Chapter 21
Will slipped out of the house with the first orange rays of morning sun, past a yawning Hedgefort and into the biting autumn air. Winter offered its first greeting. Dead leaves from the few trees danced around his boots, and the sea lay like a sheet of polished lead.
I am your servant.
His own words, spoken so lightly, guided his steps through the narrow streets.
When Elodie’s small figure had disappeared into the vastness of the house, he had made a decision.
She was not alone, because she had him. She had paid with her own blood to bring him from the Capitol to Bloodgrove, and now it was time for him to fulfill his part of their bargain.
That the memory of Elodie’s skin beneath his lips and her taste on his tongue had cost him long hours of sleep was another matter.
Something inside him wondered what it would be like to follow that path, to discover how it felt to stir the storm in her eyes and feel her bare skin beneath his hands. What it would be like to love a woman.
But he would be even more na?ve than Mr. Arcos accused him of being, if he allowed himself to hope he might ever find out.
Will hesitated once more outside the door of the occult shop.
In the grimy glass, he saw his pale reflection as a shadowy figure, every bit as mysterious as the city’s inhabitants imagined him.
Once, he had allowed himself to become that person.
He had sacrificed blood and bone for a little glory and a ballroom.
How had he wandered so far that he stood on that threshold again?
Had he truly learned nothing from his mistakes?
The bell above the door of the occult shop rang over his head.
His eyes adjusted to the dim light as he glanced over the rows of shelves packed so tightly together that there was barely space to walk between them.
Even the smell was murky—a blend of candle soot, entrails, dust, and beeswax.
Apart from the occasional opening of the door, no one had aired the place in decades.
But his doubts faded the moment Will saw the treasures on the shelves, which until now he had only admired through the window.
Golden instruments, jars in which hands floated, vials of bone dust, dried herbs and shrunken heads, vampire teeth and monster claws, ritual daggers and priestly robes, encyclopedias and grimoires, chalk, tarot cards, skeletons, scales, and organs—dried, preserved, or stuffed.
Will stopped in astonishment, his eyes dancing from one treasure to the next.
But one question burned through him like acid: what would a place like this look like in the Capitol?
What kind of wonderland might the city become if it permitted magic?
If progress, technology, and the supernatural became one?
Will swallowed. If he did not have to hide.
“Spark’s Ritual and Occult Shop. What can I do for you?” Saint greeted him in a bored voice, still half asleep. The moment his gaze fell on Will, his face came alive, and he quickly straightened.
“You came back! I knew you’d miss me.” Grinning, he pushed the unruly curls from his face and leaned one hip against the counter.
“Miss is a strong word for an insolent boy like you.” Mildly amused, Will wandered through the shelves with his hands clasped behind his back.
Saint was far from being a familiar face, but knowing that a kindred spirit waited inside had made it easier for Will to cross the threshold.
During their brief exchange, he had felt more like himself than he had with anyone else in Bloodgrove.
“My friends are talking about you,” Saint said, watching as Will examined a vampire skull.
Will tilted his head, his long, neatly combed braid sliding over his shoulder, and the young man’s gaze caught on it. “What are they saying about me?”
“That you are a powerful mage Duchess Ormonde has claimed for herself. Supposedly, she is searching for a husband.” He phrased the last sentence like a question, then leaned across the counter with a crooked grin. “Has she noticed yet that you anchor in a different harbor?”
Will laughed and returned the vampire skull to the shelf. Here it was so easy just to be and feel seen.
Will was neither a powerful mage nor had he given Elodie any reason to believe he had no interest in her.
Quite the opposite. It unsettled him that the certainty he had felt ever since realizing the nude statues of male angels fascinated him more than those of women was wavering.
That as a grown man who had long since embraced that truth about himself, he now dreamed of taking a duchess to bed.
“Have any of these rumors been confirmed?” Will asked, opening a spellbook.
“Not yet… but I would be happy to help with the last one.” Saint grinned.
On another day, perhaps he would have accepted the offer.
Will had taken young men like Saint as lovers, bending their narrow hips over sinks in certain bars or enjoying how eagerly they took him in dark alleys, behind closed curtains at the theater, or in his own soft bed.
But he could never entirely forget that he had once been one of them, and that his soul still carried scars from those years.
They had been wild times, full of misplaced trust, passionate longing, and dramatic highs and lows. Yet he had never imagined that thoughts of a woman would one day keep him awake.
He glanced toward Saint. Perhaps he should accept the offer. Perhaps loneliness and nightmares had driven him mad.
With sudden resolve, Will snapped the book shut without having read a single line and returned it to the shelf.
“Help me with this list instead.” He pulled the shopping list from his notebook and slid it across the counter.
The wood was so scarred with cuts and gouges that hardly any of its surface remained level.
Saint clicked his tongue, his blackened fingers closing around the page. “Your loss. You know where to find me if the old Ormonde house gets lonely.” Then he skimmed the list, and his eyebrows rose.
Will had expected to feel more nervous, but now that he was here, a strange calm settled over him.
He patiently watched Saint’s sharp face and noticed the line of glittering earrings running along the curve of his ear.
The redhead was beautiful in his own wild way, with freckle-kissed skin and an upturned nose.
Saint pulled a pencil from behind his other ear and marked down some notes beside the list.
“So at least we can confirm one rumor—you are a powerful mage,” he said without looking up from the paper. “How fresh do you need the bones?”
Saint did not so much as blink at the neat entry, human bones, beside harmless items such as shells, scales, pearls, and salt. Elodie had said she wanted magic, and although Will did not fully understand its rules, he knew it demanded sacrifices.
