Chapter Twelve
The bell was a summons. A Council summons, which made Emrys’s irritated cursing make more sense. However, I couldn’t chase away the dread of what they had to say. If it would be something else about me.
Maybe that old crone had reported my time in the library to the Council. I wouldn’t put it past them to plant some ghastly deed on me. That I’d singed an ancient spell book or a misbehaving ink charm had ruined a priceless tapestry.
Unfortunately, all of the above were valid previous offences on my record. Unease coiled more tightly in my gut.
A squeak came from the table before me, snapping my attention back to the current problem at hand. Alma. Somehow sensing the thoughts that plagued me, despite still being in mouse form.
‘How about another attempt at serpentine focus?’ I sighed, turning over the pages of notes, flicking through to try and find the section I’d written on the process, despite it making no sense to me. But it might to Alma. It was her magic after all.
An annoyed squeak was the only response to my question, making me glance up. If her small mouse limbs were long enough, I believed she’d cross them in annoyance.
I couldn’t blame her; I’d recounted a madman’s notes on transfiguration to her for the past few hours. William, helpful as ever, supplying the few books Emrys held on the subject, but even he had given up hope and gone back to his own tasks.
‘We have to keep trying.’ I pushed stray strands of my hair behind my ears, my poor attempt at a dignified hairstyle having fallen out hours ago. Alma’s small ears twitched as she rubbed her paws together, either in frustration or trying something else.
‘Still nothing?’ I turned towards the sound of William’s cheery voice from the study entrance, where he wiped his hands on a small towel tinged green from his grass studies.
‘It doesn’t help most of the surviving instructions were written by a lunatic.’ I sank back in my chair, rubbing my temples against the threatening headache dwelling there.
‘You’ll figure it out.’
‘I wouldn’t be so certain.’ I huffed, eyes reluctantly drifting towards the shelves and my last encounter with Emrys. His helpfulness. All it did was unsettle me, so I turned my focus to the other side of the room and the mysterious third desk that resided there, the items on it dusty and untouched, waiting for its owner to return.
‘William, who does that desk belong to?’
The question was met with silence, making me turn to see if he was still there. Only to find William indeed there, a deep sadness on his normally cheery face as if suddenly struck by grief. He shook his head, a small unconvincing smile slipping back onto his face.
‘It was Healer Swift’s.’
‘Master Healer Gideon Swift?’ I pressed gently through my confusion. Emrys had said the name Gideon but I hadn’t put it together.
‘He was raised by the Blackthorns.’ William made quick work of tidying up the abandoned plates and cups that littered my desk – evidence of just how long I’d been lost in my work. ‘Emrys considers him his brother.’
‘What happened to him?’ The Council’s records on him had suddenly stopped after the war, the same way they had done when dealing with Emrys. Considering no new papers were released and the Council never spoke of their once renowned healer, I’d assumed he’d passed like all the others.
‘He isn’t dead,’ he clarified. ‘He and Emrys had a terrible fight and he left. Things weren’t the same after that.’
‘What did they fight about?’ I shouldn’t be asking these things and yet I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Emmaline.’ William shrugged, a tiredness in the word, as if the name haunted them all. ‘The only thing they ever fought about.’
Emmaline Blackthorn. Emrys’s sister. The name I’d seen scrawled on the front of some tomes on the back, as if marking her territory on the storybooks and legends.
‘What happened to her?’ I considered the desk I now sat at. Her desk. The ghosts that could still linger here.
‘Nobody talks about that,’ he replied quietly with such sadness it made the room suddenly cavernous, any warmth and comfort evaporating. The book shelves seeming to sag with melancholy around us.
‘I need to get back to my paper, but dinner is in the kitchen.’ He nodded, gathering up the tray and moving to leave. ‘Cheese too.’
Alma’s small mouse nose twitched, looking at me and then William. She rubbed her ear with her paw and before I could even open my mouth, she scrambled off the desk to chase after William, who laughed as she darted past him.
‘Traitor,’ I muttered, flopping back in my chair. Not that I could blame her. I wasn’t even enjoying my own company.
