22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
I t’s yet another nightmare that jolts me from sleep, but ever since we started working together a month ago, the noise coming from Orpheus’s workshop serves to immediately ground me. Then the smell of eggs drifts over to me and I spring from bed, pushing the unsettling images and emotions aside.
I get dressed and pad over to the kitchen, finding the breakfast Orpheus put aside for me waiting on the counter. Nymeria is sniffing around it, but she’s no longer daring to eat my food and seems to have given up on hissing at me. Now she just pretends as if I’m not even here.
“Morning, Nymeria,” I purr, because I myself am refusing to follow her lead. Without acknowledging me, she deftly jumps onto the counter and darts through the half-open window.
Oh well.
It’s the first day of the second term and it’s in less than two hours that I’m expected to show up for my shift in the Library, but that gives me plenty of time to do some work.
Taking a moment to observe the overcast winter sky outside, I grab the plate with the eggs and take a seat at the kitchen table. The records are strewn all over, waiting for me right where I left them last night. I lift my legs off the floor and tuck my feet under my thighs, inhaling deeply to summon patience.
The eggs help, simply because they’re delicious, but the work is still tedious as hell. When I showed him the Order’s symbol, Orpheus remembered seeing it on some man who came for an audience with his father. Right now, this is our only clue as to the Order’s whereabouts and my task is to compile a list of potential candidates, with only “older, man and possibly vampire” to go on.
But Orpheus was no more than five years old when this happened, his father was getting daily visits from people across the land, and sadly, there’s no social media in 1849 that I could use to look for pictures to try to jog his memory. So I’m sifting through the Grimm family’s 1819 to 1821 records, getting names of older male vampires and then looking them up in the Crown’s family records, writing down names, ages, hair colors and all other information that could be of help in visualizing a person.
It almost makes me yelp when I flip the page of the last book of records and realize I’ve finished going through 1821.
Done.
Grinning, I gather the papers, dart out of the kitchen and rush up the stairs, the noise growing louder the closer I get to the workshop.
Making sure to be as loud as possible myself, so as to warn him of my presence, I step inside, finding Orpheus already looking over his shoulder as he brings some machine to a screeching halt.
“Am I interrupting?” I ask as I walk over to him.
He grins, grabbing a rag of a desk to wipe the grease off his hands. “When has that ever stopped you?” He tilts his head at me. “Did you sleep well?”
“I… slept , does that count?” I ask with a smile, but I’m already shoving the papers in his hands. “I think I have the complete list.”
“Let’s take a look.” He brings them over to the desk and leans over with his palms pressed at their sides.
It’s with bated breath that I keep glancing between him and the papers as he skims through the list of twenty-something potential candidates. Then the papers slip my mind, my eyes slowly coming to fix on his face. I get so absorbed in watching the little frown, the eyes darting from left to right, the somber line of the lips… that it startles me, when he stands straight and runs his hand through his hair. “I can be fairly certain it’s none of these .” He points at a couple of names on the list. “As for the rest of them…” He turns to give me an apologetic look. I have to fight not to glance at the skin showing underneath his shirt.
Focus , Anna. “What about your investigators?” I ask, still a little breathless from staring at him.
“No one has reported anything yet. It seems that your Order has all but vanished.”
This makes me snap out of it. I frown. “They have to be somewhere,” I protest. “If they’re still active a hundred and fifty years from now…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll tell the investigators to broaden the search to the surrounding provinces.” He stops to give me a reassuring look. “We’ll find them.”
I let out a sigh. “Thank you, I’m sure we will.” The thought makes my lips curl into a smile. “Now…” I take a step back, the smile turning into a grin. “Prepare to be amazed.”
His eyebrows shoot up, but he doesn’t say anything. He just folds his arms with a curious look on his face.
I take a deep breath, lift my right hand and snap my fingers, a flame appearing on the tips of my fingers. A much smaller flame than the last time I did this, and one that immediately dies down, making my shoulders slump with disappointment.
