27. TWENTY SEVEN #2
Without saying anything, I headed toward another vantage point a modest distance away. To my dismay, I heard footsteps keeping a steady pace behind me.
Was I about to meet my death. I gripped my supplies, suppressing a desire to hurl them at him and run from the discomfort of Fionn’s presence.
Maintaining a calm pace, I was determined not to be chased away, but I was disappointed that my quiet interlude had been disturbed.
My disappointment quickly turned to irritation as Fionn continued to follow in silence.
I finally stopped and turned to face him.
The air between us felt heavy, charged with unspoken tension.
Every instinct in me screamed to leave, but I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me run again.
I gripped my pencils like daggers. If he pounced, I was ready to stab him in the eye.
If I was to die at least, I would leave my mark on him.
“Fionn, if you don’t mind, I wanted to spend some time on my own.”
He stopped just a few steps away. He watched me with a pensive expression, and then his ice-blue gaze fell to my sketchbook, now tucked beneath my arm. But something about his behaviour was odd, as though he were distracted or preoccupied.
Focus. He wants you dead. He said so. Don’t forget it.
“You’ve been busy,” he said, nodding toward the sketchbook.
I instinctively held my book tight. “It’s nothing important.”
His lips curved faintly as though he found my deflection amusing. “That depends on the eyes looking at it, doesn’t it?”
“I said it’s private.”
Without warning, he reached over and took the sketchbook from my hand. His fingers brushed mine as he took it, the fleeting contact sending a cold shiver down my spine. I almost spoke out at his presumptuous action, but again, something about him intrigued me enough to remain quiet.
I watched him flip through the pages with deliberate slowness, his eyes scanning each sketch with an intensity that made my stomach churn.
My pulse thudded as he silently scanned certain images, ones I’d drawn recently.
Fascination flickered across his face. It wasn’t like him to show any interest in my art.
He glanced up from the sketchbook, his direct gaze disconcerting. His eyes focused on my hands, clutching the pencils like weapons as If he knew what I was planning to do with them.
“I’ve heard about your art. Cillian says you've great talent for a human.”
A warmth flickered in my chest at the mention of Cillian. Even here, he lingered in my thoughts.
A ballroom came to life in his hands, grand and opulent, filled with ghostly figures waltzing in perfect synchronicity. In the centre of it all was a lone dancer—me, caught mid-spin, my face frozen in an expression of something between joy and despair.
He stared at it longer than I expected, his head tilting slightly, as though he could almost hear the music spilling from the page. His brows furrowed, a shadow flickering across his features.
“You hear them?” he asked quietly.
His question threw me off guard. He looked at me as if measuring how much I would lie.
My breath hitched. Was he talking about the whispers in my head or maybe he was talking about the birds tweeting in the trees.
His gaze lifted, pinning me in place. “Just like me, you hear them, don’t you?”
It wasn’t the birds. It was the whispers. It was the first time he’d ever used the word ‘me’ in the same breath as ‘you.’
Was that him telling me we shared the same madness, or was Fionn trying to show a connection that wasn’t real just to kill me when I let my guard down?
I hesitated, unsure how much to admit. The truth felt like a weapon in his hands, something he could wield against me if he chose .
“I—”
But he had already turned the page.
“What…” His voice, usually so controlled, was barely a whisper.
“What is this?”
The chamber of bones, with the girl on her knees on the floor greeted him next — a stark, harrowing contrast to the ethereal beauty of the ballroom. Skulls stacked high against jagged walls, bodies strewn haphazardly across the floor like discarded puppets.
Fionn stiffened. For a moment, his breath slowed and for a second, my abductor looked like a man staring at his own grave.
I swallowed hard, my instinct screaming at me to lie. To dismiss it as imagination. But the look in his eyes stopped me cold.
“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “It’s just something I… saw.”
“No,” he said sharply. “This isn’t imagination. This is a place in Elora. A place you shouldn’t know exists.”
“I told you, I don’t know…”
“Stop.” He cut me off, his tone cold and commanding. He held up the sketch again, his knuckles whitening. “You don’t just hear them, do you? You see them too.”
“I said it’s just a drawing.”
“Don’t insult me, Tilly. This isn’t imagination. You’ve seen this place.”
I wanted to deny it, take the book back and flee, but the weight of his gaze held me captive.
“Do you know what this place is?” he asked, stepping closer, lowering his voice.”
“No,” I whispered.
His gaze darkened. “You’ve seen the prison for the cursed. The dead.”
A shiver ran through me.
“It’s just a drawing,” I said weakly.
“It’s not just a drawing,” he snapped. “This place is cursed, Tilly.”
I swallowed hard.
“It’s worse than cursed. It’s a graveyard for souls that will never rest. And you…” his voice dipped lower “…shouldn’t be able to see it.
His gaze lingered on me a moment longer than it should have.
Unless?”
He stopped abruptly, eyes narrowing.
“Unless what?” I pressed.
Fionn shook his head, jaw clenching.
“It means you’re seeing things you shouldn’t,” he said finally.
“And if you’re seeing this…” His gaze flicked back to the sketch. “Then the curse is already working its way into you, much further than we thought.”
He snapped the book shut and handed it back to me.
“If I were you, I’d stop putting these visions on paper.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll draw attention, and not the kind you want.”
Fionn’s eyes narrowed. He stepped closer, his tall frame towering over me, he spoke quietly. “You think you’re safe from Vareth, don’t you? That you can survive this place untouched.”
“Maybe I can.”
“No one survives, Tilly. Not unscathed. Not even the ones who live.”
For a fleeting moment, I saw something raw in him. Then it vanished.
“You need to be careful,” he said. “If the curse is taking hold of you, it’s only a matter of time before it consumes you, and when it does…”
“I won’t let it,” I said. “I’m going to fight it.”
“You are not in control,” he said. “None of us are and if you keep playing with things you don’t understand…”
“And if I do?” I challenged.
Fionn’s lips curved into a faint, dangerous smile.
“Then you’ll finally understand what it means to be one of us.” He leaned in, so close I could feel his breath.
“The darkness will take you, and you will burn with the rest of them.”
A couple of drops of rain brushed my face. Fionn frowned, and for a moment I glimpsed in his eyes a darkness edged with pain a pain I hadn’t seen in Cillian or Torin.
His gaze shifted to a flock of birds gliding along the air currents. They bobbed and soared with a sense of freedom that felt almost within reach.
“If you're going to paint, you should do it now before it rains.”
Before I could reply, he turned and walked away, his silhouette stark against the fading sun. But even as he left, I could feel the weight of what had just happened. He was afraid. Not of me but of what I was becoming.
***
I spent the rest of the afternoon beneath a tree sketching the encounter again and again, trying to capture the strange encounter on paper.
When the light began to fade and the clouds shadowed across the grass, I packed away my pencils and made my way back to the manor.
As I emerged from the woods and approached the fountain, Seraphina stepped through the manor's doors, dressed in a stunning, lilac-threaded gown that sparkled in the fading light.
Her expression was serious, and I wondered what awaited me now.
I clutched the sketchbook tightly against my ribs like a talisman, a reminder that Fionn now knew the secrets of my sketchbook and what I saw in the chamber.
“Tilly, it's time to meet the Elorium.”