Chapter Thirty-Five
You can burn down this world if you wish, but that is not our way.
The memory of my father’s voice came back to soothe me, and for once I hated the reasoning in it as my hands curled into fists. My fingers burned with the urge to summon flame. To burn the reptile and his master.
This was a nightmare, one come real, for these men to be here now. Still coldly handsome, Montagor had an ugly fading bruise down one side of his face that I knew I hadn’t given him.
‘I see no introductions are necessary,’ Lord Percy mused, joining our horrid new gathering.
‘Unfortunately, I’ve run into the Institute’s pet before, Lord Percy,’ Montagor replied, the ruthlessness of his smile not losing its sharp edge.
‘I suppose you wish to see Lord Blackthorn too?’ Lord Percy added with a respectful bow, confirming my suspicion that he was a spineless worm.
Montagor didn’t even glance in his direction – no, his focus was intently on me. His eyes flicked down to my chest, not out of interest, but like he could see that stone where I felt its warmth against my skin. ‘If I know anything about dear Emrys, I’m certain he’s already on his way here.’
Fear chilled my blood. Of all the things he shouldn’t see. The familiarity between myself and Emrys. That weakness to be wanted that I’d allowed myself to foolishly indulge in. Just how viciously this could all end.
‘Leave us,’ Montagor commanded softly, my heart rioting within my chest, but I refused to let it show. Refused to be cowed by this monster. ‘You seem surprised by my presence, Miss Woodrow .’
‘I didn’t think a rumoured haunting and a case of hysteria would be important enough for your attention, my lord ,’ I replied bitingly, gathering my hands before me like the perfect dinner guest, ignoring the feel of everyone’s gaze coming to settle on us, their focus like sharp pinpricks against my skin.
‘No,’ he mused, placing a finger against his lip in contemplation. ‘However, a Kysillian straining too far from her leash might be.’
Finneaus shifted behind Montagor uneasily, and then I felt the brutal chill of Emrys’s magic at my back. Curving over my bare shoulders like night mist, the intensity of it making Montagor stand taller as Finneaus took another step back.
‘Just in time, Emrys.’ Montagor’s smile was thin and vicious in greeting. ‘Shall we?’ He indicated to one of the shadowed passages that led off from the ballroom and made straight for it, as if he knew the house. Finneaus scuttling after him.
Emrys’s hand barely brushed my arm, giving what little comfort he could offer as the dark tense form of him led the way, leaving me no choice but to follow.
The damp air of the Fairfax house was more stifling than usual as we found ourselves in a small sitting room. The carpet threadbare, bookshelves plundered long ago for anything of worth. Dark marks on the walls where pictures had once hung. A horrid, dusty collection of artifacts left on the shelves. Petrified scale samples, gilded feathers and other repulsive oddities won in conquest. The fire was lit but the smell of damp remained, stifling.
‘Mr Ainsworth has told me some interesting things, Miss Woodrow,’ Montagor began, stopping before the fire as he leant back against the mantel. ‘Some oversights that Blackthorn might have made where your magic is concerned.’
My heart began to pound uneasily against my ribs. The Fifth Library. Finneaus had been there. He’d seen it all.
‘Unless you want another mark, Montagor, I suggest you leave.’ Emrys voice wasn’t one I recognised. Too cold and quiet. Laced with a malice that made the small hairs at my nape stand on end. ‘ Now .’
A cluster of teeth sat in a murky jar on the shelf next to me, suddenly jumping and clattering together almost in fear as they hit the glass. The remaining books slipped themselves further into the bookcase as a collection of crystals rolled across the shelf, as far from the threat Emrys and his magic as they could get. A viciousness in it I’d never felt before, not even in the council chamber.
‘Unfortunately, this isn’t your house.’ Montagor’s answering smile was hard with calculation. As he ran a gloved finger down his bruised cheek, confirming my suspicion of just who had given him that mark. ‘Maybe you do have the crude tastes of your father after all.’
