At the sound of t #2
“Did your vision this morning give you any idea how I am to find them?” Nigel asked, lifting his head to look at Arabella once more. “I no longer have a way into Garden, you know. The Brotherhood have the key, and the door is gone, and—”
“What kind of door?” Aurora asked abruptly.
“Erm.”
“Is it a green door with painted roses and vines, all peeling and dingey?”
Nigel blinked in surprise. “Yes, actually. How did . . . how did you know?”
Aurora tipped a severe eyebrow his way then nodded her head toward the kitchen window. “Because it’s standing right there. Just beyond the barrier wall.”
In a trice, Nigel was on his feet. He very nearly toppled as a new wave of dizziness hit, but the emerging effects of the Wolf Brittlebum worked wonders to revive him. He staggered to the kitchen window, yanked back the eyelet curtain, and stared.
Sure enough—the green door was there. Right there.
The same door his mother had painted long ago, before he was born.
The one his father refused to paint over, year after year.
The one which had stood in the back passage of The Arcane Bouquet, disguised to look like all the other doors, but still very much itself.
Freestanding. In the middle of the snowy lawn.
Even as Nigel watched, it cracked open. A familiar face peered out.
A roar of pure rage burst from Nigel’s chest, erupting from the very pit of his soul.
It worked even better than Brittlebum to galvanize him, and the next second, he was out the kitchen door, storming across the yard.
Every urge to reach for the Dire burned inside him, to unleash the Dark Sorcerer in a proper Dark Sorcerer’s tantrum of overwhelmingly destructive proportions.
Only the severmist choked him, made him stagger.
So instead, it was simply Nigel himself who raced through the unseasonably green grass, vaulted the stone barrier wall, landing barefoot in the snow, and hurtled for that lone door and the figure standing framed there.
“Nigey!” Fabian called out. “There you are, I was looking for—”
Nigel’s fingers gripped handfuls of black cowled robe.
A yank, a couple of heavy stumbling treads, a moment of rallied balance.
Then a loud crack as Nigel’s fist connected hard with his brother’s nose.
Fabian howled and would have gone over backwards, but Nigel yanked on his robes, dragged him back, and punched him again, this time in the jaw.
By now his knuckles were bleeding, but he didn’t care.
He went for a third punch, but this time, Fabian twisted hard in his grasp, and the two of them went down, grappling.
A series of painful rolls followed, and Nigel landed on top.
Lifting his brother’s head up, he hit it against the snowy ground again and again as he screamed, “Where is she? Where is my wife?”
“That’s what I’m here to tell you!” Fabian bellowed.
But he might not ever have had a chance to speak what he knew had the aunties not arrived on the scene just then.
With shocking strength for their size, they grabbed Nigel, one at each arm, and yanked him back, Green Magic sizzling in their grips.
“Now, dear boy, don’t take on so!” Arabella’s honeyed tones spoke close to his shoulder. “This fellow’s only here to help, you know! We’re going to need him.”
“A brother’s hand strengthens the roots of the faithful,” Aurora offered dutifully.
Nigel whipped his head from side to side, staring at each auntie in turn. “He’s one of them!” he shouted. “He’s one of the Brotherhood! He sold Luna out to them, all for his own ambition!” Then he focused on Fabian again, his teeth gnashing. “And I’m going to kill him!”
But the aunties refused to let go. And though a surge of Dire Matter was all he needed to easily break whatever Green Magic spell they used to hold him in place, Nigel had just enough gentlemanliness left underneath his rage not to do such a thing to a pair of little old witches.
Fabian picked himself up off the ground, spitting blood and shaking his head. “Look,” he said and held out one placating hand, “you’ve got every right to be mad—”
“I’m going to rip your skull from your spine and stuff it down your throat!” Nigel roared.
There was a momentary pause while everyone listening tried to make sense of that vivid mental image.
Then Fabian shuddered and pinched his profusely gushing nose.
“Thanks, Nigey. That was, erm, visceral.” His eyes traveled up and down the length of his brother then, and one eyebrow rose.
“Wow. That’s quite the frilly shirt you’ve got on. ”
Nigel paused in his roaring to look down at himself.
He was, indeed, still wearing Arbuthnot Talbot’s ruffled wedding shirt, halfway unbuttoned and not at all decent.
He looked like the hero on the cover of The Rake’s Redemption, though rather less perfectly buff, bronzed, and raven-haired.
Still, it was a slutty vibe, not at all in keeping with his typical reserved persona.
But Luna had liked it. Quite a lot, in fact.
“Maybe you could keep this shirt for . . . special occasions?” she’d purred as she parted the ruffles and planted a few experimental kisses on his throat and chest.
Nigel sagged abruptly to his knees in the snow, breathing hard, quivering in every limb.
The draw of the Dire burned hot inside him, but the instant he gave in, severmist would fight back.
If he allowed himself to be carried away, he wouldn’t have enough left for something as profound as an Infernus spell.
He couldn’t say if he absolutely believed the aunties and their predictions, but .
. . if there was even a chance what they claimed to have seen was true, if there was even a chance he could save his wife . . .
Suppressing his wrath to a more manageable degree, Nigel rolled his head back, glaring up at his brother. “Where is Luna?”