33. Chapter 33
Chapter 33
F ive long days Lorcan has been out. It’s with bated breaths that Raven and I watch him finally stir from sleep.
“Is there anything I can get you?” I ask him as soon as I’m sure he knows who he’s looking at.
“I’m not an invalid,” he says, his voice cracked, but without a bite to it.
It’s a subtle roll eye that Raven and I exchange.
But then he gestures at the water pitcher on his nightstand and I pour him a glass of water.
I wait until he’s had his fill to start, the remorse eating away at me.
“I’m so sorry you two had to go through all this,” I say as I look into both of their eyes. I take a deep breath and attempt a cautious smile. “But I have good news. Orpheus thinks he’ll be able to find a way to calculate the time and the location of the next portal.”
Serra said there wouldn’t be another opening for the next hundred years, but that was probably a lie.
Strangely calmly, Lorcan just keeps looking at me, while Raven tilts her head at me.
“Even if he doesn’t, Anna,” she starts gently, “we’ll be fine, really. Lorcan will get better, and I’ve started my research on breaking my curse.”
A part of me wants to yell no, don’t do that. I’ll fix things for you. But I can’t be a hundred percent sure I’ll be able to and she’s finally coming into her own. So I just smile. “I’m happy to hear that, Raven.”
Then I press my lips tight and turn to Lorcan. “Lorcan…”
I start trying to find the right words, but he beats me to it. “Raven, could you give Anna and myself a moment alone?”
My eyebrows shoot up.
“Of course, Lorcan,” Raven says. “Everything will be okay, Anna,” she whispers on her flight out.
“What is it that you’d like to talk to me about, Lorcan?” I ask, impatiently, as soon as she’s gone.
He hesitates for a moment, but it’s still with that strange calmness, maybe even tenderness, that he’s looking at me. “Actually, it’s apologizing that I’d like to do.”
What the…
“You were right,” he starts cautiously, looking away for a second. “About my daughter and what happened between the two of us. And it’s the same thing I’d been doing to you . So…” He swallows roughly. “If we do end up going back, maybe my daughter will be willing to give me another chance. And if we don’t, maybe you will.”
With that, he just keeps looking at me.
It takes a moment for it to really hit me. “Of course, Lorcan,” I mutter. Then I smile. “I mean, you were the worst professor I ever had, but you weren’t the worst father I ever had, so…”
He lets out a deep, rumbling laugh. “Careful. The fact that Serra didn’t kill me doesn’t mean that all those compliments won’t.”
*
I spend as much time with Lorcan as possible so it’s straight from the hospital that I arrive at the Grand Ball, which at this point in history, is being held in the gardens.
I find Orpheus already there with his sisters. It warms my heart to see him chatting away with the both of them.
“Shall we?” Orpheus asks, and before I manage to protest, he’s leading me to the dance floor.
For the course of the dance, he makes me forget all my troubles. But as soon as we start leaving the floor, I fix my eyes back on his sisters.
It’s just as we start slowing down in front of them that Sylmarilla asks turns to look at me and smiles.
I frown, then collect myself and return the smile. “Sylmarilla, Farryn,” I start, “I’d just like to say how sorry I am—”
I don’t get the chance to say what about — that their mother is in prison.
The twins are shaking their heads and smiling at me. “That’s alright, Anyi, thank you,” Sylmarilla says. “But we both believe this family could use some time away from her.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
When I look up at Orpheus, he has a smile on his face as well. He turns to look at me and says, “Would you let me steal you away? There’s something I’d like to show you.”
*
“Where are we?” I ask as soon as we step out of the Pull and I find myself in the moonlit gardens of some seemingly ancient castle.
“This was the first seat of House Olarel,” Orpheus tells me with a smile. Then he tugs on my hand and starts walking. “Come on, we have lots to see.”
Grinning from ear to ear, I rush to catch up with him. He leads me straight into the castle, stopping to let me glance around the room I can only call an entrance hall.
There, at the center of the wall to my left, right under the left wing of the grand stairs leading upstairs, I see something that makes me want to observe more closely.
Slowly, I stroll up to it, stopping to crane my neck and fix my eyes on the faces staring back at me from the enormous family portrait.
“What’s the matter?” I hear Orpheus ask.
I keep staring at the monstrosity. “We had a portrait like this where I grew up. My father liked to show off.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Everyone seemed to love it. I hated it.”
He comes to hold me, wrapping his arms around me and clasping his hands on my stomach. He doesn’t say anything, he just tilts his head to look at me, listening in silence.
“It wasn’t so much what he did to me,” I say. “It was why he did it, and it was how he did it. He went around destroying actual lives just to make himself feel a touch better, all the while looking at me as if I weren’t even a person. And I guess what made it so impossible for me to let it go is all the anger he made me feel, anger at myself . Because, even after I finally realized what a pitiful creature he was, he still continued making me feel small, inconsequential, deserving of all the pain he’d inflicted on me.”
There’s a moment of silence before Orpheus squeezes me tighter, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “I wish I could make him pay for what he did to you,” he whispers into my ear.
I shake my head, my mind still on the house in which I grew up. “You know I wouldn’t want you to.” An image of my mother sitting in front of the window flashes before my eyes. “Besides… In a way, my mother was worse.”
He pulls away to frown at me. There’s concern in his voice when he asks, “Your mother? How was your mother worse?”
I make myself shake it off, I pull away and I turn to smile at him. “No, that’s a topic for some other time. Right now, I just want to have fun.” I glance around and through the windows, inhaling deeply. “It’s a beautiful night, this is certainly an interesting place…” I quirk an eyebrow at him, getting back in his embrace. “And I have the hottest tour guide ever.”
He chuckles. “Then I know what I want to show you next.”
“Yes please,” I say with a grin, letting him drag me up the stairs, down a hallway and into…
A library. The most magnificent library I’ve ever seen. I mean, sure, it’s not as big as the Academy one, but gods, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the paneled windows, the collection.
It’s his chuckle that snaps me out of it. He’s pulled away and is watching my reaction with obvious amusement on his face. “Now,” he says, “would you do me a favor, Anyi?”
“Of course.”
He gestures at a settee under one of the windows. “Sit over there and imagine yourself reading.”
I gladly obey, squirming in my seat. Then I let out a content sigh. “I’d choose something more comfortable, but it’s lovely.”
“You think so?” He comes to sit on the other side, getting my legs off the floor and putting them over his lap.
This makes me lie back and place my feet on his chest, tilting my head to look at him from an angle. “You’re so good with your hands, Orpheus,” I say sweetly, “have I ever told you that?”
He raises his eyebrows. Then, when it hits him, he quirks an eyebrow and throws me a flat glare. “So manipulative.” He takes my foot in his hand and gives the arch a little bite. “I love it,” he says, grinning, as he starts massaging.
I let my head fall back and just enjoy myself for a moment. “I could get used to this.”
“Could you?”
He stops massaging, gets up and hoists me off the settee until he’s carrying me with my legs around his hips. He walks me over to the window and says, “It’s ours. And if you like it… It’s close to the Academy so you can keep working there, you’d have your own library, and we could make whatever changes you’d like to make to feel more at home.”
I turn to give him a smile. “What if I don’t exactly like the idea of living in a mansion? Or the idea of aristocracy in general?”
“Then we’ll end the aristocracy and go live in a cabin in the woods. As long as I’m with you, Anyi, I’ll be the happiest man alive.”
My smile grows wider. Maybe not a cabin in the woods. Maybe I’ve already made a home for myself in that strange house my husband built.