Chapter Sixteen #2
I glance at him, suspicious. “How do you know? Because you’re the one doing it?”
When Mrs. Minthy comes in, carrying a bottle of wine, I snap my mouth shut but don’t stop wondering if he’s behind my stronger senses.
From across the room, I can tell the wine is red.
Full-bodied. Tart with a smooth finish. I can smell the grapes, can nearly feel the wind from the day they were harvested.
My hand hovers, twitchy, while she pours my wine.
“Thank you, Mrs. Minthy,” I say softly. I take a long sip. It is everything I guessed it to be, the richness pooling in my mouth. I drink more, and the taste stays with me afterward. It tastes like how he smells. The housekeeper bobs and leaves the room.
“Well?” I ask. “What are you doing exactly?”
He studies me with something like curiosity. Sips his own wine. “I’m not doing anything.”
I stare at him for a beat, gauging his honesty.
“My senses seem confused, expanded somehow. Do you know why?” Though the onyx shade of his eyes doesn’t change at all, something does. Something I can’t describe.
“No.”
“You’re lying.” I speak the words before realizing they’re true.
I look more carefully at him. “You are lying, I can tell. But I don’t know how I can.
” It’s an unsettling realization. My body tightens in apprehension.
It’s not like when I was inside of him during that time in the strangers’ home or the time with the locket—this is me on the outside looking in, but it’s like he’s left the window to himself open.
He leans back in his chair, relaxed, drinking his wine without answering my accusation. I drum my fingertips on my wine glass. The sound of my nails hitting the glass bounces around the room, like music. Soft, light, joyful. I sigh in frustration. What is this? I don’t like it.
Mrs. Minthy returns with our meal, along with Hana and two other servants I don’t recognize.
My mouth waters at the smells. There’s cheese and fruit, meat, fish and potatoes, creamed carrots, rolls, and more, a bounty of food spread all across the table.
I close my eyes a minute, taking the scent in, letting it settle against me.
The aroma of the spices is so clear. The hint of nutmeg in the carrots, the yeast of the rolls, the black pepper on the meat, cracked fresh.
I load up my plate eagerly and take my first few bites sighing in pleasure.
The food is delicious, even more so than usual. Heavenly.
When the room has cleared, I look at him seriously. Instead of continuing our conversation from a minute ago, I ask another question, one I can’t help but ask again, however much I wish I didn’t want to know. “Last night.” I hesitate. “Why did you bathe me?”
He holds silent for a few moments. “Because. You asked me to stay.”
My fork stills. “I did not!”
He nods, carefully cutting his meat. Looking up at me. “You did.”
Though in my gut I know he’s telling the truth, I grit my teeth. “When?”
“When I tried to put you down. You clung to me and asked me to stay.”
“I…I was delirious,” I protest.
“You were perfectly lucid.” The warm light of the candles reflects on his gold-touched skin, and the words reverberate out of his mouth. “You even called me by name.”
“I did not!” I argue, astonishment coursing through me. I’ve refused to even think it. I still can’t think of him by name. I falter at it every time. Orrin. I add, “And even if I did, you didn’t have to bathe me.” My cheeks burn at the memory. I was only one step above naked!
It’s crystal clear, even now. How I felt in his arms. I remember: the solid feeling of his chest; the way he gripped me.
How I felt protected, in a frightened way, like he would kill every danger in the world, but keep me safe.
Even recalling it has me fisting my hands in my lap.
Because aren’t I a traitor to myself if I let these secret thoughts bubble up?
I don’t want to be comfortable in his arms. I hate him, I remind myself. We hate each other.
He goes on, “You were covered in blood and dirt. I didn’t undress you, as you well know. It was just that I felt—feel—in some way responsible for what happened. For what almost happened. And sorry.” A heavy sigh. “I felt sorry.”
“But why do you care all of a sudden?” I whisper. I search his face for an answer.
He stares at me, an unsettled, angry pitch to his slow words.
“I don’t know. I’m not sorry about what I did to those two men.
” Looking away, he murmurs, “It’s that I’m sorry I put you in that situation…
and for how I treated you directly after.
I should have been sympathetic to you—you were frightened, and you had just had something terrible occur.
I was upset, and I took it out on you because it was easier than admitting what bothered me so.
I apologize. Going forward, I will not be so thoughtless. ”
“What bothered you so?”
His hesitancy is tangible. “Never mind.”
We do not speak again for long minutes. I eat my food, and it’s hard to focus on anything else, it tastes so wonderful. I open my eyes after one pleasurable bite of dessert—chocolate torte with whipped cream, served with strong coffee—to find him staring at me again.
“Stop watching me,” I say self-consciously, and, after dabbing my mouth with my napkin, return to the matter at hand. “Tell me what is happening to me. My senses are odd. I’m noticing every detail of everything.”
“I don’t like being told what to do.” His brows pinch together.
“Neither do I! And yet you order me about all the time.”
An exasperated laugh escapes his lips. “You are hardly an obedient captive, Corliss. I’ve never met another person so hard-headed.”