My cheeks flushed at the insinuation. That Emrys’s mother was rumoured to be a witch.
‘You’ll be pleased to know I’ve already put in my recommendation,’ Montagor continued as he picked at a piece of lint on his sleeve, unbothered by the tumultuous rage seeping from Emrys. ‘About the rebel activity at Paxton Fields.’
‘I’ll enjoy seeing how you’ll spin that lie.’ Emrys’ response came with harsh brutality, dimming the lamps with its force.
‘Of course, Miss Woodrow will have to answer to the Council for her trespassing.’ Montagor ignored his words, hateful gaze full of challenge as it met mine over Emrys’ shoulder. ‘I hear a cleansing is on the cards for her. I doubt her kind can survive long without their magic.’
‘Lord Fairfax—’ I began, but Montagor wasn’t about to listen to the truth. Not from me.
‘Is half mad.’ Montagor smiled thinly. ‘Vulnerable with his illness, only made more uncomfortable by such a destructive presence I’d wager.’
‘So would I.’ Finneaus grinned.
‘Careful, Finneaus , you might piss yourself again,’ I taunted, watching his face pale before it burned red with embarrassment.
He bared his teeth, leering right at me. ‘You heathen little bi—’
Only Finneaus didn’t get to finish. He was pushed back by an invisible force, slamming back into the sideboard and knocking cheap ornaments onto the carpet as he wheezed weakly in pain.
‘Careful, Emrys, I’m certain your beast can defend herself.’ Montagor smiled, unmoved and unbothered by the assault on Finneaus as the boy struggled to drag in a breath. ‘She certainly has a foul enough mouth. Then again, our sort are rumoured to have a weakness for depraved tastes.’
There was menacing intent in Emrys’s responding silence, something working behind his dark eyes and the tension in his jaw.
‘I found the summoning scrawl the rebels left in that wood.’ Montagor’s lip curled in revulsion. ‘Once the stones have been destroyed, there will be nothing left to draw the dark.’
Destroyed. All that history. All those prayers. A home those fey could never return to.
‘You can’t.’ The words left me desperately with the horror of what he intended. ‘Those temples are peaceful remains—’
‘What would a Kysillian brute know of peace?’ He laughed bitterly at me.
I wasn’t surprised. It didn’t burn or shame me. No, it simply fired the rage simmering in my veins.
‘Clearly more than you.’ My voice was filled with the venom of my fury. ‘Section thirteen prohibits the destruction of fey burial sites.’
‘Nice try, pet ,’ Montagor pressed, pushing away from the struggling fire, closer to us. ‘Temples hold no burials.’
‘Rurroc sites do. The runes would have told you that.’ Rurroc were ancient fey that lived long before what we were now. They were how folk could exist so easily on that soil. Why the prayers were so desperate. ‘Earth blessed by bone magic.’
‘You can’t touch them without a vote from three elders of that settlement,’ Emrys added menacingly behind me, without hesitation, trusting every word I gave.
Elders Montagor would never find, not that far north. The Council didn’t have that control. He could burn and plunder all he wished, but there was nothing fey protected more than those who came before.
‘I’ll save you the hassle of trying to find them,’ I interrupted, bringing his hateful glare back to me. ‘If you seek the truth. You should have this.’
There was a clatter as the cursed thing from my pocket bounced across the low table between us. The stark white fragment that left an icy bite on my fingertips. The pain nothing in comparison to the viciousness of my temper.
The fragment I’d found in the Verr pit.
‘The markings are fresh. You can reanimate it if you don’t believe me,’ I told him. I could almost hear the grinding of Montagor’s teeth at the evidence. Finneaus stumbled back at the potency of the thing on the table, the danger it promised. The sting it should have left on my skin. It had stung but I’d suffered worse than a brush with a cursed bone. Suffered worse than him .
‘I’m certain Lord Percy would be pleased to have it returned, and the Council would love to see how far this darkness goes. How undeniable it is.’ My voice was calm with that truth.
