Chapter 40 #2
At first, I’m not sure what I’m looking at. It’s like my eyes have noticed something my brain hasn’t yet, but when it does register, I push off the counter and stumble back a step.
I’d set the brush down on its bristles, revealing the back of its casing. It’s silver, like the handle, with a monogram etched into the center. I hold my towel tight across my chest, my bare feet frozen on the tile.
EVR
All I hear for a moment is the quiet drip of the faucet. I scan the bathroom, pulling a hand towel off a silver hook. I hold it out, noting the gold thread embroidered into the cream-colored fabric.
EVR
Gods.
My heart begins to pound. I push through the bathroom door and into the bedroom, rushing in with such urgency that Salem jumps up from his seat on the couch.
“What’s going on?” I vaguely hear his voice as I shoulder past him and towards the closet.
I throw the doors open wide and storm in, rushing to the nearest rack to begin rifling through all the fine clothing. I pull at heavy jackets and layered skirts, a lump settling in my throat as I go.
It doesn’t even register that he’s followed me into the closet until the Hound says from somewhere behind me, “I could have brought you clothes.”
I whirl around to face him, shoving a green dress into his chest. “What does it smell like?”
“What?” He takes the hanger and holds the garment out of my reach, as if he’s worried about what I might do to it.
There’s concern and skepticism all over his face, his attention falling to the water I’ve tracked across the hardwoods. More of it drips off the ends of my hair, splashing onto my heels when it hits the ground.
“The dress,” I whisper, my stern gaze meeting his confused one. “What does it smell like? Who did it…belong to?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Try,” I beg, swallowing against the tightening of my throat. “Just try. Please.”
Salem stares back at me for a long moment, and I can tell he’s trying desperately to understand. It’s the most serious I’ve ever seen him, aside from the night he told me the truth about Rogues.
No matter how serious the topic, he’s almost always teetering on the edge of a smirk, so casual with the way he talks about things. I suppose that’s an attitude reserved for immortals—desensitized to our silly human afflictions.
But not this.
Whatever he’s seeing as he looks at me has stumped him. I’ve cracked his usual smug confidence, and I’m about to ask him again when he exhales, slowly lifting the fabric to his nose.
He holds my gaze as he inhales, brows furrowing as he breathes in the scent. Then I watch his fingers tighten on the bunched fabric.
“High-ranked,” Salem says finally, breaking my stare as if to increase his focus. “Sol…”
Blue eyes flick up to mine, and my stomach sinks at the recognition in them.
I nod, spinning around the closet, taking in the sight of her wardrobe. Of the skirts and smocks and ballgowns she’d worn. All pristine and fit for someone grand.
Stumbling out of the closet, Salem lowers the dress, following me into the bedroom.
The light coming in through the windows is tinted grey, but I imagine it flooded with an unrestrained golden sun.
I imagine the windows open at the start of spring, cream colored curtains billowing out over the hardwoods.
I imagine her reading by the window with a fire in the hearth.
A room that was once perfectly hers and perfectly safe.
“Lucina?”
The peaceful image fades, replaced by a skeleton of a once-grand space without the stunning color and vibrancy I imagined. The bed, the quilt, the pillows. The old books and the couch I slept on last night…
Salem still has the dress clutched in his fist. “These rooms…”
“Belonged to my mother.” As soon as the words leave my lips, a laugh tumbles out after them, and as if my emotions weren’t twisted enough, my eyes well with tears.
In the periphery of my blurred vision, Salem stiffens, his attention frozen in my direction.
Realizing how uncomfortable this probably makes him, I quickly wipe the tears from my face. With the manic laughter, the overconsumption of whiskey, the towel I’m still wrapped in…he has every right to think I’m insane. Gods, maybe I am.
I open my mouth to apologize, but he beats me to it.
“I’m sorry.”
My brows furrow. “What?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner,” Salem shrugs, “that these were your mother’s rooms.” He looks down at the dress, then back up at me. “Can I tell you a secret?”
It catches me so off guard that my tears dry up instantly. I turn to face him. “You want to tell me a secret?”
“It isn’t my deepest,” he whispers. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
And now I want to know what his deepest secret is.
Putting a pin in that information, I nod in confirmation, “Hopes are low.”
Salem dips his chin, laying the dress at the foot of the bed, and tucks both hands into his pockets as he straightens. “When I said the King is in control of my freedom, I meant the King is in control of my power—or the blade I draw it from,” he amends. “Sena is how I…replenish.”
