30. Cynthia
Cynthia
Lindsey lowered the iron poker, pulling it free of Tennyson’s loosened grip.
He’d caught it reflexively, his body reacting before his mind could catch up, his attention split between the threat and the vision before him.
One hand was raised to fight, but his gaze was on Louna, on the white Grecian dress glowing in the darkness, and the pale, cold cast of her skin.
Her hair was loose around her bare shoulders, her dark eyes fierce.
He barely even registered the gun aimed at his heart.
Cynthia, queen of light, goddess of the moon and the hunt.
She inhaled, and the sight of it reminded his lungs that they were empty.
The details of the room came into focus as air filled his chest—firelight and lanterns, wooden furniture.
Warmth. Louna’s dress was a bedsheet, wrapped around her body and tied at her shoulder, beauty crafted of the simplest material.
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyesOn our souls’ sacrifice.
Keats again. He’d recited Endymion as he’d walked in an effort to distract himself from his numb feet and wet clothes, and apparently it wasn’t ready to leave his head. He stood still for a moment to gather himself, and was dimly aware of Lindsey closing the door behind him.
Lindsey. He turned, taking in the sling swathing his arm and chest, and felt the cold sinking into his skin like shards of ice.
He hadn’t known how badly Lindsey was hurt.
He’d gone back to the southern door, staggering along the grounds to avoid the cliff, hoping he would find nothing where he’d left his friends, and then not knowing what it meant when he got his wish.
Had Lindsey walked away? Had Philippe and Jean-Claude come in to carry him out? And Louna—
He glanced back at her, but she hadn’t moved. She stood like a fragment of moonlight, fixed in the shadows, staring at him.
“Get in here,” Lindsey said, taking his arm and pulling him in. When Tennyson stumbled forward, he let go and crossed the room to return his iron poker to its stand. He stood there a moment, then cleared his throat, throwing an unsubtle look at Louna.
She flinched and turned to put her gun down.
He must have scared them. He hadn’t known who would be inside the building, so he’d picked the lock rather than knock on the door in the middle of the night. It had woken them, or at least alerted them. Injured or not, Lindsey would have stood watch, so he probably hadn’t been asleep. And Louna...
He searched the room again, frowning. “Jean-Claude and Philippe?”
“They’re here,” Louna answered. “Sleeping.”
He nodded, breathing out his relief. “And you’re okay?” he asked quietly, bending slightly to catch her eye.
She frowned at him, and when she didn’t answer, he reached for her. “Your head. Hartmann pushed you—”
His fingers touched her hair, and she jolted away. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll get you some water.”
She turned for the kitchen, and he stood with his hand outstretched, his heart stabbing against his ribcage. She was still hiding. It was supposed to be over—Lindsey was free, and they were safe, and she’d promised to tell him whatever it was she was holding on to. Instead, she’d withdrawn.
Again.
She’d almost died tonight. So had Lindsey. Tennyson had done everything he could to protect them, and it had barely been enough—she had to know now that she wasn’t safe with him.
The bag he was carrying slid from his numbed fingers, and he grasped clumsily for it as it fell.
“Here,” Lindsey said, bending to pick it up. “Go stand by the fire before you go hypothermic.”
He tried to take the bag back, but Lindsey turned his injured shoulder into Tennyson’s path, and he jerked to a stop to keep from hitting it.
“Dry off,” Lindsey said, moving to hang the bag on a hook by the door, and Tennyson sighed and draped his waterlogged cloak over one of the dining room chairs.
There was a stack of towels on the table, and he picked one up and began the futile process of drying his face and arms.
Lindsey returned to the fire, and after a moment, Tennyson joined him. “How serious is it?” he asked gruffly, nodding at the bandages on Lindsey’s torso.
“Not,” Lindsey said. “You?”
“No,” Tennyson said. No injuries, not worth mentioning.
Lindsey studied him. “Hartmann?”
“Dead,” Tennyson said. “The fall.”
He nodded, looking back to the fire. “How did you survive?”
“My cloak snagged on a bush. It slowed me down, gave me a chance to grab onto a rock.”
“Then you were there,” Lindsey said. “We looked, but we couldn’t see you. We shouldn’t have left.”
Tennyson frowned at him. “What else were you supposed to do? You were shot. You had to get out.”
Lindsey shook his head, still not looking at him. “I left because Louna threatened to climb down with me when I tried it.”
“You what—?”
“What?” Lindsey demanded. “You wanted me to just leave you?”
Tennyson gestured helplessly. “Yes! Blake will be here in a few days, if she isn’t here already. If you weren’t there to meet her, Harlow—”
“That’s what Louna said,” Lindsey said, sighing. “So I didn’t go down. Happy?”
“Yeah,” Tennyson said. The fire was warm, but the damp vest on his back was sucking the heat from him, so he struggled out of it and draped it over the hearth tool stand.
Louna was still in the kitchen, rummaging through cabinets, prolonging her errand.
Avoiding him. Tennyson focused on the fire and tried not to feel like she’d taken all the light from the room.
“She’s not hurt?” he asked finally.
“She is,” Lindsey said.
