Chapter 22
Sylvia
Before meeting Delilah, my only firsthand encounter with witches was the coven that had been picking off firstborn sons of a rural town as unwilling fodder in their quest for power. The same coven that I had helped Jon and Cliff eliminate in a brutal affair of pus and dismembered body parts.
With that wretched memory still stirring as Lee steered the car down a remote mountain road, I expected Delilah’s safehouse to be some moss-covered bungalow tucked into a crevice.
But Eros and his people had seen our faces and knew our names; we’d all be damn lucky to even take shelter in a muddy hole in the ground right now.
“Here, my love,” Delilah murmured, setting her hand on Lee’s arm.
He pulled the car to a stop, never mind that we were in the middle of nowhere. The view was breathtaking: towering snow-capped mountains stretched out, overlooking the glittering amber jewel of Aspen below.
I grimaced at the thought of the Crimson Gala guests who were getting out of this entire ordeal with little more than empty luggage.
Fuckers. And more harrowing still, would the event continue on schedule, furthering the exploitation of non-human creatures and cursed objects to only those who could afford the cost of entry?
I tucked the dark, brewing questions to the back of my mind. I was tired, hungry, aching all over. We all were.
Gnawing wind howled as Delilah climbed out of the idling sports car, Lee’s tuxedo jacket clutched around her.
Her long hair was swept by the frigid gusts as she placed her wrist against the rocky wall rising above us.
No, not her wrist—a delicate silver bracelet.
Her lips didn’t move. The jewelry alone seemed to be some sort of key.
In a matter of seconds, a deep resonating crack sounded through the stone. Fissures formed at the rock by her feet, growing upward. Delilah hardly paid it mind as she rushed back into the comfort of the heated car.
“A bit dramatic, isn’t it?” Zia remarked, a teasing lilt to her voice. No doubt she was trying to diffuse the tension that gripped the interior of the car like smog.
“I find flair suits me best when married with function,” Delilah said, still shivering a little.
I heard Jon give a little awed breath as the final pebbles rolled down the pavement.
He and I shared a faint, awed smile as Lee took a sharp turn and drove right through the opening.
Normally, I’d have expected Cliff to reproach Jon for even a moment of admiration for witch magic, but tonight, we’d be lucky if we got more than a single syllable out of him. He had been silent the entire ride.
A low, scraping rumble caught my ear. Behind us, the stone was already reassembling like a vast puzzle of shards and pebbles, obstructing the path forward once more.
Within minutes, the fir trees opened up to reveal a towering home nestled into the mountainside.
“Of all my safehouses, this is one of my favorites. And most recent,” Delilah said. She lifted her right hand and made an elegant motion, and in sync, the floor-to-ceiling windows blinked into life with warm, inviting illumination from within.
Recent. Somehow, that calmed me a bit. She and Lee had planned for the possibility of the plan to go awry. Even if we had escaped without being tailed, there was a comfort in knowing we benefited from their paranoid preparation here.
“How many of these places do you have?” I asked.
“Disclosing that would negate the point of the whole secrecy aspect, wouldn’t it?
” Though weary, she managed to shoot me a soft smirk.
“I’ll admit to ten, on the record. Just don’t think you three can give us a ring to use them as a summer home.
I’ve spent too long perfecting my system to have it fucked up now. ”
I gave a soft snort at that, but almost at once, the notion of staying was tempting. Far from a hovel, her safehouse was a stunning, modern structure towering three stories. Despite the rustic materials that composed the exterior, the spotless glass revealed modern, ample amenities waiting inside.
I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything different, even though she was a witch. If Lee and Delilah were going to hunker down to evade repercussions, they would certainly be doing so in style.
Inside, magic was subtly rooted everywhere.
I wasn’t sure the hunters could feel it the way I did, but Zia and I exchanged intrigued glances as we flew deeper into the house.
The air hummed gently, thrumming as though every other object had been touched by some sort of spellwork.
It wasn’t wicked magic, but it wasn’t all warm and inviting, either.
Singed roses, both bitter and sweet.
Delilah brought us to a row of guest bedrooms on the second floor and instructed us to help ourselves, completing a very half-hearted tour before vanishing up the narrow spiral stairs to the uppermost floor to change.
Lee was hot on her heels, still cradling an unconscious Ben in his left hand.
He slipped his free arm around her back; she’d tried to hide it, but she was wincing every time she put weight on her injured leg.
“Wait, what the hell?” Jon’s voice turned my head.
I swerved closer to him, followed tightly by Zia and Rowan as Jon stood before one of the guest bedrooms, mouth agape.
Warm lamplight illuminated a spacious single suite with a queen bed. The air shivered with fresh magic, bedsheets fluttering as if they were just settling.
The bedding, the wallpaper—all of it held shades of ocean blue and forest green.
Our shared favorite colors. The wall boasted framed posters of the dearest movies he had shared with me, and there was even a stocked bar with rare rum and small-batch beers that he wandered to at once, marveling at the labels.
I was certain I’d find even more personal touches for us both when I took the time to explore.
Hopefully, clothes were somewhere in here.
Having been forced to abandon our vehicle outside the hotel, we’d sacrificed everything we’d stored in the trunk—weapons, clothes, my stash of trinkets I’d collected from motel rooms over the months.
I flew down the hall to the next room to confirm whether Cliff’s was also perfectly outfitted to suit his taste.
His room, to my surprise, was rather… tame.
Despite the tension lingering between us like a stain, a part of me was prepared to laugh when I stumbled into a veritable brewery-turned-bedroom. But that was not the case.
Part of me was not even sure it was his until I saw the way his face changed when he tentatively stepped into the room.
The walls were a dusty rust color, with a plush armchair by a floor-to-ceiling window covered with long, velvet curtains.
Hazy images of landscapes were framed on the wall.
Upon closer inspection, I saw that these were all places we had passed through at one point or another on our journey.
The blurred edges of each still picture almost made it seem like they’d been pulled straight from his memory.
All of it was seemingly built for comfort and quiet. I gave Cliff a sidelong, curious stare as he pulled back the heavy curtains to peer outside.
Hearing Zia give a cry of delight, I peered into the next room and found it absolutely bursting with greenery. It may as well have been a contained forest, vines crawling along the walls.
“Isn’t it lovely?” Zia gasped, squeezing Rowan’s arm.
He shrugged, his face a mask of something that could only be described as a begrudgingly impressed glare. His dark eyes caught on a flowering plant in the corner, and his mouth twitched like he was wrestling back a smile.
I flew down the hall to look into the last door on the right, the only guestroom unoccupied. This one was dark, unremarkable, as though it knew its guest had not yet arrived.
I knew who it would belong to.
Resting my hand on the doorway, I wondered what it would look like when Father returned with Hazel and Mother. Iris wallpaper to suit Mother’s favorite flowers? Blue hues on the bedding and carpets that matched Father and Hazel’s eyes?
The image of him sat heavily in my mind. He was coming back. Would he really have them with him?
Have they known all this time?
A stab of jealousy panged me as I thought of Hazel and Mother knowing of Father’s miraculous resurrection months before me. How long had they been reunited?
But to be fair, I was the one who went and got banished from Elysia and ran away with two human monster hunters.
We would certainly have a lot to talk about, but almost everything paled in comparison to the news that Hazel was officially an animal affinity.
The thought made me swell—first with pride, then with the threat of tears.
I’d always had my suspicions, of course, but I desperately wished I had been there the moment my sister discovered it.
Swallowing hard, I pulled away from the empty room after imagining it with a wide window, one where Hazel could watch the birds swooping through the air.