Chapter 33 Des
Des
Gareth, Jasper, Daisy, and Des clustered around a table for a late dinner, earning curious looks from the other guards. Des
never ate with anyone but Daisy, and people were rightly confused by his sudden shift into sociability.
“What did you learn today?” Des asked Gareth.
“Very little,” Gareth replied as he poked at his boiled peas. “Everard didn’t leave the house once. The demon thrall left
two separate times, but I don’t know where it went.”
Des was about to rebuke him when Daisy cut him off.
“You told him to watch the townhouse, not the demon,” she murmured.
“Right. You’re right. We need another set of eyes on the thrall.”
“We’re not dragging anyone else into this,” Jasper hissed. “I was already forced to do an extra set of push-ups for being
late this morning.”
Daisy smiled and ruffled Jasper’s hair. “Aw, sleepyhead. I’ll make sure you’re up on time tomorrow.”
Jasper raised his lip in a silent snarl.
“I also went to the library,” Gareth said, looking rather sheepish.
“The library?” Jasper and Des asked in unison.
“To do research on thralls,” he explained as he pulled a piece of paper from his trouser pocket. “I found something that might
be helpful.”
Des skimmed the paper quickly: Masters and thralls are tethered to each other; if one is harmed, the other is, too. While the master can see through the
thrall’s eyes, the thrall does not benefit reciprocally. Instead, it gains the weakness of its human master and none of its
strengths.
Des reread the words several times. “So Everard does have a weakness?” Aurelie had hinted at something along those lines,
but he’d cut her off before she could finish.
Gareth nodded. “It seems so, insomuch as a demon can be considered a weakness. If you kill Kobal, Everard could also die.”
The idea was intriguing, but exceedingly risky. It could alert Everard to their involvement, and Aurelie would never forgive
Des if she suspected he was doing anything that might harm her uncle.
“Thank you, Gareth.”
“I wish I could help more, but my family is expecting me for Yule,” Daisy said. “I’ll do as much as I can tonight.”
Des was only half listening, because an idea was taking form in his mind. If he could trap Everard’s thrall, he wouldn’t only
have potential leverage over Everard, but the perfect bargaining chip: the demon for Aurelie’s uncle. And perhaps best of
all, he’d also have the first known captive verita specimen. He could study its reaction to iron, prove that the veil really was thinning, which might be enough to convince
Commander Yew that the king couldn’t be trusted. Gods, it was treasonous even to think such things, but he couldn’t deny that
something dark was happening in Wisteria. And he couldn’t sit back and watch it happen, either.
They finished dinner and headed back to their quarters to change, then left separately to avoid further suspicion.
By a little after ten, they were letting themselves inside the university gates with Aurelie’s key.
Des still wore it on the leather thong around his neck.
Every time he started to doubt what they were doing, he squeezed it in his fist, reminding himself that Aurelie was real.
That she cared about him. That she knew what the Iron Guard meant to him and would never deliberately do something to compromise his position there.
She was in the workshop when they arrived, staring at the portal with her hands on her hips, her head cocked to the side.
She was more disheveled than he’d ever seen her, her hair damp at the temples, a smudge of charcoal on her nose that made
her look like an adorable, green-eyed rabbit.
Without thinking, he moved to wipe it away with his thumb, only stopping when he realized Jasper and Daisy were laughing.
At him.
“Shut up,” he growled, though it was so half-hearted that neither of them stopped giggling. Daisy had the gall to snort.
Aurelie, however, was still standing in front of him with her eyes closed, waiting for him to finish his ministrations, and
it took all his self-control not to kiss the tip of her nose when he’d finished.
“How are you feeling about everything?” he asked her as they walked to the cottage to make tea—they were all going to need
the extra energy tonight, and Daisy had complained of a headache due to lack of sugar consumption. What he really wanted to
ask was, How are you feeling about me? But he’d never have dared.
“I don’t know. I still have runes left to translate, and if we don’t get this right . . .”
“We’ll get it right,” he said, ignoring the stab of guilt in his gut at the thought of going behind her back, of any of this
going wrong.
“I hope so.”
He worded his next question carefully, hoping to appeal to her scientific mind without arousing suspicion. “Have you ever tried to trap any of your demons, rather than kill them?”
“Other than Mephisto?” She shook her head. “No. Which isn’t to say I haven’t wanted to. I’ve collected as much data as possible
about them, but I could never take the risk of keeping one alive. Even if they weren’t hell-bent on eating me, it would put
Uncle Leo in danger.”
“You mean from the Iron Guard?”
She nodded.
“And what about you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose I was overconfident in my abilities to kill the demons I created. None were faster
or stronger than me. Not until the last one. It appeared so quickly.” She considered for a moment. “Perhaps because the veil
is thinning.”
Inside the cottage, none of the gas lamps had been lit, but Aurelie knew the house well. Seemingly without thinking, she took
Des’s hand and guided him, and there was something in the gesture that made his chest ache.
