Chapter 25
BILLY
“She doesn’t respond.”
“Do something to snap her out of it.”
That’s Rune’s advice, full of such detailed explanation, his green-flecked brown eyes locked on mine from across the large round table.
My eyes roll of their own accord, the huff I’m desperate to exhale through my nose staying stuck in the back of my throat as Gore finishes reading the papers in front of him at the head of the table.
Pricking his finger with the end of a fountain pen before signing his name in blood across the bottom.
He looks up, his expression giving away nothing, but still, the blank look he gives Rune says so much more than words ever could.
“Are you still fucking?” Tolly asks, my eyes narrowing in a pinch as I slowly turn my attention towards him.
Head tilted, leaning far back in his chair across from me, he rocks it on the two back legs, his silver eyes on mine, brightened with curiosity, vape still in hand, he brings it up towards his lips, inhaling deeply.
“Yes,” I answer with a sniff, thinking of fucking Nellie a few days ago, how cold it was, mechanical, clinical.
I haven’t touched her since, unable to put myself through it again, witnessing the deep pit of emptiness in her eyes.
Tolly snorts a laugh, exhaling large white rings of smoke up into the murky haze already accumulated above our heads.
“Is it like fucking a corpse?” Bram asks clinically, as though the question were purely for research purposes, his blue eyes that match mine, bright behind the crystal clean lenses of his black framed glasses.
“What?” Tolly laughs immediately, dropping his chair back onto all four legs, banging a fist down onto the table. “Bram, you’re a sick fucker,” he laughs louder, smoke flooding from his nostrils as he huffs another chuckle through his nose.
“I’m going to cut you open and eat your insides,” I inform Bram, stabbing my fork into the wooden table top, my head canting to one side, I smile. “Whilst you’re still alive.”
With a long slender finger, Bram pushes up his glasses, fingertip sliding up the length of his nose, before refolding his hands atop the table, his eyes connecting with mine, “What time will you be dining?”
Tolly’s laugh could break glass, the raucousness of it, Rune bellows, and as they fill the room with laughter and more smoke, I wonder how quickly I could do it.
Stab each of them right through the centre of their oesophagus’s.
“Enough,” Gore demands, his usual rumble controlled. He looks to me, sliding his papers into a large black envelope, winding a little red string around a clip at the opening before sealing the entire thing with a black ‘Obsidian’ wax seal. “Her final trial is tonight; Penelope needs to be ready.”
“She-”
“It cannot be postponed; this is the way it is done.” Gore pushes back from the table, standing from his chair, envelope in hand.
“You need to do something, or she is going to fail. You know what happens tonight. There will be no union if she does not pass this. The Obsidi-” he pauses, clearing his throat with a twitch of his nose.
“We will eat her alive if she hesitates.” Gore stops again, looking at me, everyone else around the table silent, all eyes on me.
“Don’t let her become a lamb for slaughter, Billy. ”
Blood.
Blood is the first and last prayer, the only language gods ever truly answer. I’ve seen it offered in bowls, in baths, smeared on foreheads and altars, burned to steam in the name of salvation, but none of that ever felt holy until I saw hers.
It moves beneath her skin like light trapped in glass, pulsing with defiance, with devotion, with something the faithful will never understand.
The Obsidian demands sacrifice, but blood isn’t a sacrifice. It’s proof. It’s a covenant written in the flesh, a vow that can’t be undone by words or forgiveness. Hers calls to mine, recognition.
Two currents, same river.
Same curse.
When it touches me, I feel the pulse of every vow I’ve ever broken and every one I’d still die to keep.
It’s not salvation I want.
It’s the pulse beneath her throat, the reminder that she still lives, that her heart still beats, that we are bound by something older, by something more.
We walk hand in hand through the mass graves, light fluffy flakes of snow falling from the sky, dusting us in little white melting flecks.
Penelope still does not speak, her silence as deafening as the ringing of the Bow Bells.
Something I can’t stop thinking about.
Trying to understand.
Her birthplace.
How she ended up in care.
Why?
The guilt of all that I’m still hiding from her.
