Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MORGANA
I wanted to keel over and vomit. I stumbled beyond the vision of that man disappearing, as if he were no more physical than a ghost tucked away in an old, rotting house. Aster’s steps crunched behind me, but he walked without haste.
I didn’t have the wit and experience to guide us to this service, but I knew he’d follow like I did.
I jumped to a stop and twisted around to face him. “Where are we going?”
Aster’s eyebrow raised. “You’re on your way. Have faith, Morgana. I will guide you.”
“Well,” I said between gritted teeth, “you’re doing a piss poor job at it so far.”
A low, rumbling laugh resonated in his chest, but I faced ahead again and stormed off. I wasn’t sure how long I’d walked, eyes glued to every hanging string of leaves on the great willows that formed a border along the sides of the road, but when my patience snapped again, I twisted around.
And he was gone.
I gasped in disbelief. I spun around—I don’t know, three times? Enough for the world to start spinning faster than I could keep up. I searched for his cocky, smug little face. He’d truly gone. The hairs on the back of my neck raised, and the same annoying voice that warned me about the shadows of the bathroom whispered one dangerously tempting word: run.
I’d been doing just that since I was a child. I could outrun him, shadows and all.
Aster was willing to strike a deal with me earlier. My aid, in exchange for my freedom. However, I was a free woman just days ago. Before I had the unfortunate chance of meeting such a depressing man. He stole that from me.
Thieves don’t deserve to be bargained with.
So I took one silent breath and ran—my strides long and powerful and daring as I ran off the beaten path into the thicket of woods. I wasn’t sure how expansive the forest would be, or if it would even guide me to a safer place, but anything was safer than the dangers of Aster’s presence.
I was no fool. I knew he hadn’t vanished out of thin air—unless that plague that ruined his family name meant a far crueler fate than an untimely death. I turned over my shoulders every other second in anticipation of seeing him, but he wasn’t there. I howled out in glee, my footwork strong enough to split the soil, to level mountains, to evade a devil.
Whispers enveloped me like a haunting kiss. It was the kind that sent me shrieking as the melodic voice sang for my demise, twisting in and out of my head—both within and without. My foot caught on a large root that stuck out of the dirt path, and as I went tumbling to the dirt, I readied myself for a broken nose.
Strong hands grabbed hold of my back collar, choking me as they yanked me back up. This time, I stumbled backward, but the chilled embrace of darkness steadied me. It blossomed across the lands, lifting to the heavens and coloring the sky gray. For as far as the eye could see, a perfectly sunny day was stricken with an overcast.
Aster’s voice brushed the tip of my ear in that gods-forsaken tongue: Jevāis nelle tenebre ? troveremo son ledr?.
He would shroud us in darkness?—
And I would find the ledger.
That fucking prick.
This time, I was guided by Aster’s phantom presence. His voice was the ghoul of a nightmare unfathomable, his soul lost in the chaos of dark magic that shouldn’t have ever existed. He played fewer games when tucked inside this eternal darkness, but I felt his scorn no less. In fact, I felt it more.
The dirt path with weeping willows turned into an elaborate cobblestone path, surrounded by clean fences and trimmed rose bushes. Each time I looked to the sky, I saw such darkness that I feared a storm, but I knew this power was not organic. It did not bleed from the heavens, the stars, or whatever gods promised our rainy season. This was delicately crafted by the devil I’d just attempted to evade.
As the hill turned downward, I came to face an estate so grand, I thought it belonged to royalty and nothing less. Grandiose columns, vines that colored the white stone green, and flowers that blossomed at the doorstep. The windows were open, and the soft tune of a violin bled into my ears. I almost wanted to sway.
I closed my eyes, envisioning the days where music meant joy.
