Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
“Well, well. Look at you, darling.”
Lux slammed to an abrupt halt in the hall. Shaw’s arm had extended across her body and the impact forced her back a step. She’d been charging forward without realizing it.
Toward Riselda, bathed in candlelight.
Her once-aunt lowered a draping violet hood lined with ivory fur, and when their eyes met, Lux felt like her present collided viscerally and horribly with her past. She could not breathe.
“Are those messy locks trimmed at last?” Riselda smiled. “You look just as I knew you could, nevermind the old, ruined skirt.” Her gaze flicked to Shaw. “Hello, Cockroach.”
Shaw’s hand retracted to Lux’s waist, his other coming to rest on her chest. He ignored Riselda’s jibe. “In and out, love. She won’t touch you.”
But it wasn’t so much the touching she couldn’t manage. It was that Riselda was here. That Riselda was alive at all. Lux wanted to strangle her.
“Do it. Do it. Feed her blood to the thirsty mouths. The Grimrooks are meant for the ground.”
Lux drew the dagger from her corset.
“Goodness.” Riselda tracked the movement with a feral grin. “You reek of vengeance, darling girl, and I should know. I’ve smelt it on myself for a century.”
“It isn’t vengeance,” Lux snarled. “Not anymore. It’s justice I seek now. You destroyed Ghadra. So many people dead and all because of you. You deserve to be brought before them for your crimes.”
“Ghadra is buried for me now. You have me on good faith I will never return to it.”
Lux’s laugh burst from her, cruel and dark.
“Is that all you have to offer? You believe I should just let you go? To move from one town and city to the next, taking without a care for whom you harm?” The shock of Riselda’s arrival had dulled into a heavy presence in her chest. One that was quickly being eaten by flames of rage. “How did you get out?”
Riselda shifted the fabric at her hip while the rest of her form remained hidden beneath the trailing cloak.
She patted the axe resting there. “I was born by this sea, and I spent the greater part of my childhood here.” Riselda’s eyes lifted over Lux to the bedchamber beyond.
“If there is one thing I’ve learned and has stuck with me, it is that we are not all just one thing.
Sure, we have an affinity. A brilliance.
But it is multi-faceted if you would only polish it enough.
I am a healer. I failed to be a necromancer— I think because I am drawn to all that roots.
To the living. I did not wish to harm the tree that devoured me, and I placated it enough with my wishes that it did not fight back as much as it could have. ”
“But you were inside it for weeks!”
“So they say. I would not know. Time doesn’t pass the same when you’re being digested alive.”
Lux shifted, her fingers aching around the dagger. “Why did you come here?”
“It’s the Hallowed Banquet, Lucena. And if there is one thing I love, it’s a party.”
“You forget I know you better now than ever before, Riselda. You don’t love a party any more than I do. It’s only about what you can gain from it.”
Riselda chuckled. “Fine. I am here to gain the knowledge of your well-being. After that, I would like to gain access to Mothlock’s vault. Then, I wish to gain you as a companion.”
“Not that tired proposition. I will never, Riselda. I have no desire to traipse about this world for hundreds of years, watching all the deplorable things people do to one another and having no ability to stop it. And I’ll certainly not desecrate the dead to do it.
Good luck in your access. The society knew you.
They’ve lived just as long, and I’m suffering from madness.
My well-being is only ‘being’ at the moment.
Do you wish to take your chances with them, or will you agree to return to Ghadra and face your penance? ”
Riselda’s brow dipped during Lux’s tirade. Lux could see she had wished to interject multiple times but digressed. “What madness?”
“Well—the madness of brilliance,” Lux stammered. “Mania Malus. They told me you suffered from it too. The entire Grimrook family.”
“The madness of…” Riselda shook her head. “No, Lucena. Mania Malus did not afflict my family. I am certain it doesn’t afflict you.”
Lux ignored Shaw’s agreeing exclamation.
“But something does. I can tell you for certain, it does. I’m plagued by my brilliance manifesting as a nightmare.
” The apparition watched her now from the ceiling, clinging in the corner like a spider.
Waiting. Always waiting. “It speaks to me. Urges me to do terrible things. It says”—Lux breathed a shaky breath—“it says soon, it will be all that I am.”
Her lips pressed together when she finished. Because why was she telling Riselda all these things? Even now, after everything, why did Lux treat her as family who cared? Who would step in to lift some of the burden? Riselda was not family. Would never be.
She is a monster, Lux reminded herself. I am surrounded by monsters. Even myself.
“A nightmare, you say.” Riselda licked her lips, and a little uneasiness stole across her features. “Darling, that is an Alesso boy’s work.”
Lux’s brow furrowed, and Shaw stiffened at her side. “What do you mean?”
Riselda moved closer, the candlelight illuminating her face and nothing more. Shaw drew his knife. Her gaze flicked to it and returned to Lux.
“I mean that once upon a time there were two powerful boys growing up in Mothlock Manor, the orphanage sponsored by the great Grimrook family. One dark, with a brilliance of dreams. One light, with a brilliance of nightmares. Alixsander Osric and Corvin Alistair. They were thick as thieves, with me alongside. Until their games soured me to them.”
“She’s lying. I am innate. Your other half. Carve me out or keep me—”
Lux blocked her ears to no avail. “But he is not even here in this house with me!”
“You have been sheltered, Lucena, and it is not your fault. Not all brilliances require continued presence. Same as they don’t all require sight or a voice. Corvin’s close proximity has always been enough to set his horrid manifestations into someone’s head.”
Lux warily raised her chin to better see the ceiling. The nightmarish version of her scuttled closer. Its neck twisted and its knees bent inhumanly. It hissed.
Lux’s insides seized. “You’re sure?” she whispered.
“I’m sure,” said Riselda. “Unless he’s learned another new thing, it can only last the night until it must be redone the next.
That is how it was when we were young.” By now her former aunt stood just out of arm’s reach.
Her attention continued to be divided between Lux’s heavy stare and Shaw’s blade.
“Now bring my father’s candelabra and follow me,” she said.
Riselda promptly turned on her heel, and with a flutter of her cloak, swept back along the deep corridor.
Lux’s heartbeat returned as Riselda faded from view. Her breaths, while fast, weren’t worryingly shallow. Her teeth ground together. “What should we do?” she said in a strangled whisper. “I don’t trust her in doing what’s right, but I feel…”
Furious, yet hopeful.
Devastated, yet terrified.
But determination beat louder than all the rest. She would never allow Riselda to choose her path. She would certainly not allow Corvin.
Which meant— “I need to talk to her. She knows more than anyone about what we’re up against.”
Even though she didn’t have Cecily’s talent, Lux could feel Shaw’s irritation billowing around her. He said, “I suppose this means we’re about to follow her into some unknown portion of this house.”
“It does.” She glanced upward to catch the muscle feathering in his jaw.
“Fine. But if she tries anything at all, it will be my version of justice she meets.”
Lux drew a slow breath as he sheathed his knife with intent. “I think she knows.”
“Good,” he bit out. Then he snatched the book and candelabra both and said, “Let’s see what the devil has to say.”