Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fox
It’s been many, many, many years since I last stepped foot in Slate Quarter, but as time and space halt their spinning around me and my feet meet the hard earth, it is all so familiar; the stench of the place, the suffocating smog in the air, the bitter temperature, the bare skeletal trees and the dark gray sky.
It’s depressing and bleak, and yet something stirs in that dead heart of mine.
This is home, where I belong. There was a time when I hated it so much.
A time when I was prepared to give my soul just to leave this place.
But I could never leave it behind completely.
It will always be a part of me. It shaped me, and it shaped the girl I love.
I will never be able to shake this place from the person that I am.
Beside me, Briony takes in her surroundings as well, and I see her shake her head slightly, steeling her shoulders, bracing herself. This place has few happy memories for her. Despite her words that we’d be welcomed, I doubt deep down she truly believes that.
“Where the fuck are we?” Dray asks, glancing around our surroundings with clear disgust.
“We’re in the forest that borders the main Slate Quarter town,” I explain. “The place where both Briony and I grew up.”
“In fact, that is where I grew up,” Briony says. “Right there.” She lifts her hand and points through the bare trees toward the edge of the forest.
A dirt track skirts the last few trees, and there are several dwellings lined up against the road, although it’s hard to call any of them ‘dwellings’. They’re more like hovels.
I know I had a better life than Briony in Slate Quarter – nothing like that of the Princes or even Briony’s friends, Fly and Clare – but I never realized just how gilded my life was compared to Briony’s.
The house walls are made from mud bricks, bowing in places, crumbling in others, and the roof is a slab of corrugated iron, rusted and warped by the cold weather.
A low wall runs around the place, and inside is thick mud.
A couple of animals hover together for shelter.
“That’s it? That’s your home?” Thorne asks.
“Was my home,” Briony corrects.
We’re all silent; even her friend who rarely stops talking.
“Where do you think the stones are?” I ask Beaufort, turning my back on the place, hoping to distract Briony’s attention away from the house.
It doesn’t work. She just keeps staring at it.
“I’m not sure exactly,” Beaufort mutters. “I was sort of hoping we’d get here and Briony would feel that tug again and it would take us straight there…” He trails off because Briony is walking toward the edge of the forest, toward that dirt track and that house.
“Briony?” I call after her. “We don’t have to go there. There’s no reason.”
“There is,” she says, not slowing her pace or turning around.
I glance at the dragon. I have no idea if he listens to me or even understands me, but I try my best.
“Stay,” I tell him. “You’re safe here and well hidden. Don’t go anywhere unless we need you.”
The dragon snorts smoke straight into my face, but settles down onto his stomach, and I’m hoping that means he’s going to obey me.
Then all of us are hurrying to catch Briony up.
We cross the dirt track, deep pot marks frozen with puddled water, and then we’re at the wall surrounding the house.
An old dog, curled up with two pigs and a goat, lifts its head, squints its milky eyes at us, sniffs at the air, and then it’s bounding to its feet and racing right over to us, stopping by the old wooden gate, barking and jumping despite its stiff legs and old age.
“Barney!” Briony exclaims, swinging back the gate and letting the old dog rush at her. He yaps and barks, attempting to jump up at her, and she crouches down and lets him slurp at her face as she wraps her arms around him and lays kisses all over his head.
“Who the hell is this?” Dray says.
From somewhere behind us I can hear the dragon growling too. I’m guessing both of Briony’s pets are not liking the competition.
“This is Barney,” Briony explains, running her hand down the dog’s spine as he shudders in delight. “He’s my dog. Oh, it’s so good to see you, boy. So good to see you.”
The dog yelps some more in agreement and as he does, the door to the house creaks open. I notice Briony’s spine stiffen automatically, and all our gazes swing that way.
“Barney, quiet! What’s all that noise?” an old man starts to say from the doorway, and then halts abruptly when he spots all of us gathered around his gate.
He has a gray scraggly beard across his chin and dirty gray hair that falls into his bright green eyes. Eyes I recognize. There’s no doubt who this man is.
Briony’s father.
My hands curl into fists automatically.
