Chapter Forty-Two
Marshall Merridon had slapped Lennox Flowers straight across the cheek, and he’d grabbed ahold of her before she could fall beneath the aggression of it; there upon the front steps of the mansion.
Alora’s vision blurred in her rage.
It nearly caused her to miss Bash’s leaving.
“Enough!”
The malevolence of Bash’s shout jolted her, enough that her eyes cleared, and she found him rushing through the rain with long-legged strides. He’d made it to the stairs before Alora could even step on the path, his hand enclosing Lennox’s wrist, hauling her behind him.
Alora ran, missing the beginnings of their exchange due to the harsh rain, and stopped at the first stair.
Marshall Merridon loomed over his adopted son in a threatening manner.
When his hands came up to shove Bash backward, Bash smacked them away.
Hard enough that Merridon stumbled, and Alora gasped.
This wasn’t at all going according to plan.
“You dare put your hands on me? I am the Master of Opulence! I own you all!”
“You do not own me,” said the Urchin captain and fisted his hand around Merridon’s sopping crimson tie.
“Me neither,” said Lennox, from behind Bash’s back. Her cheek was red as cherries, but her eyes were vivid and angry.
“Or me,” said Alora, but much quieter.
Still, it drew attention. Merridon turned toward her, his hands attempting to find purchase on Bash’s wrists and failing. His eyes widened as he took her in.
“Miss Pennigrim? Get back to the Room of Desire this instant.” When Alora didn’t so much as twitch, he appeared overcome, his features an apoplectic purple. “What has happened? Obey me!”
At last, he jerked his front free of Bash, only for his arm to be captured as he managed one step down, nearer to her.
Marshall Merridon stopped, a single rigid movement, tracking the grip up to the arm and then the figure holding him.
A shocked, incomprehensible look came over his features as if he couldn’t believe his son had the audacity to halt him a second time.
Or maybe it was simply the scorching look of loathing his captain directed at him.
“You are not to defy me! In anything. It’s right there in your contract.”
“A pity it no longer exists.”
“Marshall! There you are! I’ve been—”
The front doors of Opulence were at once flooded with light and dashed in shadow in a single breath when Madam Feebledire slammed the doors shut at her back. “What is going on here?” she whispered on a strangled cry. “We are open!”
She focused on each of them in turn. Alora in her sagging, golden gown, Lennox and her handprinted cheek in a plain travel dress, and Bash in none of his usual attire, looking less and less like their devoted Urchin captain and more like an avenging devil, his eyes entirely consumed.
It was Merridon who spoke first. “Shut up, Patrice. This is a father-son matter.” And then he pulled back his free arm and punched Bash square in the jaw.
“Oh my heavens!” screeched Madam Feebledire a moment before the light broke.
Alora was left outside it, as were Lennox and Madam Feebledire, but only for a few seconds.
With a slew of improper curses, Madam Feebledire tossed aside the paper she carried and leapt into the void.
Alora lunged for the parchment. Hope was a painful beat in her chest, and it dissolved to relief at finding her contract safe in her hands.
She didn’t waste another second, hurrying to where the torches guttered weak beneath the rain.
She shoved the contract inside the flame, waiting for an agonizing amount of time as it slowly ate up the damp paper.
The moment the last corner disintegrated to ash, Alora felt it.
A stiffness had left her, her body no longer draped in chains.
She stopped the rain at once. It’d done more than enough in revealing the wonderland Merridon touted as the fake show it really was.
“Marshall Matthew Merridon! You have extensive explaining to do.”
Alora eased around the disembodied voice of Madam Feebledire until she stood beside Lennox.
“What should we do?” whispered her friend.
“I’m not sure,” said Alora. “I won’t be able to see either if I go in with them.”
They were saved from further indecision when the light returned. It wasn’t gradual, but sudden. One moment there was a black void and the next, she saw all three.
Bash knelt upon one knee. In front of him, sprawled Merridon, his back to Bash’s chest and his neck encircled by Bash’s arm.
Merridon fought against the hold, his fingers digging into the Urchin captain’s forearm without avail.
Meanwhile, Madam Feebledire crouched, pulling at her brother’s gold-buckled boot.
She was even less successful at freeing him than Merridon was himself.
“Bash Merridon, release him at once! He has to answer for what he’s done.”
Bash glared at his aunt, muscles straining in his neck, another feathering in his jaw. “That’s precisely what he’s doing.”
“With words! Not with death!” Her hands slipped on her brother’s wet boot, sending her sprawling onto her backside.
With a growl, Bash flung his father away. “Fine. Have your interrogation. But we get to bear witness.”
Merridon knelt on the slick stairs, wheezing. One hand remained on the step as the other massaged his throat. Alora squinted in the dim light as his hand moved lower, traveling into his waistcoat.
“Wait. What are you—” she choked.
In a single bound, Marshall Merridon was turning on his feet. In his hand was a weapon—a blowgun. A dart stuck in its end. He pointed it straight at Bash, his mouth at its opposite end, and Alora thought she would pass out from the panic overcoming her.
“No!” she screamed, just as Merridon blew with all his strength.
They were all stunned in the aftermath. Alora swayed on her feet, and Lennox gripped her elbow, steadying her. “It’s all right,” her friend whispered in her ear.
But it was not all right.
Because Marshall Merridon was looking at her as if he would kill her.