I grimace.
“What now?”
“I don’t like it when you say my name.”
He sets down his coffee and sighs again, but faintly, with effort, as if tired. “Would you rather I call you Miss Bell?”
“Absolutely not. It’s patronizing when you say it.”
“Then what? Thief?”
I can tell how hot my eyes blaze. “No.”
“You have courage, to always talk back to me so, to look at me with such fire.”
“I’m not sure it’s courage. I just need answers,” I say, running out of patience.
“Besides, since you seem willing to engage me, finally, why shouldn’t I talk to you?
You said yourself you had plenty of chances to kill me.
I’m more scared by what’s happening right now.
Although scared might not be the right word… .” I trail off, waiting.
“I suspect,” he begins after a moment, “what you’re experiencing has something to do with my healing you. I’ve never done it before, so I didn’t expect this. But I think it’s magic.”
I nearly drop my fork with the thought. “You gave me magic?”
“Not purposefully, and more like an amplification than anything else,” he explains, then tilts his head, studying me. “You had good senses before?”
“Yes, a strong sense of smell and taste, especially. It always helped me in the shop.”
“Then it intensified the senses you already had, it appears.” He leans into his chair, as if it’s settled. That’s that. No reason to be perturbed by it.
Frustration courses through me. “But this is more. I knew when you lied to me. Also, it’s like, I can almost tell what you’re thinking or feeling. I get these twinges. And it’s not like the dreams I had—” I cut him off even as he opens his mouth to object. “I was simply along with you, somehow.”
“I see.” He stares at me. “I suspected you were there again, that last time.”
“I knew that you knew!” I exclaim, rather pleased with myself, and tack on, “That’s why you avoided me for two nights.” To which he doesn’t confirm nor deny.
When I move to ask him about it, about the woman’s portrait, he shakes his head sharply, cutting me off, avoiding my curious gaze.
“It’s unusual, what you have. A gift. I’ve known others to have it, though it’s rare to affect all the senses at once, including the sixth.
It appears you have the ability now to read people in a way you couldn’t otherwise. ”
The idea rattles me. If I let myself accept it—and how can I not, knowing what I do now—I can compare it to other things I’ve seen.
Marieta’s premonitions. The fortune-tellers on the streets singing songs and spinning truths.
But this is different. And I can’t say I like it.
I only want to be extraordinary on stage—not in this sort of way.
I grip my coffee cup for comfort, though it’s too dainty by half—they didn’t bring the proper mugs I’ve grown fond of using in the comfort of my room.
I set it down, place my crumpled napkin on the table.
Our meal is finished, but our conversation is not.
There’s still so much I want to know, to ask of him.
I find it hard to say the words right off, in case he says no.
He probably will say no. It’s the biggest favor I could ask.
Instead, I aim for casual curiosity. “I want to know if the myths are true, about your kind. Demons.” The last word is a whisper.
He fiddles with his own delicate cup, not holding my eyes. “We don’t use that term. We just are what we are. Most of your silly tales are simply myths told to frighten children.”
“But you have black eyes, no whites at all. You have powers.”
He cocks a brow, looking up. “I already told you, this is how I am. My kind are humans, or in any case, we were—we are not some made-up creature.”
“And you can alter your appearance, or make people see things—or not see things—that are and aren’t there. Like the bird woman, the bleeding man, the way you made the ballroom dark that one time.”
“Yes.” His mouth twitches, as if he finds the memories amusing. I scowl back.
“You somehow took me along with you when I was sleeping—”
“I didn’t do that. I may have had a hand in some of your nightmares, but I never brought you into my consciousness. You are simply able to connect to me somehow.”
“Oh,” I say, foolishly unable to think of a response.
He offers no explanation but seems to puzzle over it himself, studying me like he might figure it out if he thinks hard enough.
After a deep breath, I continue, “I now know you can heal. I know you can harm.” The men in the woods, their brutal murders.
I cringe. “But are you a master of death? That’s what some call your kind. ”
Pushing aside his own mug, he tosses his napkin down onto his plate. Rises and walks around the dining room, hands behind his back. The ink around one wrist is visible. I count up to five of the single bands before he turns. “That depends on what you mean exactly. I don’t have omnipotent power.”
“Can you bring people back from the dead?”
There. I’ve said that part out loud.
He stops behind his chair, looks at me soberly. “You are talking about your sister. The one you’ve mentioned.” It’s not a question.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I know you have no reason to help me. I know you’re still angry with me.
I’ve said horrible things—although you damned well deserved them, so don’t try to deny that.
Yet, for some reason, you seem willing to talk to me, to listen now.
I thought, maybe you might be willing to help me, like you helped when I was attacked, and after.
I’m lost without my sister. Please can you bring her back? Restore her to life?”
I hold my breath, awaiting his reply.
He shakes his head, hair falling over his brow. “No.”
“Why not?” I cry, feeling the possibility slip between my fingers.
“Because,” he answers carefully, “she’s not dead.”