That he had not yet decided whether he would actually use magic was another matter.
“Fresh.” Will doubted there was any morally acceptable way to ask for fresh human bones in a shop like this. But the list had come to him in a dream, whispered by a god who rode upon the long beams of the moon.
“Vampire bones are the freshest I can offer.”
At once, memories of the full-moon night and the horrors of the cellar surged back. Will drew a sharp breath, trying to rid his tongue of the taste of decay and sweat. He would rather breathe in the mixture of soot and incense.
To his relief, Saint laughed. “Eric already told me you disapprove of how we treat vampires.”
“Eric?” For a moment, Will lost control of his expression.
“Mr. Arcos.”
“He talks about me?”
“We all talk about you,” Saint said conspiratorially. “How often do you think a stranger comes to Bloodgrove—especially one like you?”
Will nodded, bewildered. Did Mr. Arcos truly move in the same circles as Saint? Or was he merely a loyal customer for his chimera resurrections?
“The easiest solution would be to ask him to hunt a vampire for you—though he never brings them back in one piece. Perhaps your duchess would be better. She could turn it into a party,” Saint joked as he began gathering the items on Will’s shopping list.
Will only gave a vague hum in response, selected several intriguing-looking vials from the shelves, and added them to the rest of his purchases. Could it be possible that Mr. Arcos visited Saint for other reasons?
“Would you like to choose the scales yourself?” Saint asked, gesturing behind the counter.
“Sure.” Any distraction was welcome, so he followed the young man curiously down a staircase carved into the rock. The smell of fish, algae, and decay weighed down the air as though they were descending underwater.
The moment they reached the bottom step, Will stopped abruptly.
“I really need to stop accepting invitations into cellars.” He groaned and rubbed his eyes as though he could wipe the sight from his vision.
Saint laughed. “That is probably good advice. But don’t worry—nothing illegal happens here.”
Will’s jaw tightened as he tried to erase the shock from his face. Silently cursing the city, he turned toward the vaulted chamber. No wonder Bloodgrove looked like a burned-out skeleton when something vile was rotting in every cellar.
Five cylindrical tanks lined the walls, each nearly tall enough to reach the vaulted ceiling and large enough to hold an adult human with ease. Three were filled to the brim with cloudy green water, illuminated by cool faerie light. Shadows moved sluggishly within them.
Will knew monsters like these only from the fairy tales of his childhood, stories from when he had been so young that his grandmother was still alive and told them to him on stormy nights. Mermaids, sirens, ocean gods, and deep-sea monsters. Tales every child from a fishing village knew.
For a moment, he forgot the horror of their imprisonment and simply marveled.
Hesitantly, he approached the first tank, his boots sliding on the slick tiles.
Before him floated a sea creature no school in the Capitol had ever taught him about.
In place of legs, it had an immense, elongated tail, scaled and muscular, twisting within the narrow container.
Membrane-webbed fingers hung weightlessly in the water, and white hair drifted in thick clouds around its strange face.
Gills beneath its chest rose and fell slowly, while its eyes stared ahead beneath a milky film.
It reminded him of Mr. Arcos’s chimeras—a fusion of human and fish, down to the broad, narrow mouth.
Or of his Albatross.
Saint strolled over and leaned against one of the tanks. His black fingernails clicked rhythmically against the glass. “No need to be afraid—as long as you do not fall asleep.”
Will raised an eyebrow.
“When sailors fall asleep, they hear the sirens singing and throw themselves into the sea. By the time they realize what is happening, it is too late, and they are dragged into the depths in one final dance of pleasure and terror. Supposedly, it is the most beautiful and horrific death. Some even climax before they drown.”
“And how did anyone survive to tell the story?”
Saint’s eyes glittered with mischief. “That is the question, I suppose. But it is a tempting thought… under controlled conditions…”
Will ignored the fantasy and reached toward the glass in fascination. “Do they come to you in dreams as well? Can you see them? Sometimes, when the Albatross—”
He got no farther. The instant his fingers touched the tank, the creature abruptly woke from its trance. Its tail lashed wildly, driving upward against the steel cover. Water sprayed and churned within the few inches of air at the top of the container, while finned arms struck against the glass.
Saint seized Will’s arm and dragged him backward, sending them stumbling into something cold and solid.
Will spun around only to find himself staring directly into a siren’s gaping mouth.
Ropes squealed through pulleys, and the monster swayed toward him.
Will tried to regain his balance, but his boots skidded across the tiles, and with a cry, he crashed to the floor.
The creature was huge. Suspended in the air, it looked almost alive, accompanied by the foaming water inside the tanks.
The butcher’s hooks embedded in its flesh threatened to tear free.
Will scrambled farther backward, his fingers slipping across the film coating the floor.
Only gradually did his mind understand that the animal was dead and that, distracted by the tanks and the cellar’s shadows, he had failed to notice it.
Saint was beside him, gripping him beneath the shoulder and hauling him to his feet.
Cursing, he guided him back up the stairs.
“I am sorry. You will have to return once they have calmed down. I see to it that your purchases are delivered and I will put the cost on Duchess Ormonde’s account. I need to go back down…”
Frustration had replaced his mischief, though it was no greater than a farmer’s irritation at having to round up escaped sheep. Saint tied on a leather apron and disappeared down the stairs again.
Uneasily, Will turned to leave. He was not certain that what he had found in this cellar was much better than the dungeon beneath the full-moon ball.