I set about trying to pass the time, but really I was waiting foolishly for the ominous form of Blackthorn to return. As if I had any hope of being bold enough to ask him all the things I wished.
‘Fool.’ I sighed to myself, picking up my pen and continuing with my notes.
The hours slipped away from me until I was practically squinting in the dark at the papers. My back ached from being hunched over my desk all day and, as I looked behind me, the fire flickered weakly. I didn’t have the energy to stoke it again, my stomach rumbling with displeasure at my negligence.
The desk drawer rattled in question.
‘I’m fine,’ I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose as I reached for my papers once more, ignoring the ache in my shoulder. I had only one more chapter to finish.
The papers were suddenly swept to the side in a false wind, piled and then pushed into the bottom drawer that shot openand closed before I could even blink.
‘Oi !’ I snapped, leaning down to pull on the small brass handle, the wood groaning but it didn’t open. I tried again, even using my Kysillian strength but the drawer didn’t budge. Its creaking sounded like distant laughter.
This bloody house.
‘Fine.’ I huffed with a frustrated sigh, knowing it was giving me no choice other than to accept defeat.
Reluctantly I went in search of the kitchen.
William was absent, but a pot of steaming stew and fresh rolls of bread sat on the table with a waiting stack of bowls.
I took a seat and dug in, wondering where indeed William had run off to as I contemplated the hearth. I should have checked his workroom before coming down here.
As if a single thought could have summoned him, someone sat on the bench opposite me. I turned, almost dropping my spoon as the dark figure of Blackthorn sat there. Not even looking at me as he reached for one of the rolls of bread, tearing it efficiently and digging in.
I almost choked on my stew. I hadn’t seen him take a meal in the kitchen before.
It was only then I noticed the disarray of him. The collar of his shirt torn, his jacket creased and covered in a strange grey soot.
Somehow acutely aware of my attention on his bowed head, those dark eyes lifted, meeting my curious gaze.
‘William said you’d been called away.’ I frowned, wondering what on earth the Council could be up to for him to be in such a state.
‘There was a ghoul running rampant in the students’ quarters.’ He bit into his bread with mild annoyance.
My mouth went dry.
Ancestors above.
The ghoul.
As if hearing the treacherous pounding of my heart, he paused his eating and considered me sharply. I quickly returned my attention to my stew, blinking at it like an idiot, trying to think of anything to say to detract from the subject. Internally scolding myself for being so bloody stupid.
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ he observed, a cold calculation in those sharp eyes as he spooned stew from the pot between us into his bowl.
‘I am,’ I half stuttered, trying to swallow despite my dry throat. ‘How terrible.’
I quickly spooned the too-hot stew into my mouth to take away any other chance of speaking.
A ghoul was a vicious foe, no wonder he was in such disarray. Apprehension made every swallow tedious but thankfully my bowl was empty soon enough and I could retreat to the sink.
Muttering something about William needing help – despite the boy’s absence – I instantly busied myself with the dishes, batting away the enchanted dishcloth that tried to do the job for me, trapping it under a stack of plates and focusing intently on scrubbing a stain off an old pan to try and quell my rapid pulse.
I tried to think through any possibility the ghoul could be traced back to me. I hadn’t summoned it, but, I didn’t know if ghouls were protected under the Imprisoning Act. Maybe locking it beneath my bed wasn’t the most humane idea, even if it was a cursed entity.
I was rummaging in the sink for another plate, pulling it out when a hand closed around my own. Scarred fingers with that soft cold bite of magic.
My head darted up, almost catching his chin with how close he was.
‘What were you doing with a ghoul, Kat?’ he asked softly, as if we were sharing secrets.
So close, and with him touching me so casually, I had no room for conspiring with a lie. Wondering if his fingers pressed against my wrist so carefully to test my pulse.
‘It slipped into my bag from the ruins,’ I half whispered conspiratorially, like it had just happened and I needed an accomplice to cover my tracks.
‘When?’ His brow furrowed, leaning closer until there was nothing but that bloody alluring scent of beasam bark that did little to calm me.
‘A … a few months ago.’