“But if you were to trap one, how would you go about it?”
“Now this I have given some thought to,” she admitted. “I suppose it would need to be composed of metal, though not pure iron
necessarily. Perhaps an alloy metal with a high iron content to weaken the demon without killing it. It would need to be camouflaged
in some way, most likely. And you’d need a lure.”
“A lure?”
“Meat. Still alive, if possible. A small animal?” She shuddered. “Honestly, I would never be able to get past that part. I’d
be more inclined to use myself as a lure than some hapless creature.”
Of course she would. The thought was equal parts endearing and maddening.
When they reached the kitchen, he waited on the threshold while she lit a gas lamp and made a fire for the kettle. Her apron
was untied in the back, revealing her slim waist and the flare of her hips, which he suddenly had the overwhelming desire
to hold.
She squeaked when he came up behind her and began to tie the apron strings, which seemed less presumptuous than the other
things he had in mind.
“What is it with you and the kitchen?” she asked, turning in his arms.
“I’ll take any room I can get, so long as it’s just the two of us.”
She smirked up at him. “I’ve heard men are very simple creatures, but I didn’t realize how true it was until now.”
“Simple, huh?” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “For what it’s worth, there’s nothing simple about my feelings
for you.”
“Now that I can believe,” she said with a sigh. “This is far more complicated than I could have imagined.”
“Really? I knew from the moment you shouted at me that this was going to be complicated.” A lie, but a small one. He’d known
from the moment he saved her from the runaway carriage. When the thought of harm befalling her was more frightening than any
demon encounter.
“You liked me even then?” she whispered.
“Especially then,” he said, leaning down to kiss her forehead. It was a deliberately chaste kiss. She was anxious tonight, her body tense. As badly as he wanted to lose himself in kissing her, he wasn’t going to make any demands on her already limited time.
But when she pressed her hand to his check and tilted her mouth to meet his, he was so grateful he could have fallen to his
knees.
Still, he tried to restrain himself, to kiss her slowly and deeply, not the frenzied rush of their first kiss, where he’d
been as eager as a schoolboy. The kettle began to whistle, but Aurelie somehow managed to remove it from the flame without
breaking away from him. It was such a deft move he pulled away himself.
“Have you done this before?” he asked her.
“This?”
“You know.” He glanced down at their bodies.
She scoffed incredulously. “With whom?” she asked, as though the idea were absurd.
He shrugged. “Miles?”
She was caught so off guard she snorted, then covered her mouth in surprise, still laughing. “You’re joking,” she said. “Right?”
“Why would I be joking? You did go on a date with him, if I recall correctly.”
“That was not a date. My uncle thought Miles Viridian would be a good match for me, simply because he’s a dedicated student from a good
family.”
At that, a sliver of doubt wedged itself into Des’s heart. He’d never even considered what Aurelie’s uncle would think of
him. Dr. Blake hadn’t been present in the weeks Des had known her. But of course he wouldn’t want his only niece to be with
someone like Des. He had raised her since she was a small child to be just like him: smart, successful, devoted to her studies
and academia.
“Hey, where’d you go?” she asked, reaching for him.
He shook his head, embarrassed. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” She forced him to look at her, and he resented her in that moment for not simply dropping the matter like
Jasper or Aspen would have, for forcing him to confront his own insecurities. She and Daisy were too much alike in that way.
“Listen, Miles Viridian is the most repugnant, sycophantic, self-absorbed man I’ve ever met.”
He frowned, unconvinced.
“He was also recently engaged to Lavender Applebaum.”
At that, the spark of hope relit in Des’s chest, and he pulled her to him, kissing her greedily while she laughed. It was
the most beautiful sound in the world, Aurelie’s laughter.
Finally, he released her so she could finish making the tea. It quickly became apparent that Aurelie had hardly eaten today,
so he went to the pantry to find whatever he could, determined that tomorrow he’d bring a fresh loaf of bread and cheese for
her. The world needed more of Aurelie Blake in it, not less.
Just as they were about to head back toward the workshop, Aurelie set the tea tray on a console table and looked up at Des.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I just want you to know, if at any point you decide you can’t be a part of this, I’ll understand. You deserve to be promoted,
Des. You deserve everything you want. And I’m not so na?ve as to think you’re going to change your entire life for me.”
What was she doing? Letting him off the hook? Trying to tell him gently that they had no future together? Or was she simply
trying to protect her own heart?
Instead of asking, he pulled her into his arms, holding her as tightly as when he’d pulled her away from the runaway carriage.
And just like then, she didn’t flinch at the stiffness of his armor or the unyielding grip of his muscles.
Just like then, she melted into him, as though she knew that his armor, his muscles, were there to protect her, far more than they were for himself.
Because the thing he needed to protect most of all couldn’t be safeguarded by armor or weapons, and the walls he’d built up
around it had been reduced to rubble by this tiny, inimitable, wrecking ball of a girl.