“Well,” he drawls, evidently suppressing a laugh, “to say I’m amazed would be a grave understatement.”
“ Really ?” I grit out.
He takes a step closer, making a show of keeping a straight face on. “Yes, I never knew a flame could be so tiny.” He waves an arm around. “Just think of all the possible applications.” He lifts a hand to start listing as a smirk creeps up on him, “You could use it to warm your fingers, dry your tears, heat up the world’s tiniest dinner—”
“You’re a royal asshole, Grimm, you know that?” I cut him off with a disgruntled smile. “I’ll make them bigger, if nothing, to burn that smirk off your face.”
With that, I turn on my heel to march out of the workshop, the low chuckle he lets out making me roll my eyes. Then I remember. “As for dinner,” I turn to ask, only to find him still looking at me, quietly chuckling away.
I throw him a flat glare and he stops, raising his eyebrows at me in feigned innocence.
“Do you think you’ll be gracing us with your presence?” I finish what I set out to ask.
He smirks. “The royal asshole’s presence will be needed at a meeting later this afternoon, so I might be a bit late, but I’ll be there.”
*
Only fifteen minutes into this particular instance of the Friday family dinner, I find myself glancing around the table with the word torturous ringing through my head. And Urryse hasn’t even arrived yet. I have to fight not to let out a groan.
Right across from me, Sylmarilla is engaging one of the cousins in a story about her latest training session, regardless of the fact that this is a cousin I’ve never seen her pay any attention to before.
And right to my left, Farryn is sitting in dejected silence. I open my mouth to ask her about her classes, when I see her eyes land on a cake and a spark flash through them. She takes one and puts it in her mouth, already fixing her gaze on her twin.
“This is absolutely divine,” she says with her mouth still full. “Would you like to try some, Sylmarilla?”
Sylmarilla does stop talking, but she doesn’t even acknowledge her. “Do you hear that, Oryn?” she asks the cousin. She doesn’t let him respond though. Her voice is dripping with poison when she answers her own question. “It’s the sound of absolute irrelevance.”
I roll my eyes and turn to Farryn, deciding not to give her an opportunity to linger on this childishness. “How’s Eastern Runology coming along, Farryn?”
She turns to look at me as if she didn’t even hear the question, but it’s at that exact moment that Urryse glides into the room.
There are the usual “Evening Mother” and “Evening Aunt” sounding from around the table.
Urryse throws us all a slight smile and takes her seat, Joseph almost instantly appearing to start serving dinner.
The Dowager Queen slash Pied Piper only takes a sip of her wine before she puts the glass down and fixes her eyes on me, clasping her hands in her lap. “Anyi darling.”
My eyebrows shoot up. Due to her spending the winter break at the family’s winter residence, this is the first time I’m seeing her since the Winter Solstice Ball. In the meantime, I’ve sort of forgotten all about her new-found interest in me. Apparently, that was a mistake. “Urryse,” I return the greeting.
She smiles at me. “You seem rested. Are you enjoying the new sitting room? Is there anything missing?”
“Not that I can think of,” I reply as Joseph places the entree before me.
She squints at me. “Are you sure? I’d be more than happy to indulge my favorite daughter-in-law.”
I almost let out a laugh. Instead, I smile. “It’s perfect just the way it is, thank you.”
She observes me for a moment, her eyes narrowing. “I was thinking about the upcoming ball. Surely you’re in need of a new dress?”
I raise my eyebrows at her. Does she really think it’s with shiny new stuff that I can be bought? And so transparently at that? I give her another smile. “Not at all, I have so many of them already.”
Innocently, I take a canape off my plate and bite into it. I can tell she won’t be letting it go so easily, and sure enough, she’s already opening her mouth to make another brilliant attempt at sucking up to me, when all our heads snap to the door.
“Evening Orpheus.”
“Evening everyone,” he greets back as he strolls around the table. I put the canape down to hold my hand out. He presses a quick kiss to it before taking a seat next to me.
