15. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
I t’s with very few words that Lorcan and I agree to take different routes back. With Raven on my shoulder, I walk the hallway leading to the Entrance Hall in silence.
My legs hurt from all the standing and there’s the haze that sets in after a sleepless night, but it’s nothing compared to the weight mercilessly dragging me down or the poison turning my every thought unbearable.
Why did I think this would work? It pains me so much, I can barely breathe — to think I’ve only added one more person to the list of victims of my decisions. Because it’s not like I can wake her up now, or tomorrow, or a month from now. She went into hibernation and she used the piece of comet to do it and that’s it. She’ll be gone for the next hundred and fifty years and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. And what for? So I can check one option off my list?
To make things worse, I seem to keep doing things like this — either being childish or plain stupid — in every goddamn lifetime.
So now, the life I’m living — it’s not a real life, it’s actually a sort of personalized hell. I can change however much I want. I can spend the rest of my life making only good decisions.
But when it all comes down to it, it won’t matter. For all the unforgivable mistakes that the Aurora has made, it’s not a happy end but a fitting divine retribution that she deserves, doesn’t she?
It snaps me out of my haze, when I step into the deserted Entrance hall and have Joseph appear right in front of me.
“Your Grace, if you’ll come with me,” he asks.
It makes me frown, that he’s not keeping the usual distance, but I have absolutely zero capacity in me for any of that royal shit, so I just shrug it off. “I’m afraid it’ll have to wait, Joseph, there’s something I need to do.”
Go for a walk and think . That’s what it is, but I choose to omit that part.
I’m met with a stony face. “I’m afraid it’s under your husband’s orders that I’m here.”
Orders? Now, I’ve been here long enough to know that if a servant is not mincing words...
Closing my eyes for a second, I let out a sigh and then force myself to just get it over with.
The morning light hurting my eyes, it’s in sullen silence that I walk with Joseph to the bottom of the hill. He takes me up, my frown only growing deeper when I step onto the terrace and see a couple of very grim looking people leave the house.
“What’s going on, Joseph?” I turn to ask.
Without a word, he gestures for me to get inside. Suddenly unsettled, I don’t waste time. I let him follow me into the house and lead me straight to the kitchen, where I stop in the archway, my eyebrows pulling down at the sight before me.
“My lord,” Joseph mumbles as he gives a quick bow with his head.
“Leave us,” Orpheus orders from his seat at the table.
I do sense Joseph leave, but all my focus is on the man staring at me intently, looking as if he’s been up all night and only seemingly calmly leaning back in the chair.
I thought I’d already seen Orpheus angry, at least at that vampire wedding. Turns out I’d only seen him grumpy. Now this is angry, controlled, but still — the clenched jaw, the unnecessarily tight grip on the glass he has on the table in front of him, and worst of all, the storm in the eyes.
For a moment, I just stare at him. Then I fold my arms and frown. “What’s going on here? Why are you ordering for me to be brought to you like some impertinent child?”
There’s a moment of silence before he speaks, in a low, deliberate voice, “Where were you, Anyi?”
I blink at him. It takes me a second to realize it’s the use of my first name for the first time ever that’s thrown me off. “I’m sorry, but that’s none of your concern.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps, followed by the slightest smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s in that seemingly calm voice that he starts, “You force me to dispatch a rescue party to look for you and then you have the audacity to tell me the situation is none of my concern?”
“A rescue party ?” I echo with a frown. I throw my arms up. “Why would you do that? I’m a grown woman, for crying out loud.”
His jaw clenches, his voice a little more forceful when he says, “I’m only going to ask once more. Where were you?”
I shake my head. “No, you’re not entitled to those answers. The next time you find me gone, I suggest you just keep doing whatever it is you were doing.”
With that, I move to walk away.
The next thing I know, he’s coming to block my way, getting in my face with the anger now twisting his features. “The next time I find you gone? You weren’t alone, were you? I thought you were grieving your lost love. Was that also a lie?”
I grit my teeth. “You keep doing it.”
“What?”
“Asking questions you have no right to ask.”
“Fine,” he spits out. “Here’s a question I do have the right to ask.” He takes something out of his pocket. “What is this?”
It’s the lighter he’s holding in his hand. Jericho’s lighter. My eyes rounding, I stumble back and then look up at him.
“You went into my room?” I whisper.
His jaw clenches. “The moment you chose to stay out all night without so much as leaving a note was the moment you renounced all rights to privacy. Now explain this.”
Anger starting to flood me, I raise my voice at him. “That’s another thing you have no right to — to ask me to explain my things to you.”
And I try to take the lighter, only for him to put his hand behind his back. “Hey, who do you think you are?” I demand.
“This is my lighter,” he grits out. “Why did you steal my lighter, Anyi? Or better yet, how did you manage to steal my lighter months before we ever even met?”
For a second, I just blink at him. Then my focus shifts back to the hand he’s keeping behind his back. “It was bought at a market,” I say weakly, feeling a sob coming on. “Would you please give it back?”