“Come on, squeaky mouse,” Galen said, his face riddled in soot and jacket dirtied by his job. He’d spent weeks searching for a job, and unfortunately for us, the mines were the quickest way to coin in this city. He had promised me it was temporary, only until he could find something safer. ‘Less travel,’ he’d said. ‘So you’d stop sitting with the rats to find rotten food.’ It was rather unfortunate that such imagery was more often right than wrong.
He held out an arm. “One day, sister, you’ll be in one of those boring, bland, clean ballrooms dancing to a tune just like this. You have to learn one day.”
Galen always told me I would make it into the Ton, that I was destined for a life of luxury but our parents had stripped me of that privilege.
I hated dancing, but to see my brother smile, I’d learn. Maybe he was right anyway—maybe I’d dance with a man of status someday.
My breath was a shuddering gasp as I opened my eyes. I clenched my hands into fists so I could feel the relief of letting them relax. Thrice I squeezed, unclenched, and squeezed again. I moved down the hill, toward the lone house where music flooded the meadows. It wasn’t as upbeat as the tunes Galen used to teach me those dances, but rarely did those of status want to have fun. Their dances were romantic, yes—but they were dull.
This was no different. In fact, it was almost sad.
I stopped at the steps, flexing my fingers once more. Surely this magic did not shield me from prying eyes. I lowered my focus to the first step and gulped, wondering if the house would open up wide and swallow me whole, but I knew my nerves were just getting the best of me. When I lifted my focus, the vision of Aster, a bundle of mist and nothing more, stood before me. I almost screamed, stumbling back to escape the ghost he’d become.
It was like he was no less physical than a man—crafted of flesh and bone—as he grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me toward him. I collided into his chest, into an embrace that I couldn’t twist out of no matter how hard I thrashed. His hand clasped over my mouth, and my eyes squeezed shut?—
No, gods no. I couldn’t revisit this?—
This wasn’t the first time Mother and Father invited strange people into my room at night. As the door creaked open and I continued feigning sleep, I silently pleaded for Galen’s return. He couldn’t still be at the banquet…
“Aster, please,” I whispered into his hand, impossibly firm. He was nothing more than mist, a ghoul crafted of shadow, but he held onto me like the terrible monster he was.
… but as this stranger peeled back the scratchy blanket, the only shield I had left from the frigid cold, I knew I was alone. I opened one of my eyes, peering up at him as he stared down at me.
“Mama—”
“Your mother is busy.”
I thrashed myself back to reality, to Aster’s breath touching the top of my head. Again, he whispered down to me in that sick, foreign tongue. He held onto my arms now, holding me still as I tried to push back. I didn’t fight as a child—I didn’t know how.
I’d be damned if I didn’t fight now.
The tips of my fingers were the first to go numb as my ears rang. The tingling sensation traveled up my arms, through my chest, and down to my feet. I finally shoved Aster hard enough that his misty figure exploded into thousands of particles, leaving me free to run up the stairs. My heart was racing faster than my brain as I lunged through the open window. My body should have collided into the table nestled along the large window, or into the chair nestled just under it.
But I fell through it, like it was no thicker than air.
I collided with the floor though. That was finite enough to actually exist as I clawed myself onto all fours. I was trembling, every part of my body in fight-or-flight as that vision warred with my mind for focus. I squeezed my eyes shut and saw his terrible face.
Every time I blinked, I saw different faces. The strangers who always knew where I was. The solemn look on my mother’s face the next morning. The extended stays my father took away from the estate. I wasn’t a day past thirteen when it was Galen who woke me up one night.
That was when we ran.
I was good at running. Really good, in fact. I choked on the air in my lungs as I stumbled onto my feet and moved deeper into the house, knowing that Aster had to be here somewhere. He was waiting to strike again. I knew he was clawing to see me fail.
The windows on the opposite side of the foyer were open too. I looked out onto evergreen lawns, an intimate family huddled around each other with a violinist nearer the porch. They kept staring up to the sky, likely discussing the change in weather. Each of them was dressed in black, but not a lick of them seemed sad.
