Chapter 7
Over the days that followed, he saw Elodie regularly. She flitted through the house, forever propelled by plans and appointments. He never again saw her dressed in foreign fashions; instead, every inch of skin was covered, right up to her chin.
She breakfasted with him—never eating more than an egg, a citrus fruit, and tea—and asked him about the Capitol down to its smallest, strangest details.
She loved his observations on the differences he had noticed between the two cities, and he began to look forward to her smoky voice, the measured pace of her words, and the gleam in her eyes as she listened.
Every day, she disappeared for another appointment, always running late, so that he heard little more than the flutter of her skirts as she hurried down the stairs.
Sometimes she returned in the afternoon for a hurried change of clothes, and often she stayed out until the early hours of the morning.
Yet she always appeared at breakfast looking fresh, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright.
That afternoon, Will heard her rush past once more, and before he knew it, he was on his feet and following her. He caught a glimpse of her swearing as she threw on a coat, waving impatiently for her maid, and then she vanished through the gate without looking back.
Will followed more slowly, first down the stairs and then across the broad atrium with its black-and-white tiles, until his hand closed around the door handle.
The bolt had not been drawn, and Hedgefort was nowhere in sight.
It felt forbidden, as though he were a child defying his tutors, which was utterly ridiculous.
So he pulled open the heavy door and looked outside.
Clear autumn air swept toward him, lifting loose hairstrands, and a golden afternoon waited beyond the threshold.
He saw horses in the street and heard the busy pulse of the city, but it was the scent that lured him—soot and horse manure, of course, but beneath all of that came the first messengers of winter from the mountains and the salt of the open sea.
Will glanced back over his shoulder into the dark maw of the house.
Somewhere within, he could hear the workers tearing up the parquet, but they could manage without him.
Why was he allowing himself to be imprisoned here?
Did Elodie truly expect him to remain inside for four months?
Without meaning to, he had developed a cautious respect for the house’s peculiar rules, but the pull of the city was stronger.
He found his coat and top hat in the wardrobe behind an inconspicuous door, and the moment the fabric settled across his shoulders, he was through the gate—out across the paved front courtyard, into the streets, and down toward the sea.
Small shops lined the road behind wooden-framed windows: general stores, apothecaries, bookshops, button merchants, physicians, bakeries, and cobblers.
Will wandered past them without money to buy anything, fascinated by the goods on display.
When he had first moved to the Capitol, he had roamed its streets in much the same way, entranced by the endless variety unfolding behind every corner, so different from his grey fishing village.
Yet Bloodgrove could hardly have been more different in turn.
Unlike in the Capitol, the books here were still bound in leather.
The cobbler sold styles Will recognized from flea markets.
He stopped in shock before a butcher’s display, where headless bats hung from hooks, and decided he would have a word with the cook.
Next door, a sign creaked in the wind, carved so that a mermaid appeared to lash her tail.
Spark’s Ritual and Occult Shop was painted across it.
Curious, Will stepped closer. The windows were too smeared for him to see much, yet he pressed his nose to the glass all the same, uncertain what he expected to find beyond it.
He was not disappointed. Row after row of shelves held black candles, daggers, and dried animal parts.
Bones dangled among dried herbs from the ceiling, and sinister statues crowded a corner.
Was magic truly practiced so openly here?
“Blood, you’re beautiful!” someone barked.
Will had not noticed the man emerging from the shop, and now the stranger was staring at him with wide eyes.
The sharp retort on Will’s tongue died when he realized how young the man was—perhaps eighteen at most, still slender, with delicate shoulders and a smooth face, much as Will’s had once been.
Only his hair was tousled and fiery red.
“Thank you?” Will stepped away from the window.
The young man’s eyes were rimmed in black, and his fingers were stained dark as well, like the witches in old stories.
“You can still come inside,” the young man said, leaning against the doorframe with deliberate ease and running a hand through his hair.