Montagor’s murderous dark gaze had pinned itself to my face and I felt the responding wrath of Emrys’s magic at my back. Like phantom hands curling around my forearms to drag me back.
‘But, you already know that. Don’t you?’ I leant closer, unafraid of him and his games. Emboldened after seeing all those things pinned and dead in that ballroom. After feeling those ruins. Feeling what monsters like him did.
Just as I’d seen that ghost. Those sheet-covered bodies of other fey students on the Institute floor. The smaller bodies deep beneath careless mounds in Daunton’s wood.
I’d seen it all and I would not be silent. Not anymore. Heat wove itself between my ribs, volatile and hungry. Vicious in its hunt for vengeance, just as my ancestors would have been.
The fire behind him surged with a roar as it climbed up the chimney, sending Finneaus scrambling from it with a singed sleeve. Yet it was the monster before me I focused my ire on. Not a foolish boy who knew nothing better than hate.
I let my magic bite. Relished the hissed curse from Montagor’s lips as he pulled back from me and tore his coat open, ripping the pocket watch from inside and letting it clatter onto the threadbare carpet, glowing and warped with my molten rage. His hand pressed over his chest, breath hissing through his teeth. The smell of burning fabric lingered in the space between us.
Something flickered on Montagor’s face. I could have sworn there were shadows rippling beneath his skin, but in a blink, it was gone. Before I could question my sanity, he moved for me.
Instead of a strike, I was suddenly at Emrys’s broad back, unable to understand how he’d got in front of me so fast.
‘Karuk. ’ The word seemed to rumble from somewhere deep in Emrys’s chest. A horrid cold bit into the room as the fire went out, plunging us into a darkness only pierced by the stark moonlight seeping through windows behind me. The dark made Montagor’s features more predatory, as the thunder rumbled above in warning of the coming storm.
That word was like a physical thing, a shadow lingering, familiar and foreign at the same time.
‘Careful, Emrys.’ Montagor sounded breathless, discomfort flashing across his features. ‘You could be seen to be bewitched by the creature.’
‘I’ll remind you once more.’ Emrys’ voice held a deadly calm, a strange tension moving through his limbs. ‘She’s under the protection of my name. Unless you want me to show you again what happens when you breach our rules?’
Finneaus looked wildly between the two lords, who seemed willing to brawl right there. A horrid pressure built, as if the storm from outside had made its way into the tiny room.
‘In the morning,’ Montagor offered in a smooth and lethal voice as he drew back, almost against his will, fists tight at his side. ‘I’m certain all will be … revealed.’
The words were clumsy through his lips, as if he was failing to swallow them back down. His murderous gaze stuck on Emrys. He sent a sharp glance at Finneaus, who scrambled to pick up the cursed shard from the low table, hissing as the icy thing touched his skin. Then carefully picking up the charred pocket watch, looking quite pale as he followed his new master out of the room.
There was a sharp finality to the slamming of the door, as I pressed my fingers to my chest, skin still chilled despite the ruthless heat of my magic.
‘Emrys.’ I needed his name on my lips, just to taste something less bitter. He turned immediately to me.
Those eyes pits of darkness. There was a stiffness to him, a colder chill to his magic. Something strange and new. He took hold of me, forehead coming down to rest against my own, breath brushing my lips.
His knuckles traced the edge of my jaw. Tentatively. The chill from his magic against my skin, needing to feel that I was real.
‘That word,’ I shook my head with confusion. ‘I haven’t—’
I thought he’d explain, be urgent with warnings and regret. No, he kissed me instead. His lips were dangerous. A mere brush and I wished to tell him every secret I knew. Unlace them from my very being as quickly as I wished he’d unlace this dress.
Forbidden, maddening thoughts. The back of his knuckles grazed the edge of my bodice, barely touching the skin, but my breath caught. Something wild flared in my abdomen, pleasure I’d tempered for too long. Desire as chaotic as my magic.
He deepened the kiss, seeming to sense it. Wanting to taste it as my fingers found their way to his jacket buttons, wanting it gone.