“Br-Br-Br-Briony?” he gasps in amazement, hobbling out of the doorway and onto the doorstep.
His clothes are as dirty as his hair, worn and creased, holes in the knees of his pants and the cuffs of his old shirt frayed.
He has nothing on his feet and they’re black with dirt, his toenails gnarled and yellow.
When he speaks, I see his teeth are just as yellow, several missing from his mouth.
Briony always said he was a drunk, and I realize just how much of a bad drunk he must be. The man is incapable of looking after himself.
“Is that you?” he says, frowning, eyes flicking suspiciously around the group surrounding my fated mate.
Briony stands to her feet, the old dog continuing to jump around her legs, though he’s quiet now, as if sensing the tension in the air.
“Yes, Dad. It’s me.”
“But what are you doing here?” he asks. “Shouldn’t you be at the academy?” He frowns in confusion, and his words are slurred. Even from here I can tell he’s been drinking today. In fact, he must have spent most of his day drinking. “Is it over? Have they sent you back? Back to Slate?”
“No, Dad, the year’s not over yet, or the trials, but some stuff’s happened. It’s all rather complicated.”
“And who are these people? What are you doing with my daughter?” he asks, swaying on his feet as he tries to focus on us.
“These are my friends,” Briony says.
“Friends?” Dray mutters behind us, but Briony ignores him.
There’s silence again, more awkwardness. Briony reaches down to tickle her fingers across the old dog’s head.
“Do you want to come in, then?” the old man asks, pushing back the front door.
The action makes Briony jolt. I bet there are bad memories lurking inside that house, ones I’d like to wipe away for her completely.
“Is Muriel home?” she asks.
“Muriel?” The old man scrunches up his face as if trying to recall something.
“Your wife,” I snap.
“Muriel,” he says again. “Muriel died, Briony. Several months ago.”
“Died?” Briony almost chokes on the word. “She’s dead?”
“Yes. Yes.” The old man shuffles on his feet and roots around in his pants pocket as if looking for something. He pulls out a battered flask, flips up the lid, takes a swig, and then shoves it back into his pocket. “Fell down the stairs. Broke her neck. You didn’t know?”
“How would I know?” Briony says with irritation. “You never wrote to me. You never told me.”
“Oh. Guess I didn’t.” He rubs at his chin. “I didn’t think you’d particularly want to come to the funeral. There was never much love lost between the two of you.”
“No,” she says sternly. “There wasn’t.”
“So you coming in?” the old man says, pointing toward the doorway.
Briony’s gaze floats that way. She stares into the gloomy interior of that hovel for several long moments. And then she shakes her head.
“No. We’ve got to go.”
“Can’t spare a few minutes for your old father?” the man says bitterly.
“No, she can’t,” I say, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her away.
She lets me guide her, ignoring the old man’s grumblings, full of self-pity and false outrage.
We take a few steps down the lane and then Briony halts, slips out from under my arm, and strides back to the gate.
“We’re taking Barney with us.”
“The dog?” the old man says, as if he’s forgotten who that is too.
“Yes. He’s far too skinny. You haven’t been feeding him properly. Come on, Barney.” She beckons the dog toward her, and he comes trotting along eagerly.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stop and talk to him for a while?” Clare asks once Briony’s caught back up to us. “He is your father.”
“Not really,” Briony says. “My father died a long time ago. He’s just an old drunk now. Someone who never really cared about me.”
Clare nods in understanding and we continue up the old trackway.
We’re a few more paces down the dirt track, Briony’s old home and her father well out of sight now, when Briony halts a second time, spinning round on her toes, backtracking a few paces and swinging her gaze like an interrogation lamp over our faces.
“Which one of you was it?” she says.
“Which one of us was what?” Fly asks.
“Not you or Clare. You’re in the clear,” she says, beckoning them forward.
They glance at each other and come to flank their friend, leaving Briony glaring at me and the Princes.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Beaufort says.
“Which one of you was it who killed Muriel?”
“No one killed Muriel,” Beaufort says. “Your father told us she fell down the stairs. An accident.”
