Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
At the end of the path rose a wooden door, arched the same as the one leading to the sea at the other side. Perched atop it was a crow.
“In all the—you do know this isn’t the forest, Crow? There are hardly any trees out here, and there are cliffs.” The crow cocked its dark head to better view her and listened. “So you think yourself as good as a seabird on this wind? That’s bold.”
She waited for the creature to caw its outrage at the comparison or, at the very least, to hop from one part of the fence to the other. But it did neither, and its direct stare began to unnerve her.
“This is a graveyard. You’re disturbing the dead.” The animal gnashed its beak. “You’ll leave them alone. The statues, I mean. They’re not for perching on. Or worse.”
She wondered why she bothered scolding the creature.
It would clearly do what it wanted, and especially did not need to listen to her.
But she’d felt a fierce protectiveness build while making her way through the so-named garden.
She did not know these people; really, she shouldn’t have cared.
Yet, as she cleared vines and moss and dirt away from a number of statues, she’d found, in fact, she very much did.
Lux scoffed at the bird, strode up to the door, and yanked.
The door did not budge.
She released the ring before gripping it a second time. This try she pulled harder, thinking it must be stuck—swollen from the salt. Still, it didn’t give.
It’s locked? Why? The same door existed at the other side. Why couldn’t she also go through this one?
The crow cawed. Lux ignored it. It flew down, stirring her hair, only to return and land gracefully on the iron fence once more. It cawed again.
Her first instinct was to call the animal a bothersome beast and frighten it into flight.
Except her second reminded her of the blood debt she owed a bird she could no longer pay.
“Are you trying to help?” she asked. “The brambles are too thick over there. Did you see those flowers? They’re made of teeth. ”
The crow didn’t speak further, merely tilting its head again. It eyed her wary approach.
“What did you find?” she asked it.
She peered beneath the animal’s perch, and realized she’d been wrong.
The brambles had left a natural gap between their branches and the fence here.
Though she’d been explicitly told not to, Lux stepped off the path.
She crept carefully along the bars until she stood under the bird, and it was there she discovered it—the metal bent slightly off center.
Not without tucking her long skirt, she couldn’t fit, but maybe—
A deep thud came from outside her line of sight. It startled her; she dropped to a crouch at once. Leaning, she peered through the brambles, back to where she’d come from. She knew that sound; she wished she didn’t. It was the thick noise of a blow to the gut. And it was much too close.
“If I hear another whisper of your grumblings… If I hear the name Alesso even leave your pruned mouth, I’ll sew your lips shut myself. Turn them into a ribboned hem for your ugly face, what do you think of that?”
A volley of hoarse muttering proceeded to bombard her after that harsh visual, and Lux patted down her bodice before groaning inwardly. You forgot the knife, you idiot!
“…no, absolutely not. They’re not for you to command until you’ve proven yourself. We have all bided our time and so will you. Have I made myself clear? Or do you need a second lesson to be sure?”
More hoarse muttering. A grunt of approval. Lux heard shifting and then nothing.
Good. They must have continued back down the walk.
She straightened. Alesso? What about the name of a dead man had them so bothered?
Lux glanced behind her to the opening in the bars.
Her hands shifted over her skirt. If she gathered them just right, she could slip through and see what lay on the opposite side.
Even if Corvin missed her absence for a few minutes.
She looked for the crow, but the bird had flown.
An aggressive caw resounded from behind her. Her fingers fell away as she spun.
“Which circle of Hell is this?” shouted a voice in outrage.
Lux crept around the brambles’ edge until she could make out what happened down the lane. Until she could see the crow circled a giant of a man in collectors’ garb, his hands outstretched to swat it away. His hood fell back.
The crow descended again, and this time its talons made contact, scraping along the man’s hairless head.
He roared. Lux stepped onto the path, her back to the door.
She’d never known a crow to behave this way outside of a singular time, and that crow’s eyes had been murky, revived beyond what it should have. This one was not like that.
“Crow!” she shouted.
The bird paused its attack. It cawed again—rather irritated, she thought. Then it lifted higher into the sky and was gone.
The man didn’t turn at first. With his back to her, Lux saw angry lines had been carved into his—rather unsightly—pale skull and his shoulders heaved.
His gloved hands lifted to his hood as he shifted to face her, and Lux startled at the glimpse of his features before they were hidden.
Sagging, mottled, and with grey undertones, his skin seemed to have forgotten it was alive.
His gaze pierced her, a blue so light it could be called silver.
She watched his chest rise with a deep inhale, and then he laughed. “A necromancer and a friend to crows. What other beasts have you befriended?”
Lux recognized his voice. “Befriended is probably too strong a word. Tolerate, maybe. Are you injured, Lord Kent?”
His hood shifted, dipping down her person. “I’ve survived worse attacks in my lifetime, Ms. Thorn. Please don’t worry over me.” Finishing his assessment, he added, “The color suits you. I knew it would.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
When he neither moved nor said anything further, she fought not to glance behind her. Toward the locked door she’d been about to force herself around. But she couldn’t help asking, “Does the door on this end lead to another cliffside trail?”
Kent’s hood shifted. “Indeed, it does. But that one is unusable due to erosion of the landscape. We keep it locked now. For safety.”
“How sad. I would have liked to have seen it.”
“Well, come along then,” he said, and Lux’s eyes widened. “I’ll allow you a glimpse.”
“You’re serious?”
“You’re wearing my dresses. I’d love for you to wear my gown come the banquet. A fair exchange?”
Fairer than I thought. “Yes, I think so.”
