had moved out of the shadows and behind her.
He bowed elegantly. "Carrier of the witch fire.
Life giver. Our lord will do great things with your power. Bring the land back into bloom."
"I don't know what you're talking about. You're trespassing on private property, and the master of this place tends to eat people he doesn't like," she warned, edging away.
Two more had emerged on the road in front of the chateau.
"Oh, sweet pea, we know more about the master of this place than you ever will. Time for you to come with us," the first man said, moving toward her. He smiled, showing two rows of sharp, pointed teeth. "Be a good girl, and we won't have to hurt you."
Fae. Run! The voice inside Delphi screamed. For once, she listened to it and bolted.