Chapter 26 Gardening
GARDENING
The apprentices stared down at the gold statue like it was a puzzle that needed solving. One—Michael?—scratched his head, and another—John?—rubbed his jaw. Their cluelessness was reassuring. Apollo would rather them not figure out what had happened.
“Are you well here for a moment?” he asked Sybil.
He’d sat her in Stone’s office and wrapped her in his greatcoat, and now he squatted before her, stroking her arms. She nodded, a distant look in her eyes that worried him.
“I’m going to talk with the others. Make up something about Stone. Do you have any requests?”
Hiding her mouth behind the collar of the coat, she said, “Not me. It can’t be me. Lie, Apollo.”
“What else would I do, love? Do you want to come with me?”
She thought, then shook her head. “N-not because I’m scared or… or think it’s your place to do so or… or anything like that. I… I just can’t seem to stop shaking. Once I’m better, I’ll boss the apprentices about all day long.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He squeezed her arms with a gentle, confident smile. Another lie. Because as he stood and left the office, he felt nothing but grim determination.
The apprentices looked up as he reached their circle.
“What the hell happened?” one asked.
“Well, Michael—”
“John. He’s Michael.” The apprentice shoved a thumb at the other man.
“Well, John, the master alchemist got what he wanted. He learned how to turn lead into gold.”
John nudged the statue with the toe of his boot. Stone’s face, yellow and shiny, was contorted somewhere between awe and horror.
“What really happened?” Michael asked.
Apollo put his boot on Stone’s mouth, pushed. “He kidnapped Miss Grant. He was tormenting her, trying to force her to do something she couldn’t.”
“You said she’d figured it out,” John said.
“I lied. I’ve been working for Temple Grant, trying to drive Stone mad to ensure his sister’s safety.”
“Bloody hell,” Michael whispered.
Apollo lifted his boot, but the impression of his heel remained, a light dent around the gold man’s thin lips.
“I’m not sure what happened, but at some point during his ranting, he turned lead to gold.
Shocked me. Shocked him, too, and Miss Grant used the opportunity to make an escape, which did not please your master.
I was not pleased he tried to hurt her, and there was a…
scuffle. Then the prototype was disturbed and all the gold dust inside it puffed up into the air.
Stone inhaled it, and then… well, as you see. ” He waved toward the pure gold body.
The apprentices looked at the prototype gold, lifeless on the worktable, shivered, then scooted farther away from it.
“I don’t wonder anymore,” Apollo drawled, “why no man’s ever passed down exact knowledge of the transmutational arts. They likely never live to do so. Hm. It does make me wonder about one thing, though.”
The apprentices’ wide eyes were riveted on him.
“Can’t say I’ll be able to pass a golden statue ever again without thinking…”
The apprentices shivered again.
“What do we do now?” John asked.
Apollo didn’t hesitate to answer. “Talk to Temple Grant.”
Michael returned to scratching his jaw. “He was asking round about us this morning.”
“He’s a traitor,” Michael said.
“And a bore, if you ask me.” Apollo rolled up his sleeves and tucked his shirt in. “But he’s not mad, and his sister didn’t deserve any of this.” He buttoned his loose waistcoat. “I know you gentlemen agree.”
They nodded as if their lives depended on it.
“Excellent.” He slapped them on the shoulders. “Good men. Now, I must get the lady to a safer place.”
John straightened. “Of course.”
Michael still looked unsure. “What do we do with the body?”
Apollo turned to the office, to Sybil. “Melt it down for all I care. Could likely fund food for an entire village. Would be an honorable end for a dishonorable life.” He didn’t wait to hear their response to that.
He gathered Sybil and helped her into a floating chamber.
Arm around her waist, her head resting against his chest.
The museum above ground was waking up, its corridors gray in the early morning, but still it was something of a shock when they stepped outside and into sunlight. His greatcoat swallowed her, but he slipped his hand inside, pulled out his green glasses and pushed them behind her ears.
When her nose wrinkled, he said, “It’s bright out, princess. Indulge me.”
She did, and he indulged himself, too. Because he didn’t want to part from her yet. Couldn’t. His lodgings were so very close, and she followed him silently down the street, around the corner, and up the stairs.