“A knife?” I clarify, and he nods.
Interesting.
“If I had Sena and the entirety of my magic, I would have known the second I stepped into this room that it didn’t smell like you.
It smelled like someone related to you. The Countess and her inner circle fear me because of who I am, but in actuality, I’m a fraction of the Hound without Sena.
The snaring and the magic I used to snap that guard's neck in the dungeon…that’s the extent of what I have right now.
Without my blade to replenish it, when it runs out, it runs out. ”
I blink back at him, trying to absorb his confession without letting fear follow it in.
I’ve been relying on his magic to free the Captures, and he just told me it’s dwindling. The power he doesn’t have isn’t his fault, but he and I are business partners—his inability to carry out our plan is my concern.
“But what about the Sol?” I ask. “What about the cages?”
Salem shakes his head, dismissing the worry. “I’ll rip them open if I have to.”
I fold my arms across my damp towel, suddenly more aware of my bare legs and the water droplets falling down them.
“I should get dressed,” I blurt out, taking hurried steps towards the bathroom. “But your secret is safe with me.” I pause in the doorway, turning back to face him. “What is your deepest?”
The Hound looks thrown off by the question. “My deepest?”
“Secret,” I clarify. It’s a shot in the dark, and I’m almost positive he won’t tell me, but my curiosity decided it was worth asking.
A slow smile spreads across his face, the blue in his eyes holding mine hostage. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”
I huff a laugh. “You have the courage to say it out loud? What’s that like?”
Salem shrugs. “Freeing,” he admits.
My amusement fades at the simplicity in his one-word answer. At how casually he delivered it.
Freeing.
He breaks our eye contact and pushes off the bedpost. “Get dressed, Killer. We have sources to bleed.”
“You’re walking funny.”
“Excuse me?” I mutter, nearly tripping over the end of my curtain robe.
The halls of the Estate are busier than usual, servants bustling about as the Countess’s circle begins filing into the dining room for dinner.
“I said you’re walking funny,” Salem repeats, dropping his voice to a whisper, “like you’re trying to hide yourself.”
“I am trying to hide myself,” I snip back, glaring up at him from beneath the black fabric draped over my head.
“Well, don’t make it so obvious,” he tells me, sliding in front as we approach the dining room doors.
I roll my eyes at his back, tempted to push my boot into the crook of his knee like Jude used to do to me when we were kids. It always made me stumble, and if he did it hard enough, I’d fall flat on my face.
Something tells me the Hound wouldn’t fall so easily.
Forcing down a deep breath, I urge my racing heart to settle and keep close behind as he turns towards the double doors. There’s a guard posted at each side of the entrance, but they pay us no mind as we pass over the threshold.
Salem goes right, and I go left.
The Hound takes his seat at the end of the dining table, and I head straight for the kitchens, mercifully switching into autopilot.
The Countess is the only one who turns her head in my direction as I pass, but the weight of her stare settles uncomfortably on my skin. Cold and sharp and suspicious.
Glass shatters, and the Countess’s attention darts in the direction of the sound.
“Oops,” Salem says, and I hear the scurry of servants swarming in to clean up whatever mess he’s just made.
I take advantage of the distraction and hurry across the dining room, pushing open the door to the kitchens. I’m not even all the way inside when the Umbra grabs my bicep and hauls me up to her face.
My hood falls away, and the stare she pelts me with doesn’t threaten death; it guarantees it.
“Alesi,” she sneers, releasing my arm like she’s discarding a bag of trash.
I stumble back a step, strengthening my illusion.
“You’re like a godsdamn cockroach. Just when I think I’m rid of you, you come crawling out of whatever hole you hide in.”
Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I take a quick scan of the busy kitchen, and when I look back at the Umbra, she’s observing the black cape I’m wearing a little too closely.
“The Hound sent me,” I force out, effectively capturing her attention.
Her dark lips purse. “Sent you?”
“I was trying to run away, and he found me. He sent me back here to apologize,” I tell her, dipping my eyes in an attempt to look shameful. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting, Umbra, and he’s right. You deserve more respect.”
Something in the Umbra’s face brightens, her lips spreading into a conspirator's smile. “The Hound told you to say that?”
I nod. “He’s…pretty fond of you, I guess.” Gods, I hate that this is working. “He said I should appreciate you more.”
Really, he said, flattery goes a long way. To which I said, this has nothing to do with flattery and everything to do with the way these women are quietly intrigued by you.