Tennyson snapped his head around to look into the kitchen, but Lindsey nudged him with his wrapped elbow. “She watched you go over a cliff, idiot.”
He blinked at him. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“The same fall killed Hartmann,” Lindsey said. “She spent the last eight hours thinking you were dead.”
Tennyson frowned into the darkness between the living room and kitchen, letting the heat from the fire thaw his lungs.
He’d spent those hours spiraling between worry for his friends and practical concerns over his own survival.
At least he’d had tasks to complete. If he’d had to wait, not knowing, not able to do anything to help...
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I should’ve—”
“What, not fought Hartmann?” Lindsey interrupted. “You didn’t fall off a cliff on purpose, Tenny.”
The nickname settled him, and he pushed on before he could think about it too long. “I should’ve left Harlow sooner. I shouldn’t have worked for him at all.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Probably not. But you did what you could with what you knew. I understand that now.”
Tennyson looked up at him. Lindsey had always been taller than him—he was six months older, always a few steps ahead, always looking back and waiting for Tennyson to catch up. “What I said,” he began. “When I left. I didn’t mean it.”
“Yes you did,” Lindsey said, but there was no anger in his voice. “I meant everything I said, too. But that was a long time ago.”
He turned slightly, holding out his right hand, and opened it to reveal Tennyson’s necklace. Tennyson looked at the matching one on Lindsey’s chest, then up to meet his eyes. “I thought I lost it.”
“You did,” Lindsey said. “For a little while. Not forever.”
Slowly, he reached out to take the coin from Lindsey’s palm, then put it around his neck and tucked it back under his collar where it belonged.
He’d realized it was missing on his way back up to the castle, and he knew in his bones that he’d lost it forever.
It had brought back the memories of everything else he’d lost—his father, his dreams of college, his future as a musician.
Lindsey. His siblings. His mother. Some of it had happened to him, disasters outside of his control, but so much of it had been his own doing.
He’d chosen to walk away, and told himself it was what he had to do to keep them safe.
It was a lie. He’d been trying to keep himself safe, and he’d failed in just about every metric.
It was time to stop running.
“Lindsey,” he said, and Lindsey nodded.
“Yeah, I know. Me too.”
He grinned, and Tennyson felt an answering smile rise to his lips.
Before he could think better of it, he reached out to loop his left arm over Lindsey’s neck, ready to let go if Lindsey resisted.
He didn’t. He threw his uninjured arm around Tennyson, squaring them in a real hug, fierce and clumsy, the kind they’d shared as kids.
Tennyson let out a breath that sounded like a laugh, and Lindsey tightened his grip and nodded into the side of his head.
They let go, and Lindsey dragged a hand across his face and gestured toward the kitchen. “Go get cleaned up. I’m gonna make sure everything is locked down, and then I’ll wake Ilya for watch.”
“Ilya’s here?” That would be who the other car belonged to, then.
“Man, it’s a whole party,” Lindsey said, taking a flashlight from the mantel and handing it to him. “Go on. Make yourself presentable for her.”
Tennyson sent one more uncertain look into the kitchen, then went to follow his orders.
There were two bathrooms, and he chose the nearest, setting down his flashlight and cleaning up as best he could with the wash cloths and towels in the storage closet.
He took off his wet clothes, throwing them over the shower rod and hoping they would be dry by morning.
The stitches in his arm had torn free, and he rummaged in the cabinets until he found a small first aid kit with enough bandage and gauze to stop the bleeding.
His mind went back to her—her fingers cleaning his wound, her voice eclipsing his pain, her lips brushing his. Her thefts, her lies, her promises. Her body crumpled against the castle wall. Her white dress in the dark room, her finger trembling on the trigger.
…thy cheek is paleFor one whose cheek is pale;
He hadn’t let himself think about what she must have felt when he fell—what he hoped she had felt, and what he wished she hadn’t had to feel—but he had seen it in her face when he walked in.
He’d forced her into a reaction, into confronting what she wasn’t ready to confront, and he had to temper his expectations.
It didn’t matter what he’d already decided; he would not demand the same of her, not until and unless she was ready to give it.
And if she never was… he would accept that, too.
He rubbed the cloth over his face one last time, breathing in the scent of laundry soap, and wrapped a towel around his waist to find a place to sleep. In the morning, he would talk to her, make it clear that he didn’t expect anything. They both needed rest. Things would be clearer after that.
Faint voices in the living room told him Lindsey had woken Ilya like he’d promised, and in spite of their past encounters, Tennyson had to admit that he felt better knowing the Russian would be on watch.
If nothing else, at least he knew Ilya wouldn’t let anything happen to Louna.
He turned away from the voices into the darkness, lifting his flashlight to study the hall.
One door, open beside him, led to the second bathroom.
The other two stood on the opposite wall, presumably leading to the bedrooms. The one closest to him was shut, but the one at the far end of the corridor was open, spilling a soft, promising light over the floorboards.
He went to the closed door, fully intending to go in and collapse into a bunk beside the Verdier brothers.
Instead, his feet took him past it, down the hall and through the shadows, to the light.