He hesitated at his door, though. It felt like opening up his chest and letting her into the messy, dusty tomb behind his ribs. It was that or let her go, though. So he opened the door.
She perked up inside, coming away from his body, looking around, the slight tremble that had coursed through her finally ceasing. “This is where you…”
“Yes. I know it’s an intimidating amount of luxury, but you’ll acclimate yourself to it. I barely notice it anymore.” He guided her to the one fucking chair. “Sit.”
She shook her head and left his side to inspect the room.
Her fingers trailed everywhere, and on one—a golden ring.
Made from his gold. He knew it, knew it without knowing it.
His. The rough-hewn ring on his own finger tingled as if excited by the proximity of its mate.
Or was that Apollo, not the ring? Apollo grateful to have Sybil here, alive and well, even if it was here, a place he’d never wanted anyone to see.
She smoothed the tattered curtain on the single window and traced the pattern of the rotting wallpaper.
She circled the rim of the chipped and stained washbasin and studied her reflection in the tiny, wavering looking glass.
She brushed a fingertip through the dust on the dresser and up the spines of the few books gathered there.
Principles of Alchemy.
And a book without a title.
This she pulled out gingerly as she looked over her shoulder at him. “May I?”
“Yes.” If it would help her heal. Anything if it would help her.
Now she found the chair and sat in it, absentmindedly, as she opened the book. The journal.
Her mouth hitched into a curve. “Details of the perfect herb garden,” she read aloud. Then she flipped the page and read more. “Recipe for peaceful days.” She flipped another page. “Plants that enjoy light conversation.”
“Aloe is on there.”
“I see.” She closed the book and settled it on her lap, running her hand across the battered cover. “This is the journal you told me about. The one that belonged to your grandmother.”
“It is.”
“It’s beautiful. Do you ever feel…”
“I try not to.” He gave a half-hearted laugh.
She lifted a brow. “Do you ever feel, Apollo, as if you belong to your grandmother? As if… perhaps… she tended your soul as warmly as you tend to your plants? Even though you never met her.” She was whispering by the time she finished speaking
He opened his mouth to respond, but not a single irreverent syllable obeyed his command.
She replaced the book and came to him, stood very close but did not touch him. “What do we do now?”
She looked to him for an answer as much as the apprentices had earlier. He wanted to give her one, to be the kind of man she could come to when sick or troubled or simply indecisive, the kind of man she could count on not just to pleasure her, but to care for her… her heart.
He studied his room—the bed, the wallpaper, the one fucking chair. And it didn’t seem so dingy, so shameful anymore. It seemed like good solid soil to grow in. If he could get some light, he’d have everything he needed.
Transmutation.
And Sybil shone brightly.
But she insisted he did too.
Plenty of light then.
He took her hands, hesitantly at first then with greater confidence, and he kissed one and then the other. A smile trembled on her lips.
“I’m going to take you to Bloomsbury Square. To Temple.” He smoothed the wrinkle between her brows when it popped into existence. “And then I’m going to figure out exactly who Mary Sullivan is.”
Her mouth parted on an inhale, curved with pleasure.
She hugged him, and he hugged her back, and the tangle of arms, the press of beating hearts so near to one another was more perfect than the hottest kiss.
But it wasn’t enough. Not for long. And when the desire to do more hit him, he released her, opened the door.
“Can I escort you home, princess?”
She linked her arm through his, and the walk through the early morning light was brighter than it had been just a half hour before. They walked slowly, each lazy step a purposeful delay. He told her the story he’d given the apprentices, and she told him about her visit with the queen.
“Do you think everyone will buy it?” he asked. “That he accidentally turned himself to gold?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “They’d rather believe that than the idea a woman holds such power.”
Silence but for the sounds of a city coming alive.
Then: “You did that, Sybil.”
“I know. I think you helped.”
“I say we don’t do it again.”
She shook her head. “We absolutely do not do it again.”
“Do you… want to tell anyone? What you can do? Because it’s not the machine, Sybil. It’s not. It’s—”
“Me. But how?”
“Hell if I know. Do you want to figure it out?”
“Yes. I… I feel a bit like Mary Sullivan myself right now. I need to know myself, need to understand whatever it is I can do.”