“For you, I’d gladly stay open an hour longer than is sensible.
” He flashed a mischievous grin. It was sweet, the way he tried to disguise his awkwardness with confidence.
“I have nothing to do with magic,” Will replied, glancing around.
The alley was narrow and the houses dark, as they were everywhere in Bloodgrove, making it difficult to tell whether he had wandered into a disreputable neighborhood.
Yet the street was empty, and the long rays of the late-afternoon sun cast the opposite wall into a harsh relief.
No daylight seemed willing to touch the occult shop.
The young man looked up at the sign as though he had momentarily forgotten what he sold, then laughed. “Right. That was exactly what I meant.”
“Perhaps another time.” The sea was already calling him onward. Sometimes he missed it with such fierce longing that it felt like missing his mother.
“I’m Saint, by the way.” The young man stepped boldly toward Will. “You’re the visitor from the Capitol, aren’t you?”
“News travels quickly…” Will could not decide whether to feel flattered or concerned.
Saint moved closer still, even rising onto his toes, though the mischief in his expression had given way to a sharper look as he studied Will’s eyes.
“What kind of pact did you make? Your magic tastes so…different.”
Will leaned toward him, his hands clasped behind his back. “The kind that has no patience for insolent boys like you.”
Perhaps he, too, had once thrown himself so shamelessly at older men who adored him for his fragile body. By now, he had outgrown that role and had spent a night or two with young men himself. It surprised him how much he enjoyed taking control and having someone gaze up at him with longing.
What did Duchess Ormonde think when she tipped back her head to speak to him?
Confused, he shook the thought off.
“I have to go.” He did not understand why he was thinking of his client now, except perhaps that she possessed some of the same rebelliousness.
Saint laughed as though he had accomplished precisely what he intended, then turned back toward the shop door. “Should you ever need vampire fangs or siren scales, I have the freshest in the city. You’re welcome anytime.”
Without waiting for Will’s answer, he disappeared inside, and the bell above the door rang out into the street for another moment.
“Strange boy,” Will murmured, setting off toward the sea and leaving the mysterious young man behind.
Bloodgrove drew him greedily onward, across bridges spanning deep canyons of houses and flanked by enormous stone beasts, then over stairways and squares filled with murmuring fountains.
The sun sank lower, kissing Will’s face with warmth as he paused on a landing. Leaning against the railing, he looked between the houses toward the glittering sea, now the color of molten gold. Perhaps the city wasn’t quite as terrible as he had thought.
With his coat unbuttoned and his hands tucked into his trouser pockets, he stepped down the first stair toward a great wrought-iron gate when a hook suddenly caught his shoulder and pulled him back.
“I would not go down there if I were you. Monsters hunt in those streets.”
He would have recognized that voice anywhere. Eric Arcos, the Red Ambassador, stood behind him with the wolf-headed walking stick resting on his shoulder. Will might have laughed at the coincidence had the man’s hard expression not unsettled him.
With two delicate fingers, he took the wolf’s head and lifted it from his shoulder.
“Thank you for the advice.” Undeterred, he continued.
“Do you see the gate down there?” Arcos asked, now so close that his shoulder nearly brushed Will’s.
Holding his breath, Will followed the line of the walking stick. The stairs ended before a massive open wrought-iron gate, set into a tall fence that stretched beyond the buildings on both sides.
Then the tip of the cane rose toward the sun. “When the sun sinks beyond the horizon, that gate will close, and you will be trapped in the Harbor District for the night. No one will come to rescue you.”
“Isn’t that a little dramatic? The sun will not set for another hour—I only want to see the sea.” It seemed so close, only a few blocks, a few stairways, a few streets away. Perhaps it was farther than he had imagined.
“Did no one warn you about this city?” Arcos asked, amused, as he wandered back up the stairs and stepped out of the shadow into which they had descended.
As on the train two weeks earlier, the light painted his face, though today it was warm and almost kind.