He blew into the paper tube again to be sure, but same as before, it unrolled, a horn-like noise sounding from its end. A child’s party favor. She’d loved them growing up.
“You meddling bitch,” hissed Marshall Merridon, and flung the toy at her. “How have you used your enchantment without my wishing?”
“I burned my contract while you were fumbling in the dark.”
“Your contract! How did you have it?”
“I brought it, Marshall. I’ve been trying to find you to ask after its wording.” Madam Feebledire brushed off her skirt, stepping back when her brother stepped forward. “Did you mean to make it sound like you entrapped the girl?”
“Of course I did!” Merridon’s temples pulsed with his rage. “I command you back to your door!”
Alora only continued to stare at him with wide eyes. “No, thank you.”
At that, Marshall Merridon howled in fury. He swung to Bash, lifting a finger between them. “That skull was meant to entrance indefinitely!”
“It must be broken. My apologies.” Bash’s grin was pure malice. He crossed his arms, the wet fabric a second skin.
“Marshall! What is this about entrapment and entrancing? It’s one thing to do to simple creatures, but to people?”
Alora pursed her lips. There was nothing simple about mermaids, but she remained silent, waiting for what he might say.
“I said shut up, Patrice! Look at this! Look at what they’ve done. The wind. The rain. My expensive grounds. My extraordinary mansion! The members can’t witness this. Lock the gate! Let no one else inside.”
As if in response, a large crack rent the air, the wolves split down the middle by lightning.
An animalistic sound tore from Merridon’s throat.
He spun on his heel, meaning to spring toward Alora and likely detach her head from her neck, but Bash was there first, and a second crack shocked the air—as a memory baton met the temple of Opulence Mansion’s owner.
Marshall Merridon slumped to his knees, then to his front. Blessedly unconscious.
“Why. Why…” moaned Madam Feebledire from behind her hands.
Bash wiped blood from the baton, returning it again to his belt. “Any suggestions?”
“I say we feed him to the mermaid,” said Lennox, her eyes hard and a little bit hungry.
“The mermaid doesn’t deserve a first real meal this unappetizing,” said Alora. “I have an idea, I think. Only allow me to do something quick. We shouldn’t strain ourselves over him.”
She grabbed ahold of his boots.
***
“Absolutely not.”
Alora stared at Madam Feebledire. At how she’d splayed herself in front of Opulence Mansion’s carved front doors, her normally coifed hair unfurling around her ears in frizzy tendrils.
“Madam Feebledire, please move. Or I’ll be tempted to add a monument to replace the broken wolves.”
Opulence’s head of management appeared caught off guard at that, her lips parting into a silent circle. She came to with a shrug of her shoulders, though Alora could see she’d paled.
“Don’t threaten me, girl. If not for me, you’d still be beholden to that enchanted contract you made the mistake in signing.”
“It wasn’t a mistake! I was forced!”
Madam Feebledire shook her head like this detail was of little consequence. “I can’t let you harm him.”
“Who said we would harm him?” said Bash, who probably wasn’t the best one to say it considering there were bruises quickly forming on Merridon’s throat that matched his own fingertips and blood dripping yet from the man’s temple.
“Putting him inside that tub would be harming him!”
“Ha!” said Alora and gritted her teeth at Madam Feebledire’s baffled expression. “At last, someone admits it!”
The head of management spluttered. “Now wait a minute. Wait. I didn’t mean it harms all. But it would harm him.”
Lennox’s stare narrowed. “Why?”
“She’s lying,” said Alora. “See how she fidgets?”
Madam Feebledire stood still at once. “Fine, perhaps it does some harm to everyone. Maybe the tub itself is an enchanted artifact. Maybe, when combined with the oil, it does sever your worst memories but leaves a crack instead that crumbles its way into an eventual void in your person. Maybe it does. But to some, that’s worth it! ”
“It should be the Room of Severed Memories then, not the room of forgotten ones! And I suppose members are made aware of this future effect?” Alora said it with a healthy lathering of sarcasm. She didn’t doubt in the slightest that Opulence Mansion was untruthful.
“Well…” Madam Feebledire shifted again and caught herself. “I can’t speak for everyone…”
“Patrice?” Four heads swiveled down toward another. To Merridon shifting on his conjured stretcher, his hand to his head. “What’s happened? Why am I outside? On the ground no less.” No one uttered a word. “Bash? Miss Flowers? Miss—”
Alora’s breath stilled in her lungs. She waited for Merridon to recognize her, his expression pinched and assessing. But then they widened, and he was scrambling until he could stand before her, his hand outstretched. “My dear. My dear. What is your name?”
Alora swallowed against the bile threatening to rise inside her.
Merridon looked as if he’d not eaten in days and here she was, a feast brought before him.
Blood matted in his hair, drying on his cheek, his neck red and swollen—surely it all must hurt, but he appeared oblivious, concerned only with her.
With what his enchantment sensed in her blood.
Such a nasty specter wolf.
“Germania Jones,” said Alora, ignoring Bash’s smothered cough to her left.
She didn’t have a hope of pulling her arm back fast enough to avoid Master Merridon’s grip. He held her hand firm. “I’m Master Marshall Merridon, the owner of Opulence Mansion. Would you be open to a meeting? I have a particularly enticing opportunity I think you were born to inherit.”
“Perhaps.” Alora heard Lennox’s murmur of surprise behind her and smiled picture perfect. “If it includes a tour.”