“How was the—” I start, breaking off when I see him grab the canape off my plate and pop it in his mouth.
I frown. “I was eating that.”
“Not quickly enough,” he says as he leans to grin in my face.
I take the opportunity to whisper, “Please save me from your mother’s good graces. I think it could be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Would you like me to kill her?” he whispers back.
“Not before dessert, please,” I say flatly. “Just pretend to talk about something interesting.”
“ Pretend ?” he echoes as he pulls back to squint at me. “Are you trying to tell me I can only pretend to be interesting?”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
He laughs. “Would you like to hear about today’s results?” he asks with this mysteriousness in his voice.
I quirk an eyebrow at him, both relieved I’ll be spending the rest of the evening talking to him and curious to hear about the new experiment. “Yes, please.”
*
“Good night, Orpheus,” I tell him once we’re back on top of Graf Hill. “I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”
He gives me a smile and moves to get inside, when an unexpected sound coming from the direction of the steps makes us both freeze in place.
Instantly, my heart starts pounding, my eyes fixing on the edge of the hill in expectation of trouble.
“It’s just MacArthur,” I hear Orpheus say just as I spot Lorcan’s head appear, followed by his stocky body.
I breathe a sigh of relief and smile. The smile disappears as soon as I see the frown on his face. “I thought you’d come riding this morning,” he says as he slows to a stop in front of us. He barely throws a glance at Orpheus.
Still with the attitude? “I was eager to finish compiling the list for Orpheus. What do you have for us?”
“ Us ?” he echoes with bitterness in his voice. “As in the royal we?”
“Well, she is a royal, isn’t she?” Orpheus drawls with a touch of hostility in his voice.
It all makes sadness flood me, but I choose to ignore it. I nudge Lorcan to talk.
“I think I know how to find the Order.”
Orpheus and I exchange a surprised look. “You do?” I ask as I turn my eyes back onto Lorcan.
He nods. I motion for him to follow me and the three of us step inside the house, getting settled around the kitchen table.
“These past couple of weeks,” Lorcan starts, “I’ve been visiting local roadside inns.”
“What a good idea,” I rush to say, eager to try to make the atmosphere a little lighter and Lorcan feel a little better, whatever it is that’s been troubling him lately. “It’s easy to blend in, there’s a good mix of people from all over the region, and gods know people are more inclined to gossip once you put a drink in front of them.”
“Yes,” he snaps at me, “I’m well aware of all the reasons I went to do it in the first place, Anyi.”
I have to fight not to let out a sigh. “Do go on then.”
He lets out a grunt, but he obliges me. “I’ve just returned from the Seven Dwarves. I got to chatting with one of the locals, who ended up telling me about a fight he almost got into, with a human man who came asking about his daughter.”
I raise my eyebrows, wondering where he’s going with this.
“Bit by bit,” he continues, “I managed to find out the daughter came to spend the night at the inn and was never seen again. And the man was furious, even more so because, allegedly, this kind of thing isn’t the first instance of that happening at the Seven Dwarves.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Orpheus asks, “but what does it have to do with us ?”
Lorcan ignores Orpheus and keeps looking at me , but now there’s this spark in his eyes that makes me disregard his childish behavior. “What’s the main purpose of the Order of the Dawn, Anna?”
“To stop Baldur from awakening.”
By the look on his face, that’s not the answer he was looking for. Patiently, he tries again. “What is the one thing they can’t fulfill that purpose without?”
I squint at him. “The Aurora.”
There’s that spark in his eyes again. “And at this point in time, the Aurora is still missing.” I sense Orpheus lean forward. His excitement only growing, Lorcan asks, “So right now, what’s the Order’s only available course of action?”
I sit straight, my skin pricking with a sudden realization. “What you were trying to do before you discovered me. Identify the woman who is all three bloodlines in one.” I drop my voice to a near whisper, “The human woman.”