Chapter 40
Lucina
Light burns into my closed eyes, and I sit up with a wince, my head pounding and my throat dry.
I crack my eyes open and squint against the glow. It takes a second for my vision to focus, but when it does, I realize with slight embarrassment that I’m on the couch in Salem’s room.
Worse, there’s a blanket thrown over my body and a trash can on the floor beside me.
I groan at the sharp pain in my neck, a consequence of falling asleep on one of the round, frilly throw pillows. I’ve made it all the way to a sitting position before realization dawns.
The sun?
There’s a beam of it searing me right between the eyes. Upon further inspection of the open window, it’s the only stream of light through the overcast sky smothering Streatham. I’d be more grateful for it if my brain wasn’t throbbing.
Pulling the blanket back, I scan the table beside me, noting the empty decanter and what I’m assuming is my glass tipped over on its side.
When I see the silver medallion beside it, a dread settles in my stomach, worsening my hangover with nausea added to the mix.
At the grating sound of curtain hooks scraping metal rods, I whirl around, watching with a grimace as the Hound pulls back the rest of the drapes.
He’s already overdressed and ready for breakfast—his all-black ensemble wrinkle-free and tailor-fit. I’m not even sure how he found suits with the sleeves and pant legs as long as they’d need to be.
There isn’t a morsel of exhaustion beneath his blue eyes even though we stayed up most of the night working out the kinks of our plan.
The end of our discussion is a bit blurry, the details swimming somewhere in my whiskey-riddled brain, but in the end, we ended up with something solid.
Risky, but doable.
“Good morning,” he drawls out, knowing it’s anything but.
I grumble something incoherent, a curse probably, then swing my legs over the side of the couch.
I’d slept in my boots and all my weapons. Though I suppose that’s better than waking up without them. Squinting in his direction, I press my palm into my forehead, stupidly hoping it will settle the pounding there. It doesn’t.
“Is this one of your torture techniques?” I ask him.
“You gave yourself that hangover.”
“And you're intentionally making it worse.”
“No,” he corrects me. “The only beam of sunlight in Streatham is perfectly lined up with your position on the couch. That’s not my torture. That’s Fate telling you to get up.”
I snort, forcing myself to stand. “Agree to disagree.”
Salem shakes his head. “It’s not torture.” His gaze drifts to the window. “If I had forced you into a hangover, tied you to a chair and sewn your eyes open, you might have an argument, but even then you—”
He quiets abruptly when he notices the look of revulsion on my face.
“It’s not torture,” he sighs.
“Apparently not.”
I make a mental note to never mention torture around the Hound again and cautiously make my way over to the window—keeping one eye on him.
The crumbled city of Streatham comes into view, and with how high the Estate rises, I can see all the way to the border of the continent. The barren plains of Griseo stretched flat on the horizon line.
I suppose when the city wasn’t a pile of ashes and stone, the view from this window was probably beautiful. Exceptionally beautiful at night, I’m sure. For a moment, I get lost in imagining the twinkle of lights. Soft music drifting up from the cobblestone streets.
Swallowing against the rising nausea, I absorb the rare beam of sunlight. If it really was Fate, then I’m assuming she wants me to have it.
As the warmth funnels into my veins, I can almost imagine being with Gemma by the lake, halfway through a pitcher of some fruity cocktail that she’s come up with. As wild as it was, I miss the summer. I miss those moments where everything felt…normal.
It’s the same way I miss summers in Draycott with Ivy or playing in the woods as a kid with Jude.
I turn from the window when enough heat buzzes beneath my skin to flush my cheeks, restoring life into the achy shell I woke up in. “Can I use your bathroom?” I ask him.
Salem looks over at me from where he stands—propped against the bed with his arms folded over his chest. Wordlessly, he gestures to the door on the opposite side of the room.
I’m positive that I stink. It’s been what? Two, three days?
I’ve been running around the Estate, sleeping in broom closets, burning bodies in the woods, and being Snared within an inch of my life. I’m surprised someone like him, with his supernatural sense of smell, didn’t throw me into a bathtub yesterday.
“I’m going to take a bath,” I tell him. “Are you…?” I give his appearance a once-over.
He looks ready to walk out the door. Shoes laced, cuff links and belt included. His hair is brushed back, so dark it’s almost blue, and I’m pretty sure he shaved. The ivory skin on his jaw is more prominent without yesterday’s stubble.