“I’ll help you. We don’t have to tell a soul. Just you and me.”
“Like old times.”
“Indeed.” Like all of time. He hoped.
Her throat bobbed. “I-I-I k-killed him.”
He stopped them mid step and cupped her face in his hands. “Hush, love.” He kissed her softly, chastely.
“I did.”
“Blame me.”
“I can’t.”
He understood that. Better to take responsibility.
“You had to.” He set them back toward Temple’s terrace.
“We have both now killed, tried to, but you did so to save yourself.” In a twisted way he’d been trying to save himself, too.
But it was better to let that old self die.
The Marquess of Fordham would never have met Sybil.
“I don’t think it will make it easier for you. ”
She watched their shuffling feet for several slow steps, then she looked up at him, that chin set with firm determination. “I do not intend to feel guilty for very long. I likely saved his wife. Can you imagine being married to that man?”
He kissed the top of her head. “God you’re ruthless. I love it.”
“Love,” she whispered. “Did you mean it… in the forge?”
“Yes.” Another whisper, though it was the truest thing he’d ever said. True things seemed fragile. He didn’t want to break it.
Temple’s terrace came into view, a column of bright marble in the distance.
She slowed, and he wanted to, but he sped them up until they were right in front of his door. He pulled the collar of his jacket snug around her neck, and he tipped her chin up with his knuckles.
“I’m a liar. There’s no reason to trust me. But I’m not lying about that. I never will. If there’s one pure truth in my life, it’s that, Sybil. And I don’t want you to doubt that, though I understand if you do.”
“No, Apollo, I—”
“Wait.” He clenched his hands in to fists to keep from reaching for her. Not right now. Not yet. “I do not know how you feel about me, and—”
“Apollo.”
“—that’s well and good. Whatever it is you feel, I want to earn it. I don’t want you spitting out some nonsense because we’ve just been through hell and back, because we have secrets together, because you think you’re ruined or something absurd like that.”
“I’m not ruined.”
“Of course not, but… let me earn you. I mean… I m-mean…” Holy Hades, it was difficult to get the words out. He swallowed, tried again. “I mean let me try to earn you. Will you? Let me do that?”
The step she took toward him was so very small, but her body listed forward at the same time, and she lifted her chin even higher, lifted to grant him the most kissable smile he’d ever seen.
And scoundrel that he was, he would sup from it on the street in broad daylight as long as she damn well let him.
The door was flung open.
But Sybil did not flinch. Still she lifted her smile, their chests almost touching with every inhalation.
“Sybil!” Temple’s gruff voice. “Good God, you’re free.”
She licked her lips, holding Apollo’s gaze.
Almost a dare, and when he didn’t take it, she faced her brother.
“I am free, and I will remain so, and I have much to tell you. But first you must know that this man”—she pointed a defiant thumb in his direction—“is going to court me. Properly. And with a very clear purpose toward marriage. When he comes to the door, you will let him enter, and when he finally asks Father for my hand, you will not object.”
Apollo dared a glance at Temple, unable to keep the laugh from his lips. The poor older brother looked like Sybil had just hit him in the face with his own hammer.
Good God, she was a menace. A bloody beautiful menace.
Temple finally controlled his face and said, “I do not think he’s on the queen’s list of potential suitors for you.”
“The queen gave you a list?” Apollo asked. Good God. She’d never approve.
Sybil threw her shoulders back. “Then I’ll add him to it.”
Temple slumped against the door, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I figured something of the sort might happen after he showed up here yelling that he loved you.”
“You did?” Sybil hung on Apollo’s arm, her chin digging into his muscle.
“Perhaps.” Apollo scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t remember.”
“How terribly romantic.”
“Go inside, princess. You need sleep.”
“So do you.”
Too true. “I will.” He pulled away from her, every bone in his body reluctant to let go. But he had to. “But then I have some gardening to do.”
Sybil nodded. She understood. “Good luck, Mary Sullivan.”
Apollo set his steps down the street, and Temple’s voice carried after him.
“Who’s Mary Sullivan? And since when does Apollo Chester garden?”
Next Apollo heard Sybil’s laughter rise into the sky, pure and golden and perfect.