Chapter 23
Will slept restlessly.
“My beloved,” the darkness whispered. “Oh, my beautiful one. Wake up.”
But Will sank deeper into his pillow, his bed a black sea of living shadows.
The white silk curtains billowed in the wind, and waves rippled across the room, licking at the driftwood bedposts.
Creatures moved through the shallows, fins cutting through the water.
Moonlight glittered on the ocean that covered his room.
“Mother of Pearl, salt of my sea. Wake up.” The dream murmured into his ear, and Will arched into the touch. Water brushed his legs, licking coldly across his skin. But it was not water. It was thousands of black eels, winding around one another, surging and swelling.
“Wake up!”
Will’s eyes flew open.
His nightshirt was soaked with sweat. The window stood open, banging in the wind. Far away, he heard the howling of vampires.
Exhausted, Will rubbed his eyes and tried to banish the sensation of scales against his legs. He was about to collapse into the pillows again, hoping to find a few more hours of sleep, when gooseflesh crept across his arms. Something made him stop, and his weariness fell away.
He stared into the emptiness of the room, dark and deserted.
The fire in the hearth had gone out, a final ribbon of smoke curling into the chimney.
But something older than reason, something that had warned his ancestors of a predator watching from the undergrowth, would not allow him to trust the quiet.
The shadows were dark—too dark. Black as a moonless night when clouds devoured the stars. Black as the endless reaches of space. So dark, and yet so alive. They moved, breathed, and pulsed at the edge of his vision, always just beyond his gaze.
Will reached for the candelabra, and all five candles ignited. Magic crackled through his veins, and he felt the Albatross’s salty breath against the back of his neck. But in this moment between dream and night, he did not question it.
His bare feet sank into the carpet, his heart hammered in his chest, and cold sweat gathered along his back. Everything inside him screamed to run.
Elodie. He had to warn her. Something was wrong.
The door creaked treacherously, the sound echoing through the sleeping house.
The corridor beyond was broad and dark, a black mouth opening onto infinity, devouring every trace of light.
The shadows pressed closer as though they meant to smother the candlelight and reclaim every inch of their realm.
After more than a month in the Ormonde house, Will knew its layout.
He had studied its supports and analyzed its walls, yet he still did not know where Elodie’s bedroom was.
The prickling at the back of his neck drove him onward.
He imagined her lying beneath white sheets, wrapped in innocent sleep, unaware of the danger stalking through the house.
Because he was certain Albatross had woken him with a warning.
His bare feet moved softly over the stone tiles.
Cold ate through his skin, and the phantom of his missing toe ached.
Every sound was unbearably loud. The drop of wax striking the floor.
A loose shutter beating somewhere against the facade.
Floorboards creaking where no one moved.
Will stared at the place for a long time, waiting for the shadows to take shape.
He swallowed. His apartment in the Capitol felt impossibly far away—the charming kitchen and sitting room, the little bedchamber, everything visible from the threshold, always filled with the noise from the street, clattering pipes, and footsteps from the apartment above.
But this house was both too empty and too alive, even on its better nights.
Wind whistled through the cracks like weary breath.
The pale spaces where paintings had once hung were louder than the portraits that watched him with contempt.
And sometimes, when he slipped into the kitchen wrapped in his dressing gown, he thought he heard chains rattling as tormented souls threw themselves against their restraints.
If he had not awakened each morning to tear down every trace of cruelty and brutally claim the house as his own, he would never have been able to sleep at night.
Each evening, he threatened the spirit of the place with demolition down to its foundations, promising to rebuild it in clean white lines, stripped of every lingering soul.
But in this strained silence, he knew something was missing. The spirit of the house had given way to something new.
At the rear of the townhouse, a square stairwell connected every level, from the first floor to the fourth-floor guest rooms where Will slept.
Paintings had once covered every inch of the green wallpaper, but now the walls stood bare, and only a heavy wooden railing surrounded the yawning shaft at its center.
Will held the candelabra over the balustrade and peered down. The drop was dizzying, but he paused. Were the black-and-white tiles at the bottom not usually visible? Now there was only a churning pool of darkness.