He paused for a moment. “You’re a serious one.” A soft laugh left him as he made his way toward her. Then he passed her by.
Lux was slow to turn. Once she did, his exceptionally broad shoulders blocked her view of anything.
She heard a click but couldn’t see how it was made.
She’d not noticed any keyhole when she’d stood in front of it before, but apparently she’d not looked hard enough.
The door swung inward with a protesting screech.
“There you are,” he said and stepped aside.
Lux moved to fill the space, her hand reaching reflexively toward the frame once she did.
He’d been honest; the path crumbled sharply away.
Her breath caught over the disconnect between the narrow lane behind her and the sudden openness outside the door.
She felt strangely if she were to step through, she’d walk clean into another world.
A world of drowning waves and slow deaths, her macabre mind granted. If she’d even survive the fall first.
Her eyes snagged on something then. A protrusion from the cliff. A cone-shaped roof, black shingles in disrepair. She spun back to the collector.
“What is that?”
His hood shifted, and she knew he followed where she pointed. His voice rumbled, “That would be Grimrook House.”
Her brow furrowed. “House? I thought the family lived in Mothlock.”
“They did. Eventually. When the erosion worsened. Come back from there now. There’s a chill in the air and we wouldn’t want you uncomfortable.”
He guided her away with a slight tug at her sleeve. Lux’s lip curled, but otherwise she did nothing. Because she realized something staggering. The impressive and imposing Mothlock Manor didn’t call to her at all. That house did.
Kent blocked her view once more, the door screeching a second time.
“But why build up a manor on an already crumbling cliff?”
“The wonders of a skilled mason, Ms. Thorn. Now, I think it’s time we go back inside.” As if urged by his words, the brambles shifted, arching over the path beside her. She stumbled away only to notice they did the same on the opposite side. “It doesn’t help to linger,” he added, his tone ominous.
Lux, carefully moving nearer to him, said, “They sense a person’s presence?”
He turned away and began to walk. She couldn’t share the path as she might have with Corvin, and so she fell in line behind him.
When she glanced over her shoulder, the brambles had yet to return to their original place, still stretching high and menacing over the lane.
The statues were gone inside them. All she saw were stems of teeth.
“Your heart,” he answered.
She shivered, the chill he’d warned her of suddenly apparent. “And wish to do what with it?”
The collector remained silent for longer than she expected.
“Such a question makes me wonder at your history, young Necromancer. But as for its answer: to siphon from it. The plant is called guardian’s leech.
In that it is both protective of its territory and consuming.
Those tooth-like petals are hollow. In one moment, they may inject a toxin.
In the next they might draw in. It is important you don’t ever allow the latter. ”
Her face twisted behind his back. “Allow? And how does one go about dissuading a plant from drinking your blood?”
Kent glanced over his shoulder, his light eyes hidden in shadow. “By telling it so. Of course, once it has a taste, it will not stop. Not until it has taken its fill.”
Her gut told her she knew the answer; she asked anyway. “How much is that?”
“All you have.”
She stared at the brambles with renewed horror. “Corvin said nothing of that. Only about the toxin.”
“Yes, well, they’re usually kept well fed, I’ll give him that. I’m sure he didn’t want to frighten you off after just finding you. But you’re here and out in the garden alone. I will not coddle anyone.”
Well fed? Devil’s own tits. “You feed them blood?”
“Are you being obtuse? He’d said you were bright. Of course we feed them what they need.”
Lux’s anger flared at once. Her lips parted to say something scathing. However, in that brief moment, she recalled exactly how the giant of a tailor had pummeled a man only minutes ago. And there was no one out here but them. Her teeth clenched. She ran her thumbs along each pointed nail.
Kent continued, “I’m sorry your breakfast didn’t go as you wanted. I heard you’d run from the manor. You were reported as rather indisposed. Are you enjoying your time at Mothlock? It requires some adjustment for most.”
Lux could outrun him, she knew. Barring the problem of being enclosed and unsure how to open a gate that looked as if it weighed more than a carriage. She bit down on her anger, but it wouldn’t return to less than boiling.
“Too early to say. It hasn’t even been a full day,” she ground out.
“Hasn’t it? My, how slow time goes when in anticipation for something.”
Lux didn’t answer. Instead, she focused on her breaths. Focused on forcing her heart rate to ease. She glanced again toward the melancholic woman as they passed her by, her stone features fraught.
She blurted, “What do you know of the madness of brilliance?”
The man slowed. He stopped, and when he turned around, she could feel his hard stare. “The madness of brilliance,” he repeated.
Her nails dug into her wrist. She waited.
“It is very rare, what you mention.” But before Lux could latch onto any small relief, he said, “Of those who have suffered, it is the dark brilliances that progress the quickest. The Grimrook family is the most notable for falling to it. Some faster than others.”
Dark brilliances. Around and around the phrase went in her head. She wasn’t sure she breathed. “I’ve heard that term before. I didn’t know brilliances had categories.”
“Anything and anyone can be categorized. Casting of curses. Manipulations. Necromancy. These sorts of enchantments feed on dark energies. You feed yours draughts of death. A necessary darkness, but darkness all the same. Tell me, have you fed it other things?”
She thought, belatedly, she should stop them, but for once the words tumbled out. She wanted too badly to be put at ease. “Guilt. Hopelessness.”
He nodded, soaking in what she admitted. “They yearn to grow, our brilliances. Feed it more than it was accustomed to, even once, and it will stretch. I would proceed cautiously if I were you.”
With that, he turned around, and when he continued down the path, this time, she did not follow.