19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Rain tapped against a window in its redundant dreary call for her to open her eyes. Lux didn’t want to obey. Her head pulsed and her face felt gritty. The stiffness in her joints let her know, quite irritated, that they didn’t appreciate being left on rough, creaking floorboards for an entire night, either.
Lux propped an elbow underneath her with a groan, her lashes pressed tight against her cheeks. If she didn’t open them maybe it wouldn’t be real.
The rain drummed louder.
She squinted open her eyes. They burned. Her eyelids felt swollen, and for once, she felt thankful for the gloom rather than bright sunlight searing her pupils. With a final moan, she pushed herself to sitting and stretched her neck.
How different it all looked now.
She picked her mask off the floor, she took off her wings, and once shedding her feathers, she stood.
The sofa’s dark stains waited to catch her notice once more, and Lux didn’t want to avoid them any longer. She didn’t want this place to hold power over her at all. She stepped toward it.
Her eyes burned with a vengeance, but she didn’t look away. Not when the stains turned to red, and the cushions sank beneath the weight of her parents’ bodies. Not even when the walls splattered with blood, the floor pooling with it at her feet.
She stared until it faded again. The floral wallpaper peeled, the floor covered in dust around the imprint of her prone body, the sofa unmarred but for several brown patches soaked into its old fabric. Her chest released like an unbound spring. She stepped back only to trip over the edge of the worn rug, nearly toppling headlong into the fireplace.
She tumbled forward and into the mantle, gripping it tight as she waited for her heart to calm. Then, without a backward glance, she entered her old bedroom. She had taken all her belongings when she’d left, along with a trunk of her parents’ things she couldn’t bear to part with. She’d forgotten what she’d left behind.
Empty vials and overturned pots lay strewn about the floor. Another jarring reminder of her last night in this house. Only just beginning to study her brilliance, her parents had generously purchased the ingredients for her to learn. Lux bent to pick up a small vial, the scent of venom barely clinging to its insides. She had used it all. She’d sapped every ounce of strength she possessed from her body, and she could never forget the look in their eyes as they rose to stand before her.
Lux dropped the vial, and it shattered across the floor. Backing from the room, she would have fled, confronting her fears be damned, but something else caught her eye. The rug. The overturned corner. She tilted her head, brow furrowing, and stepped toward it.
A near-invisible seam. But a seam, nonetheless. She gripped the edge of the rug, tugging it away.
A trapdoor. A mirror image of that in her current home. Tucking her fingers into the deceptive handle, she pulled upward. Remarkably noiseless, the door lifted. Darkness spilled out. Outside, the rain drummed harder, and in it, she heard her own words echoed:
Decide your course.
Lux grinned a terrible smile—and pulled on her wings.
The sputtering lantern protested its use; it’d not been lit in nearly a decade and had grown accustomed to the idea. Its random acts of fading and flaring were about to stop Lux’s heart.
When she’d first climbed down, she’d not allowed the tiniest intake of air, awaiting some summoned monster. But after an extended period of standing still, in which she’d grown lightheaded from lack of breath, she’d finally given up and began to walk. Next, she’d been worried about touching the walls. Would they tumble in? But no, they were constructed of soil so hard-packed they mimicked stone. It smelled of dirt and earth, and it was dark and terribly cold. All things she would expect to experience below ground.
But the lantern—the ancient lantern her parents had never replaced because they’d never replaced anything unless it was irrevocably broken—would be her undoing.
The flame flared brightly as day only to gutter so weak it nearly went out. The resulting shadows crawled around her, pushing her heart out of rhythm.
You’ll meet fears you’ve never known you possessed. Her aunt’s voice rang in her head. But Riselda didn’t know Lux had met her greatest fear last night and survived. There wasn’t anything else in existence that could be worse.
“I fear you should have been honest with me, Aunt.”
Still, time seemed impossible to mark down here, and that was bothersome. She’d guessed the tunnel must lead to her and Riselda’s home. Far more likely that it was a network, too, one her aunt knew the way of—and hopefully nothing else.
Lux gave the lantern a hearty shake, same as she’d done the last time it threw such a fit, and with a pulse of light, it brightened and steadied. “Finally, you obey. You wasted bit of iron.”
And just like that, it went out.
“Devil’s tits!” Lux shook the lantern again, but to no avail. The flame was fully and surely gone.
Pressure built in her chest, a telltale squeeze. “Breathe. You’re not dead…yet.” She reminded herself that the heaviness of the earth was not growing. That nothing skulked behind her in the pitch. Of course, it would have been easier were she Riselda with her bag of weapons and oddities. Lux only had her wings.
Certainly, she should turn back. She knew what awaited her at that end. She could run, even, if she wanted. There would be no one but her own contemptuous inner thoughts to judge. Except…the idea of it. Of going backward when all she’d ever yearned for was to forge ahead. Surely, this moment shouldn’t define anything to do with her future—but then, why did it feel like it did?
She’d once cast off wishes in exchange for survival. It had kept her alive for nine entire years. But what if a shriveled pit from a rotted fruit could still be planted and urged to grow? Would it hurt to maybe try?
Probably. A good thing, then, that she’d grown accustomed to pain.
With the lantern clutched to her chest for protection, she muttered as she walked. “The walls are not narrowing. The ceiling isn’t shorter. The dark is like any other. You are alone.”
She repeated the lines until she lost count, and then repeated them countless times more. Until the lantern met a wall and pressed into her front, and there wasn’t a way forward anymore but only right or left. A damned-all fork.
