Chapter Twenty-Two
I dry off with anxious hands and settle my hummingbird heart.
Then I get in my nightgown and, still cold, wrap a fresh blanket around myself.
I think about all the things that have changed between the two of us, all the ways I have changed.
I know it’s partly the trauma of the night’s events that has me anxiously pulling Orrin back into my room. I also know it’s partly something else.
He comes in willingly, allowing me to grab his arm. After being bathed, with my skin now clean and floral, his wild scent is even stronger to me, more enticing. How could I ever have feared him? I’d like to crawl inside his veins, make a bed inside his heart.
He says, “I’ll leave you for now—we can speak tomorrow, if you’re ready.”
“No.”
An almost-smile quirks his mouth. “No? To which part?”
“First, can I say how nice it is to hear you suggest things lately instead of ordering me?”
“I’m trying. It’s not easy,” he concedes.
Sitting on the bed, I point out, “You like to have your way.”
“As do you. Now, would you like anything to eat? I can have them send up a tray for you with some food. Or a whiskey to sleep? You look exhausted.”
“I am exhausted. I don’t need a whiskey though. And I’m not hungry.”
“Goodnight, then. You have only to call for me or Mr. Brown if you need something in the night. We’ll be listening for you.”
“No. I meant ‘no’ to you leaving me. Please stay. Just for tonight. I’m still so cold. And I don’t think I will be able to sleep if I’m alone.” I add, softly, almost embarrassed, “Can you just hold me?”
Orrin doesn’t hesitate at my request, nor balk at how scandalized his innocent maids might be at us sharing a bed. He pauses only to kick off his boots. He does exactly what I need him to in this moment as he takes me in his arms yet again and scoots us back on to the bed.
He holds me. I listen to him breathing, the expansion of his lungs, sounding much like the swell and give of the sea.
Sometime in the dark of night, I wake with a scream. My own.
“Corliss.” Orrin’s ragged voice, thick with sleep, is a steadying whisper. “You were dreaming.”
Blood, sheets of it, walls of it, pooling around my ankles, hot and fresh. Those men in the woods. Elisavet’s cruel laugh in my hair. Aven’s white face. Beasts chasing me off a cliff. Pain and pain and pain forever.
I nod, even though it’s pitch black—though he can likely still see me. Just a nightmare.
Orrin calms me, running his hand up my thigh reassuringly. I let the nightmare melt away and this moment seep in. This is real. He is real. And I know exactly the magic he’s doing now, to distract me, to root me into my own body.
I breathe, focusing on the way his fingers trail up and down, up and down my skin—my nightgown has twisted up in the night.
The heat of his sleepy hands warms me. I can almost taste his longing, the itch he has to move his fingers further up.
I swallow a sigh, part my knees a little in invitation, but he doesn’t reach for me, no matter how long I wait.
I try to fall back asleep, only it feels impossible. I can’t tell if it’s because of the nightmare, which is already fading from my mind, or if it’s because of those damned fingers running along my leg. What they’re doing to me. What they’re not.
I wake with a beam of sunlight in my face. I roll over, trying to find some darkness to ease the intensity against my lids. Then a sense of someone near me. Recalling last night, I peek open my eyes to find Orrin, sitting upright on the bed, dressed in fresh clothes, watching me.
“Morning,” I croak, my throat scratchy.
“Morning.” He smiles, lighting up the room even more.
“What is it?” I ask, sitting up, studying him. “You want to say something.”
He hesitates for a fraction of a moment. “Do you remember how I said you had something special, and that’s why the slippers attached themselves to you?”
“And you believe it’s because I have magic?” I try not to sound sarcastic. By the way he tightens his eyes I know I’ve failed.
“Yes,” he enunciates. “You are special. Just look at what you’ve done to me.”
“What have I done?”
“You’ve changed me. I feel as though…” Frustration creases his face. “Words can be so inadequate sometimes.”
He takes my hand in his own, sets it against his chest, directly over his heart.
The beat of it twangs against my hand, and I stare into his eyes, fully aware of how his heart speeds up the longer we look at each other. “What are you saying?”
“I think you’ve made some of my soul regrow.”
“Regrow?” I don’t drop my hand, though he releases it.