“Bullshit!” Briony says, shaking her head. “There’s no way she just fell down the stairs.”
“Maybe it was your dad then,” Dray says.
Briony narrows her eyes, steps forward and points at Dray’s face. “Was it you?” she asks.
Dray shrugs nonchalantly. “When would I have had the chance, Little Kitten?”
“Was it you, Beaufort?”
“You think I could just sneak into Slate undetected and unrecognized?”
She seems to consider this for a moment, then spins her gaze onto me.
“Was it you, then?” she asks me next.
“I haven’t been back to Slate since the day I left for the academy,” I tell her.
“Maybe you didn’t do it yourselves,” she muses. “Maybe you got someone else to do it.”
All of us stare innocently back at her.
I don’t know which of the Princes it was or if it was all three of them together, but I’m not going to bemoan the demise of an evil bitch like Briony’s stepmother. She got what she deserved, and if the Princes helped her to reach her demise a little sooner than fate intended, well, good for them.
“Thorne,” Briony tries next, knowing that he is usually the weakest link in our rare united front.
“I don’t know anything, Briony,” Thorne says, for once holding the party line.
“Hmm,” she says.
“Are you seriously unhappy she’s gone?” Fly asks.
Briony peers over her shoulder at him. “No, I’m not. The world is a better place without that woman.”
“Too fucking right,” Dray says. “One down, two more to go.”
I’m guessing he means Bardin and the Empress. I don’t think they’re going to be as easy to dispose of as some psychopathic woman from Slate Quarter.
Briony spins back round to us. “I’m not mad, but if you’re going to kill anybody else for me, then at least let’s discuss it first.”
“Cross our hearts,” Dray says, dragging his finger over his ribcage. “If that’s what you want.”
“Beaufort? Thorne? Fox?”
We all nod.
“Good,” she says, before spinning around and we’re walking off again.
“Where are we going now?” Dray asks. The old dog is trotting alongside him, and though the shifter seems to be pretending that – just like the dragon – he’s not a fan, I notice every so often he reaches down to pat him on the head.
“Into town,” Briony says. “I think that’s where we need to start.”
“Where exactly do you want to go, sweetheart?” I call after her.
“To the town square,” she says.
“Why there, Briony?”
“I want to talk to the people. I want to show them my magic. I want to see if there are any other lumomancers hiding among the people in Slate Quarter.”
I find it hard to believe that there will be any, but I’m not keen to tell her that. I don’t want to leave her disappointed.
But luckily it’s Beaufort who puts creed to that thought.
“We can’t just stroll straight into town, sweetheart,” Beaufort says, resting his hand on her shoulder. “The Empress has labeled us traitors. Fuck, she wanted to execute us. And now we’re on the run, our picture’s going to be everywhere. We stroll into town, all chaos will break loose.”
“But I need to talk to the people,” Briony says.
“Beaufort’s right,” I tell her. “We need to do this gently, slowly. We need to find our allies in the town first.”
Briony glares at us both. I’m guessing that means she considers no one in this town to be her allies, and yet it was she who wanted to come here.
“Do you have any?” Beaufort asks me.
I scratch my fingers through my beard. I hesitate, inhaling the smoggy air. “My family.”
Briony reaches out, takes my hand, and squeezes it.
“Can we really trust them?” Beaufort asks, giving his shifter bond brother a filthy look, a filthy look which is well deserved considering what happened out in the prairie lands.
“Who can say for sure? It’s been a long time since I’ve been home. But if there’s anyone I trust in this Quarter, it’s my father.”
My words make Briony cringe, because her own father is the least trustworthy scumbag in the whole of the realm. Shit. I should have let him meet a little accident, just like his psychopath of a wife.
“Is there a way we can find your family without being seen?” Clare asks.
“They live on the edge of town, so we can come in round the back. But I also think it would be wise to use our shadow magic to hide ourselves.”
“You can do that?” Fly says, outraged.
“Yeah,” I tell him.
He mutters under his breath, as we wave our hands, beckoning the shadows to swirl around our group and hopefully disguising us in the coming gloom of evening.
And then I’m leading them around the outskirts of town towards my old family home.