That only makes him get in my face again, shaking his head and gritting his teeth. “I was right the first time we talked. You knew exactly who I was, I was the reason you were there in the first place.” It startles me, when he grabs me by the wrist and demands, “Now, what’s the agenda here, hm?”
I don’t say anything. I just keep standing there with my wrist in his grip and a single thought sending all the alarms in my mind blaring — he has no intention of giving the lighter back.
Panic taking my breath away, I yank my hand out of his and dart around him to take it by force. Once, twice, three times I try this, but he’s too fast for me. I only end up a panting mess with him towering over me, the hand still securely behind his back.
The angry, immovable mountain standing between me and the only thing I still have left of him.
The sight makes me start shaking with anger. Despite all the effort I put into not snapping, I snap. I take a step closer, I let out a dragged-out groan and I start bringing my fists down on his chest.
I see his eyes round, but he doesn’t move a single muscle. Even after I force myself to regain control and step back, lowering my fists to the side and starting work on steadying my erratic breathing, he just keeps standing there, observing me in what seems to be silent wonder.
Now what am I going to do? My mind buzzing, I look away and swallow a sob.
“Have I ever harmed you, Anyi?” I hear him ask. The lack of anger in the voice makes me turn to look at him again, my eyebrows pulling down when I find his features softened. “Or made you believe I wanted you harm?”
Now that the anger is dying down, it’s becoming harder to stop myself from crying. Looking at the fucking bastard helps though. It’s enough that I’ve let him witness what to him could only look like a temper tantrum. I’m not going to let him see the desperation as well.
It’s in a flat, hollow, defiant voice that I ask, “How about tying me to that chair the first time I ever saw you?”
His jaw clenches again. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it. Anything else?”
I scoff. “If I ever catch you here again,” I say, trying to imitate his stupid voice, “dying will be the least of your—”
He takes a step closer, then seems to stop himself from getting in my face. “Will we be ignoring the fact that that was the moment I saw you almost get killed, hm?”
“Well, it would’ve been just another notch for you.”
Gritting his teeth, he looks away and then turns his eyes back onto me. “That was right after the war, I was trying to distract myself from the pain, I made some mistakes I never would’ve done otherwise and I got people killed in the process.” He looks deeper into my eyes. “It’s something I’ll never forgive myself, but it doesn’t make me a dangerous man. Now, anything else ?”
I laugh. “You can say whatever you want, it won’t change the fact that everyone treats you like a danger.”
This time, he does get in my face, his chest heaving and his fists clenching. “It suits me that they do, and I do admit that it’s somewhat justified, I had a shorter temper back then, but—”
“What, now you’re a changed man?” I demand with a scoff. “Because your mouth seems to be saying one thing and those fists another.”
He takes a step back and unclenches his fists. “This is not the same.”
“ How is it not the same?”
“It’s not,” he snaps. “It doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head and uses a softer voice to say, “What I can’t understand is why you’d argue with me on this. I’ve scared plenty of people in my life to know exactly what that looks and feels like. And you were never scared of me, Anyi. Are you the kind of person who listens to gossip or the kind of person who listens to her gut?”
For a moment, I just look at him, wanting to argue but not finding anything to say.
“My point was this,” he breaks the silence. “You might not like me, it’s very obvious that you don’t, but you treat me as if I were your enemy, and I’m not.”
He takes a step closer and holds his hand out. Begrudgingly, I look down, my eyes rounding when I realize he’s giving me the lighter back.
“There,” he says. “If you want it so much, you can have it.”
My heart skipping a beat, I snatch the lighter, retreat a few steps and shove it down my corset before he can change his mind.
His eyes dart to the hiding spot and he frowns, but he doesn’t acknowledge this in any other way. His shoulders slumped, he just turns on his heel and starts walking out of the kitchen.
I frown. “Orpheus,” I call out.
He stops midstep, but he doesn’t turn around.
I hesitate a little, but I actually think he’s right. I’ve been unnecessarily hostile to him and I need to set that right. “Listen…”
He cranes his neck to look at me.
“I told you about my mate, didn’t I?”
He turns to face me, seeming tired but not uninterested. “You did,” he says in a low voice.
I swallow around a lump in my throat. “It was two years ago that I lost him. And…” I shake my head. “However absurd that might sound to you, what I’m after here, why I wanted to come to the Academy in the first place… I’m trying to find a way to travel through time because I need him back.” There’s a plea in my eyes as I say, “So, please believe me when I say I wish neither you nor your family nor anyone else any harm.”
For a moment, he just keeps standing there, looking at me with a tired frown on his face.
Then I watch him disappear.
What the…
I spend a few moments wondering what just happened. Then, just as I move to go to my room, he appears in front of me, holding a couple of notebooks out for me.
“Here is all the research I’ve conducted on the nature of time,” he explains in a flat, tired voice. “Feel free to keep it. If you have any questions, come to me and I’ll do my best to help.”
I take the notebooks and then look up at him, warmth spreading through my chest. “Thank you, Grimm, you don’t know how much this means to me.”
To this, he only gives me a nod and disappears again.