Only then did Will notice the two large dogs waiting patiently at the top, their coats gleaming black and their muzzles long and narrow.
“Yes, Elodie—”
“Elodie? Elodie Ormonde? She is your patron?” Mr. Arcos’s perfect, courteous expression slipped, revealing a flash of genuine surprise—something, Will was certain, that was rarely seen. At the same time, he knew he had made a mistake.
“You know her?” he asked.
Mr. Arcos smiled slowly, and Will shivered. “Of course. We were childhood friends.”
The drawing of a family with four children, though there had only been three daughters, flashed through his mind. “Would you walk back with me? I fear I have wandered too far and would not find my way before sunset.”
The ambassador considered him briefly, then nodded and set off at a brisk pace, his long legs taking wide strides. The dogs fell into place on either side of him and kept up without effort.
Will watched him from the corner of his eye and could not help feeling pleased to have encountered him again.
Not only because Arcos was the perfect connection if Will wished to prove himself as an interior designer and eventually extend his influence back into the Capitol, but because he simply could not take his eyes off him.
Back home, Will had usually chosen a different sort of man: either large, powerful bears who prized him for his long hair and slender build, or young men like Saint who looked at him as though he were a god.
Love between men was frowned upon in the Capitol because it was not considered “fruitful,” something one was expected to leave behind with youth. Will, however, had never grown out of it. As they strolled through Bloodgrove together, he feared society was no different here.
“People are staring at you,” Will observed.
“Among other things. But they are looking at you as well, Mr. Frank. They are wondering what powerful mage is walking beside the ambassador.”
Will nearly stumbled. “I am not a mage!”
His companion laughed without humor. “Magic is not forbidden here in Bloodgrove. Those who drink too much blood and surrender to the frenzy are banished to the southern districts, where they rob, pillage, and kill. I would advise you not to enter those areas unarmed, even in daylight.”
“I have never practiced blood magic,” Will protested, lowering his voice so none of the staring passersby could hear.
“Then where did that white hair you wear so proudly come from? It is hardly subtle.” Once again came the smile that never reached his eyes.
“I have had it since I was a child…”
The ambassador ran a gloved hand through his hair, revealing scattered silver strands among the raven black. “My first grey appeared when I was fourteen.” His hair was cut in a way to conceal it at first glance, and the silver showed only when he swept it to the other side.
“It could be hereditary,” Will insisted, though he could clearly picture his mother with her dark-blond braid and his father with brown hair. Will himself had been born golden-haired.
“If you say so…”
“Mr. Hedgefort called me a moon child.” Will had not given up on finding an explanation for his dream, though he had not felt the phantom second heartbeat again in days.
“That is charming. Keep wearing those light Capitol clothes, and soon every child in Bloodgrove will be telling stories of the man from the moon.”
Will shoved his fists deeper into his coat pockets as the gables of the grand townhouse came into view. His time with Mr. Arcos was dwindling.
“So it is all true, then—all the stories about Bloodgrove?” he asked, glancing around.
Dark-clad figures hurried past them, their steps quickening now that the sky had begun to turn bloodred.
Their dresses were buttoned to the throat, their hands covered, their ties drawn tight beneath the chin.
Every one of them seemed part of the secret.
Mr. Arcos considered the question, then stepped in front of Will and studied him with open curiosity. “So you truly were na?ve enough to come to Bloodgrove. I wonder how long your white vest will remain unstained—or how long your heart will stay inside its ribcage.”
“I could use some advice from you.” Will had nothing to lose, so why shouldn’t he try his luck with the most beautiful man in the city?
“So na?ve.” Mr. Arcos sighed. “Tomorrow evening. The opera.”
“After sunset?”
“After sunset.” Arcos widened his eyes dramatically, and Will had the strong impression that he was being teased. From someone as impeccably composed as Mr. Arcos, he considered that a victory. “I will send a carriage.”