He closed his eyes, seeming to struggle to pull in breath. As if he might combust. They opened again, no longer grey but black. As dark and endless as the night. ‘Do I even want to know how you contained it?’
‘In an old sweet tin under my bed.’ I winced. ‘I was going to put it back.’
His face was blank, a stony quality to it I didn’t understand and I worried I’d somehow broken him.
‘I forgot,’ I added gently, hoping he believed me. That I didn’t intend to put the Institute at risk. That it wasn’t some crazed retaliation.
‘You forgot,’ he repeated, that dark annoyance not abating, and I wondered if he was reconsidering the whole bloody partnership.
I bit my lip and watched as his eyes followed the indentation my teeth made in the skin. Something changed in the warm air between us, that strange brush of his magic more prominent.
My heart pounded a little louder in my chest as an unknown sensation knotted in my stomach, as if travelling over a bump in a road.
‘You’re back.’ William’s cheery voice greeted from across the kitchen, making my face heat as I turned to see him grinning in the stairwell’s doorway. He was carrying a box of muddy vegetables from his garden in his harms, but he halted as he took in Emrys’s appearance, worry flickering in his warm gaze. ‘You look like—’
‘Thank you, William,’ Emrys interrupted sharply. Clearly in no mood to be reminded just how he’d gotten in that state. How it was my fault.
The lord didn’t break my gaze. A silence lingered between us as William huffed out a laugh and started prattling on about the stew and the mess Emrys had made of the stack of bread rolls.
An apology lay heavy on my tongue but I couldn’t seem to speak or breathe quite steadily as Emrys considered me, those dark eyes following the curve of my mouth before he let go of my hand in the water and returned to the table.
William engaged with him instantly in a conversation about mud parasites. I couldn’t focus on the words, drawn by how cold my hand suddenly felt despite the hot water. How long it took the chill to dissipate.
Fool . That mocking voice hissed again and I let the sharp barbs of it dig into some sensitive place inside of me. I was a fool. Ruining things all over again.
I went back to washing the dishes. Washing intently until I was certain Emrys was gone for the evening. Just like the coward I was.
I should have hidden in the bath. Faked a headache and gone to bed. There were many things I should have done, but instead I found myself walking into the study. Thankful at least that the house seemed to be on my side and took mercy on me by not making be hunt for it too long.
The cosy room was bathed in the warm light from the fire.
Emrys was at his desk, hair wet and brushed back as the cotton of his shirt clung to the broad planes of his shoulders. Surrounded by his usual clutter of books, clearly recovered from his ghoul encounter.
Sensing my nervousness or my mere presence, he looked up as I reached the edge of his desk. The stern expression I couldn’t read made my heart beat a little faster, but I persevered.
‘William wanted to learn some recipes.’ I placed the small plate of biscuits I carried on the desk. My feeble offering of peace. ‘My father liked to bake.’
Lavender and lemon biscuits, the tiny sugar crystals on top catching the orange light of the fire.
He looked at them for a long moment, as if he’d never seen one before. Then those eyes lifted to meet my own, a stormy grey of indecision. Probably between reprimanding me or simply kicking me out.
But I didn’t care. A ghoul wasn’t a nice foe to face and I should have been more careful with such dark things. Blackthorn had enough to burden him without worrying about me sending ghoul attacks his way.
‘I’m sorry,’ I confessed. ‘I … I didn’t know what to do.’
That admission felt like a weakness. How many times had I stumbled into danger with no way out, knowing I’d only be blamed if I sought help? My survival depended on perfection, and all I seemed capable of was making mistakes.
He sat back in his chair slowly, pen clattering onto his notes, leaving a large ink splodge on his papers.
‘When you realise how brilliant you are, Croinn, I think we’ll all be in trouble.’ He sighed as he opened his desk drawer. Pulling something out, and placing it on the desk between us. Right next to my peace offering.
An old sweet tin that had seen better days, glinting in the firelight.
‘Show me.’ The command was soft and curious. His eyes suddenly crystalline, filled with challenge as he took a biscuit from the plate. A whoosh of relieved breath left me and a reluctant smile came to my lips as I reached for the sweet tin.
Show me.
So I did.