They were supposed to be mourning, with the veiled hats and dark clothing.
I took a few steps back and breathed, turning my head to the wall to study a family portrait. It was a massive family—three sons, two daughters, their parents, and even grandchildren by the sight of it. The father caught my eye.
The late Lord Francis DeBurne, ten years younger, stared back at me with a look of eternal disapproval cast upon his face. I wanted to claw the painting with my nails, but I twisted away and fixated on the entrance to a study. It was dusty, untouched, and too masculine for my liking. There wasn’t a touch of color in the entire room, and as I pushed through the threshold, I couldn’t help but feel like the dark wooden walls were closing in on me. There were bookshelves—not full of fiction and poetry, but rather encyclopedias and legal manuscripts. It was cold.
I approached the shelves and reached to graze one of the spines, but my finger didn’t make contact. Wherever I touched, dark, ashen dust sprinkled into the air in my wake. I stared at my fingers, wondering what exactly Aster had done to me.
Was I stuck like this forever?
Perhaps that wouldn’t be too bad. I’d get to haunt those I hated most.
As I let my hand drop down to my side, I saw the ash flitting around in the air like a bug. It swirled around in the air, round and round until it zipped around me and to the other side of the room. The darkness was guiding me, and for a moment I wondered if it was Aster or something else.
Hesitancy gripped me. I didn’t want to follow it, but my curiosity got the best of me. I followed it out of the room, up the stairs, and into the main bed chambers. Walls, doors, the like—they were merely the vision of an obstacle. I shifted through them like mist to the storm, or sand to the sea. The more I came to accept this new form, the warmer it felt. A warm hug in the cold winter. I wasn’t faced with the scrutinizing glares of mothers and their judgmental gossip about the peasant spinsters.
I breathed out the terror that made me pause, that slowed me, and continued into the room. The ashen trail guided me to a dresser, the mist settling over aged, silver handles. I reached for it, not expecting to grab hold of it as if I were in my physical form. But here I was, pulling open the drawer and staring at the male undergarments folded up neatly. I scowled but pushed them aside in hopes that my own insanity hadn’t led me astray. I saw nothing but empty, thin wood beneath the clothes.
Here, I cursed.
So loudly, in fact, that it vibrated in my chest. I slammed the drawer shut, leaning over the flat top, and grappled my fingers through my hair. Just as the drawer shut though, the wood rattled like the layers were coming undone.
I paused, ears perking at the distant sound of voices entering the home again. The hairs on my arms stood up, but I remembered Aster’s words. He’d shielded me with his magic. He’d tormented me, sent me to tears, but he had kept his word.
I was shrouded in darkness. I was the darkness.
I breathed out and opened the drawer once more. Beneath the tousled clothes, I saw the thin base lifted up ever so slightly. Reaching inside, I dug my nails into the lip and tried to pry it free.
The stairs behind me creaked. I hastened my efforts, my fingers slipping over and over and over?—
But as I got a grip, I pried it free and saw a thin leather book nestled in the recess. It wasn’t titled, but as I opened to its cover page, I saw Aster’s famous words in rich, red ink.
DeBurne Ledr?
In fact, the text almost glowed. I ran a finger over it, the page hot to the touch. The ink was still wet, as if written moments prior, and when it made contact with my skin it stung like a bee. A gust of wind blew past me, the ink splattering across the page—akin to blood on the wall following a nasty fight.
My hair whipped into my face, and that warm feeling that had only just started to calm me vanished. I looked down at my feet and no longer saw the mist ebbing off my body. I shifted my focus all around the room, that gray haze fading into natural sunlight. I turned, book in hand, and saw one of the girls from that portrait staring at me, wide-eyed and afraid.
I clutched Lord DeBurne’s ledger to my chest and cursed.
Aster’s words brushed against my skin again—this time they were raw, concise, and in no other language but the common tongue.
Run, little dove. It seems he’s laid a trap for us from his grave.