A small growl of pleasure against my lips as he backed me effortlessly to the bookcase, crystals and tomes clattering to the floor. His hands at either side of my face, tipping it back to demand more from my mouth.
The stinging burn of magic was still against my fingertips as he shuddered in response to it. Something heightened the crazed need between us as his hands slid to my waist, lifting me to rest on the bookcase lip. He fit easily between my spread legs. Clearly annoyed with the mass of my skirts being in his way, he pushed them up, the coolness of the room nipping at my calves.
One hand going beneath, he hitched my leg higher, closer. The rough callous texture of his hands torturous against such soft skin. Pleasure rippled through me as my slippers dropped from my feet.
I gasped, clutching at his hair, head falling back against the shelves as his mouth fell to the curve of my breast, tracing the edge of my bodice, nipping softly at the sensitive flesh.
His thumb discovered the edge of my garter. Wicked and knowing. My nails dug into his back, feeling his muscles tense under my touch, and all I could do was moan his name as his tongue and teeth traced a path up the side of my throat to take my lips once more.
‘Kat?’ he asked, beseeching a command. Perhaps some sanity, but I couldn’t give him any.
‘Yes,’ I begged, desire chasing my fear from me as I kissed him again. I bit his lip, freeing him from the rest of his restraint, and his hand slipped further up my thigh. The warmth and solidness of him caged me in. His magic slipping around me in another phantom embrace, across any bare skin it could find. My back arched in silent command for it to have more.
His lips ran along my jaw, making my head fall to the side, giving him more access, only to open my eyes and see a flash of red curls run past the dark window.
William.
With what I could swear was a tabby cat clutched in his arms.
‘Emrys !’ I snapped, grasping desperately at his shoulders. He stopped instantly, letting me slide down his body until my bare feet were back on the floor, skirts still rumpled between us, breaths unsteady.
Fear streaked through me at the thought that I was seeing things again. That this house was playing awful tricks. I grabbed Emrys’s chin, turning his face to the glass just as the figure darted off the garden path and back into the house.
‘Please tell me that’s not William?’ My breath caught, panic constricting my chest that it wasn’t real. Only for Emrys to go very still, his jaw tense beneath my grasp.
‘Bloody little …’ Emrys began to curse, but I didn’t hear the rest as I ducked out of his hold, grabbing my shoes and racing for the door. Hopping on one foot to get my shoes back on, I darted into the hall that led to the garden passage. I heard a door slam, then a murmur of familiar voices ahead, before another door shut.
I turned around another dilapidated corner to almost run headfirst into Thean Page. Their grin wicked as they leant against the wall, the peeling wallpaper almost brushing the luxurious green velvet of their ostentatious suit.
‘Interesting meeting?’ The voyav raised a brow, those amber eyes taking in the creases in my skirts that I hadn’t slapped out sufficiently enough and the curls of my hair that had slid free. My cheeks were red and my breath was barely steady. My bodice had also slipped down inappropriately.
‘Wonderful,’ I snapped, tugging my bodice up.
Then the voyav’s amusement slid to the large cupboard next to them, as a clatter of movement and a curse came from within. Effortlessly, they pulled the door open and William tumbled out, hands pressed over his eyes as he fell into a startled heap on the floor. Peering up at us through his fingers.
‘Debauchery !’ Thean grinned, eyes gleaming with malicious delight as they draped themself against the doorframe. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you, dear William.’
‘I d-didn’t …’ William stuttered, seemingly struggling to remember how to form sentences as his face went scarlet. ‘I don’t like breasts.’
‘Leave him alone.’ Alma emerged from the crammed cupboard, stepping over William’s prone form to glare up at the voyav as she laced the front of her maid’s dress with military precision. Even as her fingers remained faintly in the shape of claws. Clearly unbothered that her breasts were one deep breath away from being exposed.
Something which only served to heighten Thean’s predatory delight.
‘How … possessive ,’ the voyav goaded, leaning closer with a smile so sharp those fangs gleamed. ‘A tumble is supposed to take the edge off, darling. Maybe you weren’t doing it right.’