Will recoiled, but he was not fast enough.
Snakes shot upward, reaching for him, trying to drag him down into the abyss.
Tentacles wrapped around his arm and struck his chest. Terror lodged his scream in his throat.
Their touch was icy cold, and the power with which they closed around him was immense.
They pulled, and he braced himself against the balustrade with all his strength.
His bare feet could find no purchase. His knees struck the posts, and his hips crashed against the railing.
They coiled around his throat, cutting off his air and threatening to wrench him over the edge.
Their grip around his left arm tightened until his fingers spasmed and he could no longer hold the candelabra. The black band around his wrist drew tighter. With a gasping cry, Will let go.
For one long, terrible moment, the candelabra plunged into the depths, its flames flickering in the rushing air. Then the darkness below swallowed it. The impact was barely audible, reaching Will only as a strange, muffled sound.
But at the same instant, the snakes recoiled. Their grip loosened around Will’s arms and chest, releasing his throat. Twitching but silent, they shot back into the abyss from which they had come.
The candelabra remained behind, its flames still burning.
Panting, Will stumbled backward. The wood bore the marks of his fingernails, but otherwise everything was silent again, as though nothing had happened. He touched his throat and flinched when his fingers met the tender, cold skin.
But this was not the moment to consider how narrowly he had escaped death.
One glance over the railing showed him that the dark mass had not vanished entirely, and the snakes were still dancing beyond the circle of light.
He was certain Elodie was one floor below him, and soon the monster would recover.
He hesitated only briefly before heading for the nearest servants’ passage and descending the narrow staircase.
It was so dark inside that he could barely see his hand in front of his face.
He felt his way forward with his fingers against the wall, his wrist still tender and his nails close to falling off.
Then his foot caught on a floorboard. He pitched forward and tumbled down the rest of the stairs.
Cursing, he came to a stop at the bottom. Every bone ached, and his forehead throbbed where it had struck a stone edge.
“Goddamn it!” His hand came away bloody. Panic simmered beneath the surface of his composure, but he clenched his teeth. Elodie would know what was happening.
Desperation burned inside him, stronger even than the pain, and he raised the bloody finger to his lips and licked it.
“Light. Please.”
He wanted nothing more than a little light. Light the shadows could not steal from him, light that would keep him from breaking his neck.
Suddenly, as though a fold in the fabric of reality had parted, a small sphere of moonlight slipped through. Silver-white, it floated above Will’s hand and illuminated his astonished face. Copper and salt still lingered on his tongue, and a hum vibrated through his bones.
It was so beautiful—cool but not cold, white yet haloed by the colors of a rainbow. Grateful tears burned in his eyes, but he gathered himself again, forced his thoughts under control, and squared his shoulders.
Soon, he reached one of the two remaining corridors still lined with ancestral portraits. Elodie’s rooms had to be here, within this last remnant of grandeur, beneath the gaze of her dreadful ancestors.
Gods, he wished to return to civilization.
A stone tile clicked behind him.
Will spun around. His moonlight tried to illuminate the length of the corridor, but it was not enough.
The far end remained a black mass, a gateway into hell.
Will stared hard into it but could make out nothing.
His heart beat against his throat, every hair on his arms stood on end, and his breath caught.
Seconds stretched into minutes as he stared into the darkness, not daring to turn his back on it. But he was alone. The shadows were only that—shadows.
When he finally exhaled and began to turn toward the nearest door, something changed. He looked into the darkness, and the darkness looked back.
A figure emerged.
No, it did not emerge. It formed. It was created and born from the blackness, from the loneliness of space. It had no face, no recognizable features, no chest rising and falling with breath.
For one or two heartbeats, they stared at each other.
Then everything happened at once. Will turned and sprinted away as the creature raised one arm and sent black snakes racing after him.
Will’s feet struck the floor hard. Portraits flashed past, then doors, but he did not stop. Drawing the monster away from Elodie was the only protection he could offer her. Yet he was not truly thinking that far ahead. He simply ran, carrying his life in his hands.
Cursing, he forced himself to run faster, glancing over his shoulder, when suddenly he collided with something.