26 Imogen #2
“Oh, I agree with you.” He took a swill.
“Well. Good…” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling disarmed. “Speak quickly about what you wanted so that your wife can return and—”
“Imogen.”
The feeling in his voice immobilized me. I watched as he strode around to the far side of his bed and bent to retrieve something. When he straightened, a rusted cage with a black rat sitting behind its bars hung from his fist.
My jaw dropped in disbelief. “Oh my fucking Gods. Not again. Have you seen yourself?” I balled my hands to tight fists. “You look like hell, Theo. You cannot try the spell again.”
He strode toward me as valiant and determined as a knight and set the cage on the table with such force that the rat within gave a scream. “I’ll try it without you, then.”
I lunged for the cage, but he was quicker than I was, snatching it back behind him. I tore at my hair. “Theo, it’s done.” My arms fell to my side, hopeless. “We tried and the spell didn’t take. We need to accept it and move on to the next-best plan.”
“Gods damn you, Imogen. The next-best plan is you making a martyr of yourself.” He set the cage down once more and pressed his palms into his eyes.
It felt like a hand clamped around my throat and squeezed. “Your wife waits to return here so you can perform your duty and you—”
“Stop it.” His broad chest heaved. “We tried to sever this. We’ve tried to do what is right and honor our crowns and I have not pulled in a painless breath since.
” He inclined his head, as if begging. “Guide me once more, Imogen. This cannot be my fate—to miss you for the rest of my miserably long life. Give me the hope of some Godsdamned relief.”
I stood there, on the edge of tears, and the thought filled me like candlelight through a black room: This is precisely how one should be loved. Boldly, madly, shoulder to shoulder against the world and all its dangers.
I stepped closer to him. My gaze darted from his fervid eyes, to his soft mouth, to the scruff on his hard jaw. I ran a finger through the dark bit of hair that hung over his creased forehead. I would want him endlessly. Always.
“One last journey to the gates of hell, then,” I said softly. “Let’s see if they open for us this time.”
His shoulders stooped with relief. We readied ourselves just as we had for the last three nights, pushing the small table in front of the settee aside so we could kneel together on the soft rug.
Theodore set the cage in front of me, grabbed a small bottle of seawater, and lowered himself so we were eye to eye.
“I’ve told you before, this is not a foolproof plan, Theo,” I said.
“Even if it works this time, there are so many things that could go wrong—”
His mood darkened like a snuffed flame. He shoved the cage aside, reached up, and swiped his thumb across my cheek, down my throat. Calloused fingers bumped over my clavicle. I shivered when they traced the upper curve of my breast. Finally, he rested his warm hand directly over my heart.
I thought he would speak; he parted his lips to do so, but in the end, his touch said what he couldn’t. That he knew the risks, that he knew the danger, and that none of that would deter him from trying his damnedest to keep me.
I set my hand over his. “You remember the words?”
Theodore met my eye, disconcerted. “I do, but I’ll read them one more time.”
Before he collected the book, he went to the stateroom door and locked it. He locked all the aft windows too, then came back to kneel before me and our captive rat.
I extended my talons, hiked my skirt, and cut the smallest piece from the soft flesh of my inner thigh.
I felt a bloom of heat where I’d cut myself and saw the skin stitching itself back together.
“Thank you.” I smiled and tried to make my voice light.
“The positive side to your atrocious skill with spell work is that you’ll be too ill after this to consummate your marriage. ”
He was unamused. “It’s working this time.” The pages fluttered as he thumbed through the book.
His fervid belief made my heart ache. “Remember,” I said, “speak the words with intention.” I raised my hand toward him, offering up the little piece of bloody flesh I’d cut.
Concentration lined his face. His lips moved, silently repeating the spell’s words from the page. The ship dipped and rocked and the lanterns above us swung. It was a tense moment before Theodore finally blew out a breath and narrowed his sights on the rat.
“Intention,” he mumbled to himself as he closed his eyes in focus.
“Are you focused on what you want?”
“You.”
“Theo—” I swatted at his knee. “Don’t you dare think of me while performing this spell. Are you ready?”
“Ready.”
I raised my hand to his mouth. His hot tongue swiped across my palm as he took the flesh and choked it down.
Just as I’d done the last three nights, I made a small cut at the end of his finger, squeezing until his blood dripped over the rough bars of the cage then I poured some of the seawater, so it mixed with the blood.
The words, when he finally spoke them, came from low in his chest, and they sounded like a prayer.
“Goetia hecates thantos.”
Then came the terrible moment of waiting.
I sat breathless, glancing between him and the rat, hoping in equal measure that the spell would be a success and a failure. He was slow to open his eyes, or perhaps time began to crawl. We waited. And waited. The rat remained curled around himself, breathing peacefully.
Theodore looked to me and what little color that had remained in his cheeks after three nights of failed attempts began to seep away. I rushed to get the chamber pot, knowing that he’d be sick at any moment.
He hung his head, pressing his fists into the rug. “I’m sorry, Immy.”
I held the pot before him. Shook my head. “Don’t you dare apologize to me.”
A fine sheen of sweat broke out over his face, but the sickness took its time. I swiped at his forehead, caressed his cheek.
He pressed his damp brow into my touch. Pressed his lips to it. “There must be something else in these books. I’ll find something else.”
His relentlessness would shatter me. I needed him to acknowledge the reality of what would come. “Theodore—”
There came a squeak and scratching. We both looked at the cage, where the rat was suddenly scurrying, frantic, with no place to go.
We watched as it walked back and forth, as it set its small claws and yellow teeth into the bars.
It stretched long, and shook, and then finally, it let out a prolonged cheep before it seized and went still.
Neither one of us moved as we stared at the dead rat. “Theo,” I said breathlessly, “Gods, you did it.”
“I—” Even through his exhaustion, his green eyes grew wide and bright.