The responding sound from deep in Alma’s throat could only be described as a growl.
‘Thean,’ Emrys cautioned, arms folded tightly across his chest, dark gaze drifting between a red-faced William and the voyav.
‘We weren’t …’ William struggled to get to his feet, hair tangled around his horns. ‘I didn’t … We went looking through the lord’s chambers while they were distracted …’
William pulled a bag from inside his coat. It rattled and clanked as he pulled out a handful of scrawled papers, dark crystals and dried fey skin totems wrapped with string. ‘Alma helped. It was full of really weird—’
‘Shit,’ Alma finished for him . He winced as she took the papers from him and held them out to me, still glaring at Thean as if imagining her next attack.
‘Rummaging through peoples, bed chambers? I didn’t know you were so … devious,’ Thean teased. Unbothered by the horror William had just exposed.
Alma’s eyes narrowed, turning cold-blooded with her rage. ‘They were in his office, actually .’
‘I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re—’ I began, snatching the papers, but the sight of them stopped any further complaint. ‘ Septus mor .’
A dark calling. The crumpled and partially charred papers sent a wave of dread through me. Each one asked for the same thing in the dark language of Verr worship. Summoning spells.
The press of Emrys’s warmth against my back was my only comfort as I heard him distantly give a command to Thean. Something about leaving.
‘No,’ I barely breathed, reaching for Emrys’s hand. All their focus shifted back to me, but none more intently than Emrys’s. ‘Montagor will be expecting you to leave.’
‘Montagor?’ Alma turned to me, eyes wide, pupils as large as an owl’s.
‘Lord Percy’s latest guest,’ Emrys offered darkly, but his focus didn’t shift from my face, as if testing how I’d respond to the word uttered from Alma’s lips. ‘He’s brought Ainsworth’s son along with him too.’
‘Finneaus? !’ Alma hissed, making me look to her as her skin shifted slightly so scales rippled down her throat. ‘That little rat.’
Then she turned on me, clawed finger pointed, eyes deadly and tongue slightly forked. ‘I told you to leave him to that sodding demon.’
‘Something we agree on, Miss Darcy,’ Emrys added menacingly, making me turn to see him. Only to note the indentation at his bottom lip caused by my fervent kisses.
‘I’m going to gut the pig,’ Alma hissed, bringing me back to reality as she rooted around in that cupboard for her shoes, hopping with fury as she put them on.
‘As entertaining as that would be …’ Thean grinned, clearly thrilled as Alma’s vicious glare returned to him, ‘Montagor won’t be put off his task for long.’
‘He won’t be doing anything tonight.’ Emrys’s words were cold, something in them having more sting than a winter wind. William grasped his coat a little tighter, but it was the voyav’s reaction that worried me.
‘What did you do?’ Thean asked, all traces of amusement gone. Studying Emrys carefully, like he was a lingering threat.
‘That smell …’ Alma murmured, interrupting Thean’s interrogation as she moved suddenly for me. Grabbing my forearms. Nostrils flaring. ‘That’s the smell from that wood.’
‘I washed,’ I objected, but she was already shaking her head, dislodging her dark curls, brow furrowed.
‘Not you,’ she snapped with exasperation, stepping away from our gathering, closer to the passage that led to the ballroom. ‘It’s here. Close.’
‘We need to go back in the hall,’ I said. ‘Try and see who it could be before they come up with anymore gossip about Montagor’s arrival or—’ I couldn’t finish. Knowing they’d be talking about what exactly Lord Blackthorn was up to with his partner mage being absent from the ballroom.
‘I wouldn’t worry about that; they’re all talking about those old coins.’ William rocked back on his heels, hands running through his unruly curls.
‘What coins?’ I demanded, a horrid terror seeping through my limbs, but I didn’t need William to answer. That unease I’d felt before came back to me now. Sharply.
Why Alma could smell something. It was here.
‘Kat!’ Emrys warned, but I was already running.