It’d been impossible to keep track of each bend in the tunnel. She hadn’t any idea where she might be, if she was even beneath the town any longer or meandering contentedly beneath the wicked trees. She loathed the sensation of indecision, it felt like a not-so-distant relative to fear. She turned to her right.
Half odds were against her, but what did it matter if it meant half odds were with her, too? Lux stepped forward, brave and sure—and screamed.
It was the shock of it that yanked it out of her, she thought later. The cloud of frost drifting in that portion of the tunnel like the yawning abyss of a devouring tree. An actual assailant, she could muster courage for, but an invisible one? Not today.
Left. She would go left.
She dashed through the tunnel now. The lantern bumped against her hip every few steps, the result would surely be a purple bruise, yet she couldn’t keep from glancing over her shoulder. Something watched her in the blackness of the direction she’d run from. She’d bet her life on it.
Fine, maybe not her life. But she’d bet Shaw’s.
Why was there a trapdoor beneath her parents’ home to begin with? Had they used it? Like Riselda used hers? She couldn’t fathom her parents doing anything of the sort. They were content in this town. Content to do as was bid, to make the most of their small life and small family. It was Riselda. Riselda who’d always been larger than them all.
A gust of frigid air met the back of Lux’s neck. Though she felt fairly certain it was only her brain playing its tricks, she had to check to be sure. For the hundredth time, she glanced over her shoulder—
And smacked headlong into a ladder.
The lantern fell from her hands.
Once the echo of its shattering faded, all her senses allowed for was the stinging on her left side and the feel of rough wood beneath her fingers. Fine enough with her.
It meant she’d made it home.
The living room rug became a problem to push aside, what with Lux’s attempted effort at stealth. But move it, she did, until she peered from the crack in the floorboards, surveying the closest item in her line of sight:
Riselda’s bed.
It clearly hadn’t been slept in.
Pushing the trapdoor higher, Lux climbed out, hauling the remains of the lantern up behind her. Even with the fire entirely banked, the room felt like sinking into a hot bath, and she closed her eyes, indulging a moment.
But a moment was all she allowed. Who knew when Riselda would tire of her night with the mayor and return to her? Lux lowered the door, pushing the rug over it so as not even a corner was overturned.
On a relieved breath over making it home alive, she threw some kindling on the fire, her body chilling as it adjusted to the new temperature and greedily found it wanting. As the wood caught, beginning to crackle and spark, she stood.
Clothes. She needed real ones.
Striding to her bedroom, she stripped out of her dress, tossing it across her bed as she shivered. Pulling the doors of her wardrobe wide, she grabbed for anything and everything, wanting her skin covered from neck to toe. The usual ensemble would be enough, and she yanked up the hose so quickly she tore a hole down the length of the seam.
“Dratted, worthless…fabric!”
She hauled another pair from the back, pulling them on instead while glaring daggers at the ruined ones as if they’d torn themselves. A silver shimmer flickered in the corner of her eye, and it stilled her hands. The lifeblood.
“Lucena? Are you here?”
Lux toppled sideways at Riselda’s call. Tossing the destroyed hose in front of the tempting gleam, she pulled on a skirt, tightened her corset, and smoothed back knotted strands of hair.
“Yes.” Standing in her doorway, Lux watched her aunt circle the kitchen table. She still wore her silver dress, though the hem dripped, muddied and wet. The fangs were gone.
Riselda’s smile widened.
“Good. I’d nearly come to the assumption that you’d spent the night elsewhere.” Lux’s abdomen tightened. Riselda laughed. “But that would have been absurd. Even with that young man draped around you like a second skin.”
Her aunt’s true meaning settled over her, pricking her skin. Lux’s spine straightened. “I would never.”
Riselda’s lips pressed together, a smirk pulling at them. “All right, Lucena.”
Lux’s teeth sank into her inner lip, trying in vain to snag at the words pushing from them. “And what of you? The last I saw you were disappearing with our honored mayor. Was it secrets? Or service?”
Useless. Her teeth were useless.
Riselda’s smile vanished, and her eyes hardened into crystal. Her aunt trailed fingertips along the wall as she followed the bones of the house toward her.
Lux didn’t move. And she told herself she wouldn’t even flinch should Riselda slap her for her questions.
Riselda glided before her. Though instead of reddening her cheek, she placed calloused palms on either side of Lux’s face, sending cool wisps flitting over her skin. Soft lips pressed to her brow.
“My dear.” Riselda pulled back, eyes brimming with mirth. “Secrets. I have endless secrets.” And with a jarring laugh, her aunt released her, pulling the plunging gown from her shoulders as she strode to her small bed.
Riselda’s body must be what dreams were made of. Lux glanced from the curves as they were displayed before her. It was unsurprising why the mayor had maintained his infatuation for these nine years; Riselda radiated power. But it was equally surprising that her aunt had encouraged it.
“I’ve errands today, Lucena, but I want to have dinner together. If you’ve no other plans?” Riselda stood in a murky, grey gown. An extension of Ghadra.
Lux stuttered, taken aback. “That’s…fine, Riselda. I’ll be here.”
Combing through black waves, Riselda nodded. “Excellent.”
Lux pulled her gaze away and strode to the basin, washing her face, allowing the water to scour away grit and the memory of tears. When she glanced into the mirror, she met Riselda’s eyes behind her, boring into her own.
“You’re so lovely. And your spirit reminds me of my own.” Riselda’s long-fingered hand caressed her shoulder. “If that boy hurts you in any way, do not hesitate.” Nails bit into her skin, and Lux flinched. “Rip out his heart and feed it to the trees.”