Chapter 6
Two days later, Will sat in his chair in the conservatory, legs crossed and notebook resting in his lap, trying to shape his first designs.
A white strand had slipped free of his braid and brushed his chin, but he was too absorbed in his work to notice it or the storm rolling in from the sea, driving heavy drops against the glass.
“By the gods, what a sight,” a woman’s voice said suddenly.
Will looked up. A small figure stood framed in the doorway.
Wild dark curls tumbled over her shoulders and gave way to white silk.
A long, slender neck held a heart-shaped face with eyes the color of the sea.
She was raw and beautiful, with unruly brows, severe lips, and sharp collarbones above soft, full breasts.
The milky light traced her silhouette against the dark corridor behind her, her black mane merging with the shadows as though the ghost he had sensed these past few days had taken the shape of a woman.
It took Will several heartbeats to collect himself. “And what exactly are you looking at?” he asked, rising as his mother would have expected him to.
“You, Mr. Frank, against the grey storm front. Where sea and air become one.”
Without the mask, her voice was smoky, but unmistakably the duchess’s.
And yet… Will frowned. Beneath the ornate coat, she had hidden lovely curves that she now displayed without apology.
The silk dress was little more than a nightgown, gathered at her narrow waist; it flowed freely over breasts held by no corset, clinging almost indecently to the curve of her hips.
Caught staring, he flushed and lowered his gaze to the table, stacking papers without any sense of order. Even so, he could not forget the shadow of nipples hardened by the cool air. Why, of all things, was he now thinking of steel manacles and chains?
He swallowed.
Pulled himself together.
“Are you feeling stronger, Your Grace?”
“Elodie, please.”
“Will. A pleasure.” He smiled down at the papers. Her slippers whispered across the stone floor as she crossed the room and stopped on the other side of the table.
“Is my dress not to your liking?” she asked, watching him with a predatory glint.
He swallowed again. “Quite the opposite.”
“When I am alone at home, I allow myself to wear freer—more modern—designs.”
“I have never seen a dress like it in the Capitol.” No, in the Capitol, every line was precise, without folds unless sharply pleated.
Elodie smiled. “The Capitol is not the only place where fashion is made.”
Will’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “How do you get such things here? I thought Bloodgrove had hardly any exchange with the world.”
“Goods are cheaper to bring in. People are more difficult. But I have my connections.”
He had asked himself the same question while sitting almost alone on the train: why did so few people travel between the two cities?
“The price is very high, and almost no one can pay it.” Elodie leafed through his sample books, clearly fascinated by the fabric collection. Her fingers traced over every page.
“But money is hardly a problem for many people, neither here nor in the Capitol.” His colleagues would descend on this city if they knew how outdated everything was. Bloodgrove was screaming for a transformation.
Elodie looked up with a lazy smile. “Money is not the price.”
“Then what is?” Will suspected the answer.
“Blood.” She said it lightly, as though it were not the most bizarre word to pass her lips. “Every last drop—or until you lose your mind.”
Will went still, his fingertips resting on the papers, his last anchor to reason and all things measurable. But who was he to doubt her? He, who had woven bone into floorboards in exchange for a piece of his soul?
“Because of magic.”
She nodded. “Curses.”
“The city is cursed.”
“You are only noticing that now?” Elodie tilted her head, sending cascades of black curls spilling over her arm.
“I suspected as much. Am I in danger?”
“Not yet. Do not leave the house. In here, I am the most dangerous thing you are likely to find.” She smiled innocently.
His gaze flicked to her eyes. There was a faint note beneath her otherwise easy voice, the slightest trace of tension. But her mask was flawless.
“Except for the moon.” He did not know why he said it. The dream had suddenly returned to him, though Elodie was probably speaking of the chains in the ballroom.
“Why the moon?” She sounded genuinely surprised. “You need only fear the blood moon—but as I said, so long as you do not leave the house…”
“Moon children.” Will smiled, hoping to coax a little more information from her. He stopped himself at the last second from laying a hand over his flat stomach.
Elodie laughed softly, and her ease surprised him.
He truly had not imagined the mistress of the house like this.
She was so… human. “You look rather like a moon child yourself. My mother used to tell us stories of creatures with hair as white as cobwebs, skin as white as bone, eyes as white as pearls, and teeth as white as the crescent moon.”
“No crescent-moon teeth.” His smile widened, revealing two rows of white but perfectly ordinary teeth.
“Good. Otherwise I would have to worry that you might seduce me into walking into the sea and drowning before I ever reached your kingdom on the moon.”
Will smiled, but lowered his eyes to his drawings, to all the designs he had made for the ballroom that now felt entirely wrong. “In our stories, blood and moonlight always go hand in hand. But tell me—what sort of dreams would you like your ballroom to hold?”
“You ask as though you were a magician who could conjure anything.” Elodie reached for the next sample book, and only then did he notice the discreet bandages around her forearms. He was ashamed he had overlooked them until now, when they seemed so plainly visible: beige against her cream-colored skin.
“No magician, I promise.”
“A pity.” She beamed at him, her grey eyes sparkling. “I need something magical. The parlor and the ballroom should enchant my guests; draw them in like moths to a flame. Remind them of everything they are missing beyond this city. And who knows? Perhaps something may even change.”
But Will was not so easily charmed. He knew noblewomen like her, women who wrapped themselves in the latest fashions and held a ball every season, fascinated by the wicked allure of magic but quick to recoil from its reality. So he remained silent and filed the information away for later.
Afterward, he walked through the rooms with her and discussed his ideas while the storm shook the house.