Salem settles back against the mattress and squares his shoulders towards the window. “I’ll wait here.”
“I’ll be quick.”
He shakes his head. “Take your time.”
I pause before entering the bathroom, brow quirked as I turn back to face him. “Are you saying I stink?”
Salem doesn’t even look my way. “Terribly.”
Maybe it’s the brutal honesty, the bluntness in his tone, or the lingering whiskey in my system, but a laugh bursts out of me. It’s louder than I had anticipated, and he looks over at me at the sound.
“Sorry,” I shake my head, swallowing against more laughter. “That’s…funny.”
His head tilts. “Being told you stink?”
“No,” another laugh slips out, “your repulsion to lying. It’s brutal but…refreshing.”
Salem’s expression goes blank, and I push through the bathroom door before he can say anything else, shutting it with a soft click behind me.
The bathroom, of course, is just as hauntingly beautiful as the bedroom is—gilded crown molding, cream paneled walls, a crooked painting hanging over a massive clawfoot tub. There’s a small window on the adjacent wall, and the short curtain hanging above it has been pulled back too.
The faucet squeaks as I turn it, and while the tub fills, I peel off each layer of my uniform, doing my best to dodge my reflection in the mirror hanging above the sink. Imagining what I’d see there is horrific enough.
The soapy water is lukewarm when I step into it, and as soon as I’m submerged, I use a generous portion of my replenished Sol magic to heat it. I’ve always preferred my showers and baths hot, but right now I’d like it to be scalding.
The hotter it is, the more it will burn away.
I soon realize I’m sitting rod straight, far too much tension in my shoulders for a bath, so I force myself through a deep breath and lean back against the cool porcelain.
Relaxing on a day like this one feels selfish, but so was drinking enough to be hungover.
I couldn’t help it. Salem and I were finalizing our plan, something that should have held all my attention, but I’d see my medallion on the table, and my thoughts would drift to why I put it there.
I’d get sick to my stomach, and I wouldn’t hear whatever Salem had said about killing the sources or breaking open cages, and I guess I just…thought the whiskey would help.
It certainly helped me forget that my necklace wasn’t around my neck. Or that the man I’m in love with may or may not have known about the Lure. That he might have known this whole time and let me be drawn to him over and over—like a stupid moth to a handsome flame.
Only if the flame could tell the moth that it might not be attraction, but confusion. Magic. A higher power.
Except the moth doesn’t know if the flame even knows, cause she’s stuck on one side of a blood ward and asking “Did you know about the Lure?” through a blinking star feels like a damning question. One the moth isn’t sure she wants the answer to.
I sink beneath the soapy water.
I must still be drunk.
And fucking selfish.
There are at least a hundred Sol downstairs that are counting on me today. Specifically, my mental clarity and capability.
Pre-magic Lucina might have let her brain be meddled with by a boy, but post-magic Lucina will not. She has too many responsibilities. Too many people counting on her.
I break the surface of the water, the air in the bathroom thick with steam. I’m diligent with the soap, not because Salem told me to be, but because I desperately need it. I scrub every square inch of my body, then I wring out the dirt and sweat that’s accumulated in my hair.
Positive that I’ve washed every inch, I pull the drain and stand, suds sliding down my body as I reach for the towel hanging on the wall. I wrap it around myself and squeeze out the ends of my hair, crossing my fingers that there’s a forgotten hairbrush in one of the vanity drawers.
As Fate would have it—generous as she is sometimes—when I pull back the top drawer, there’s a soft-bristled brush beside a tray of old cosmetics.
It’s silver-plated, tarnished, and heavy enough to be a weapon, I think, as I weigh it in my hand.
I pull my damp hair around my shoulders and wince at the tangled curls.
Gently, I begin pulling apart the matted bits with the tip of the brush, noting that the dark circles beneath my eyes are much worse than they usually are.
I just look…tired.
Physically, I’m fine, but this is a different kind of exhaustion. It’s seeping into my skin from the inside, darkening my features and hollowing my cheeks.
Tearing my gaze from the mirror, I put the brush down, leaning against the counter with my palms pressed into the marble surface. I glance at the pile of clothes on the floor—my Ajax uniform—lying in a black puddle by the door.
The idea of putting it back on makes me want to take another bath. Maybe I could find something decent in the massive closet I hid in the other night. Preferably something that isn’t a ballgown or an embroidered parka.
My gaze drifts back to the sink, abruptly stopping on the hairbrush.