Still trying to piece all of these fractured shards together without either of us getting cut.
I desperately want to hear her voice again. Hear her breathy little moans when I’m fucking her. Hear her speak my name with meaning. With want.
Love.
Such a delicately dangerous thing.
We’re walking on a tightrope made of fraying string, a bottomless pit beneath our unsteady feet.
We were never meant to love.
Only to follow orders.
Pair.
Fuck.
Breed.
Only that.
In that specific order.
Not love.
Never love.
And yet, I find myself spiralling. The feelings that crash through my chest when I look at her. All consuming. All heavy. All deep. All too much.
But I’ll love her anyway.
With my whole heart.
Soul.
Until death.
White snowdrops and golden winter aconites pop their bright heads up through the wet blades of grass, their petals hanging heavily with beads of dew weighing them down. My boots crush through them as I lead Nellie off the cracked paved path, through the greensward towards a locked mausoleum.
The huge dark grey marble structure stands out, even against the matching grey backdrop of low hanging dark rain clouds. The Blackwell name is etched in gold above the heavy black door, and beneath that, the word all in capital letters, sits the roman numeral two.
Without releasing Nellie’s hand, we head up the seven wide steps, and I slip my other hand into my pocket, drawing out the old wrought iron key, the head of it an ornate design, a ‘2’ caged in by thorny branches.
The lock clicks as I turn the key, the door creaking open with a groan as I push it further open, leading Nellie inside ahead of me, finally breaking contact with her to turn back around and push the door shut, enclosing us inside the darkness.
The long match hisses as I strike it, the flame dancing wildly for a moment before settling as it comes into contact with a candle wick.
Maybe a hundred red and pink pillar candles placed expertly around the space.
I light enough of them to be able to see clearly, a few on either side of the steps, others along the walls, some in each corner, more in the alcoves cut out along the walls.
Penelope stands just inside at the bottom of the steps when I turn towards her, her eyes staring off into the centre of the room, a large single marble vault the object of her attention.
She doesn’t say anything as I come around it, my right hand smoothing along the length of it as I come to a stop off to the side at the end.
“Nelli-”
“I liked listening to the bells.” It’s far away, the way she speaks, her voice like a haunting whisper spoken by something not quite here.
Her eyes still on the marble coffin before her, “You can feel them in your bones when you’re inside the church.
” She smiles almost shyly to herself. “Do you think they’ll ever ring for us?
” she asks me, her attention still not on me, a frown suddenly forming between her brows.
“So unsafe. So na?ve. So unclean.” Her eyes come to mine, big glassy orbs, the deepest brown ringed in the darkest black, her pupils wide, face shadowed in the orange flickering candlelight.
“Stupid,” she whispers, her voice dry and cracked from unuse.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she hushes out, banging her palms against the sides of her head, the heel of her hands smacking loudly into her temples in time with her words.
I lunge forward, catching her wrists, wrenching her hands away from her face, “Nellie, stop.”
Her hands claw at the back of mine, at my thumbs, fingers, everywhere her nails can reach, forcing me backwards, our hands between us, her walking me back at a clip until my spine is connecting with the icy marble wall.
She’s still scratching at me, bending her elbows, her body coming flush with mine, no space between us as she gouges at my face, reaching up high, clawing and clawing.
I’m shoving her hands down between us, spinning us around, her spine slamming into the wall she forced me against, and pinning her there, her hands still wriggling in my hold, desperate to get at me.
“Penelope.” I say firmly, a warning to stop, her breathing uneven, her eyes far away, the tears rolling down her cheeks soaking into the cotton of my shirt.
“Penelope,” I repeat. She doesn’t stop, her hands still working, feet kicking, she fights me with everything she has, scoring the skin of my face, drawing blood on my neck.
“Penelope!” I shout, panicking, releasing her hands.
Her head snaps to the side as my hand connects with her cheek, slapping her hard enough for it to make my own ears ring.
My breathing is heavy, panting, my palms go to the wall on either side of her, my head hanging down between us, I squeeze my eyes closed, her face still turned away from me, her hair shielding her.