“Reattach, regrow, return. Whatever terminology suits you. Does it matter what you call it? My kind isn’t supposed to feel, not good things anyway. Now I do.”
Some kind of emotion I can’t name floods me—pleasure? Disbelief? Happiness?
“You’ve not felt like this before?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Not like this. When I first changed, I cared about nothing at all. You’ll find your sister is probably the same.
Though over time, some of my humanity came back.
It’s how I could remember…things. I felt twinges of compassion—it’s why I took Mr. Brown in, talked him out of trading with Elisavet. ”
Oh.
“This is different. I don’t just remember my old life, I feel like I am actually living again. I know I’m not human. Whatever is happening to me isn’t strong enough to release me from my trade. But it’s the closest I’ve felt to human in decades.”
“Oh.” The word comes out this time. I don’t know what else to say, and he allows me the space to mull this over.
I finally voice something that is nagging at me.
“I don’t want to be your savior, not like that.
I don’t want to think you’re only good because of me because it’s not true.
Besides, it’s not like you were unredeemable before. ”
“Perhaps not. Even before you…” he hesitates. “I was hating what she had me do, toward the end. The killings. That’s why I was trying to leave the court. It didn’t sit right. I was starting to feel…”
“What?” I prod.
“Guilty,” he eventually says. “I left her court, moved city to city for a while, before coming to The Pins. I thought I’d found some peace, that I could settle into a quiet life. But she wouldn’t let me get away with that. She followed me here, not long after.”
It fills me with sadness, thinking of it. But then I just keep thinking in the span of our silence. He takes my hand, squeezing for my attention.
“What is it?” Orrin asks.
“Probably nothing,” I muse aloud. “But you said your soul is growing, whether that’s because of me or I simply nudged it along, what matters is that if there’s a way your soul has regrown, what if there may be a way to make you human once again?
To actually reverse the trade you made. Do you think it’s possible? ”
After a thoughtful pause, he shrugs. “I’ve heard things. But I’ve never seen anything.”
I catch his uncertainty. “What?”
“I believe if Elisavet is destroyed, that she’d release the souls she’s taken. Killing her would be a way to reverse the trade. I think.”
“We could steal the souls she has,” I offer. Who could kill Elisavet? The idea is frightening in scope. I may not have witnessed her full brutality, but you don’t have to see something to believe it. I know she’s dangerous. I feel it.
He half-smiles, like he might call me a thief, and I glare it away from him.
An amused smirk pulls at his lips. “She holds them in a spiritual sense, as in, they’ve become a part of her.
They’re not locked away somewhere. It’s tricky, even if we could do it.
I’ll have to plan carefully. It might be harder—worse—than I anticipate. ”
“How could it possibly get worse?” I say, exasperated. “My sister literally has no soul.”
“Oh, she has a sliver yet, remember.”
“It seems too dangerous. What if I talk to Aven to try to make her remember? I could help her soul regrow too. Maybe in time, it would be enough.”
His eyes are heavy, weighed down with knowledge I don’t yet have. “It has taken me many, many decades to get here, Corliss. I’m afraid you’d be long gone by the time your sister remembers—or cares—about you again.”
I nod my agreement, heart aching.
“It’ll be okay.” He runs his thumb along the top of my hand. “And we can talk more tonight, make a new plan together. After you dance—if you would like to? But in the meantime, do whatever you like while I take care of some business—for the mansion, I mean. Nothing nefarious. A walk perhaps?”
I try to smile. A walk does sound nice. I’d like to explore the house more. Even though I’ve had free rein to move about, I haven’t taken full advantage of it yet.
And then he is gone, and I am alone. To get my mind off of him, off of everything, I first grab the ballet shoes and tie them up my ankles. I want their magic. I want the courage they give me. I dance myself into a state of bravery.
Later, I wander around the mansion, a little aimlessly, peering into rooms, sparkling and vast. There is still work to do but so much has changed just in the time that I’ve been here.
I step into a study on the main floor, which I glimpsed once before, when it was worn at the edges.
The last time I saw it, on that day I snuck in, the heavy curtains reeked of mildew, the chandelier was strung with cobwebs, and the thick-gold frames on the wall hung askew.
Today, it is bright and clean, vases of pink roses everywhere, perfuming the air.