Chapter 3
Uneasy Feeling
“Hey.” A worried voice, masked in lightness. “It’s time to stop teasing me now, lovely. Come back. Come back, or I’m going to be really annoyed with you.”
I groaned.
I forced my eyes open, if only to reassure him I was okay.
The instant I did, my head exploded in pain.
For long-feeling seconds I could only lie there, gasping, my hand on my forehead as the pain peaked, then slowly began to recede. When I’d finally recovered enough to be able to think, I looked up to find Alaric’s face just above mine.
His fingers squeezed where he held my bicep in a warm hand.
“Leda, gods, are you all right? Oh, Eye of Ra. Your nose…”
I tensed at the horror in his voice, then, hearing him belatedly, lowered my hand to my mouth and nose. I touched the skin tentatively, already smelling a whiff of copper. When I pulled my fingers away, they were stained red.
The dungeon returned to the spaces behind my eyes.
I tasted blood, and briefly, I wondered if it was his.
I grimaced at the thought. Gods, what was wrong with me? Of course it was mine. Bones wasn’t here. I wasn’t in that dungeon. It was just more chimaeras, more lies.
Even so, I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. Again.
“Fuck,” I choked out.
I wiped my nose and mouth, first on my fingers, then on a handkerchief Alaric handed me. I squeezed my eyes shut, forced my mind and emotions behind shields.
I willed the images away, the smells, the sounds of harsh breaths, that crushing grief and despair and pain that felt devastating and endless.
Breathing slowly and deeply, I fought to bring my heart under control, then my mind, and my magic.
I felt guilty for shoving away the rest, but it was all I could do. I couldn’t handle anything else.
Slowly, I opened my eyes a second time.
Clenching my jaw, I pulled myself upright with Alaric’s help, and leaned against the velvet back of the blue couch. I focused on the coffee table, but I already knew what I’d see.
It was over. The radio’s light had dimmed.
The hooded figure was gone.
“I’m not sure we should continue doing this,” Alaric said, watching me worriedly. “Leda, you went into a trance. Your eyes went totally white. You looked like––”
I cut him off, not really wanting to know what I’d looked like, or watch him struggle to describe it to either of us.
“Alaric, I’m fine. Honestly.” I smiled, and hoped it was convincing. “I’m sorry I scared you. I don’t think anyone saw me. It didn’t feel like they did.” I fought to think, to remember how it felt. “I saw something this time. More than before.”
I felt him hesitate, wanting to ask. I felt his guilt again, too.
“Did you see who he was?” he asked.
I shook my head, maybe a little too quickly. “No. But I might have seen where they were.”
I spent the next however-long describing the place I’d seen.
I tried to remember every detail, even inconsequential things.
I could tell it wasn’t enough, even before I’d finished speaking.
Alaric hadn’t said a word while I described what I’d seen, not even to ask any questions, but I could feel the disappointment on his aura.
“Did your chimaera record it?” he asked, only after I’d finished.
I hesitated, then nodded. “It should have, yes.” I hesitated a second time. “You don’t recognize it, then? The place I saw?”
Alaric sighed. “Unfortunately, it could be just about any castle owned by one of the royal families, Leda. Just about all of them own a stone manor of one kind or another, even the poorer ones, even the lineages scarcely touching the line of succession. Most have towers, hidden dark altars, libraries, and even dungeons, as they’ve been passed down for generations.
I tried to see it in your aura while you spoke about it, but nothing really leapt out. ”
Probably feeling my disappointment, he added encouragingly, “But we’re getting closer, yeah?
If you can, look for crests next time… animals, gods on shields, that kind of thing.
Or even rings,” he added, as if the thought just occurred to him.
“Many of these old heads of lineages wear family rings. Especially some of the oldest families.”
I nodded, thinking about that.
Hands. Clothes. Shields on walls. I could do that. It had never occurred to me to look down at the hands of whoever it was, or to try and see what they might be wearing.
“Next time,” I promised.
Alaric nodded, but I felt the disappointment on him again. “Next time.”
I knew Alaric felt we were running out of “next times.”
I wished I could disagree, but I felt it, too.
I looked back towards the coffee table, and the greenish-silver receiver that stood on the lacquer tray.
A second tray with a full tea service perched next to it, along with a now-familiar flask belonging to Alaric.
He’d already poured me a few dollops of the cognac inside, mixing it with the tea he’d made me.
Sighing, realizing I was letting myself fall down the rabbit hole of defeat for no reason, I tugged a few strands of curls behind my ear. Since I was usually the one trying to dig Alaric out of that pit of despair, I took that role again, almost out of habit.
“We’ll figure it out,” I assured him, patting his leg.
“Your father hasn’t said anything to you recently, has he?
Not since early summer? And you’ve already told me he’s not seeming inclined to do anything crazy, like pull you out of school, or even cut off your accounts, so we’ll have all of next year to work on this.
We may not have found the Priest yet, but we’re learning more about him. Every time we do this, we get closer––”
“Him?” Alaric broke in.
I looked at him, startled.
“Figure of speech,” I said.
“Is it?”
My mouth opened, closed, then I frowned. I still wasn’t willing to tell him that I felt his best friend every time I got near the Priest. My refusal to say that didn’t leave a lot of room to explain anything else. Instead of pursuing that, I diverted.
“Are you really feeling like this is a waste of time?” I asked.
He looked at me, his hazel eyes briefly piercing.
Then he seemed to deflate. “No,” he admitted. “No, I think I’m just feeling guilty. You’re risking yourself too much, Leda.”
“It’s my neck on the line, too,” I reminded him.
“You have no reason to feel guilty. If Dark Cathedral gets their coup d’etat, and overthrows the Magique and human worlds, my life is over.
I’d have to go on the run, probably in Overworld, like my mother did.
I’d probably end up dead like my mother, too, since I’m not even a trained praecurus.
I have no idea if I could even find my brother, much less bring him with me. ”
Alaric fell silent.
After a few seconds, he nodded, drinking another few swallows off his flask.
Watching him stare into the fire, I bit my lip, trying to decide if I should try again.
From the sinking in my gut, I knew I hadn’t made either of us feel better.
I might have made both of us feel worse, which made me wonder just how much of that dark, depressed, dungeon-like feeling I’d dragged back with me from the Priest’s castle.
“Are we going to Ravenous tonight?” I asked.
Alaric glanced at me, cocking on eyebrow.
I knew him pretty well by now. We’d spent so much time together, I suppose I should have known him a bit. I could read the silent question there, even when he didn’t bother to speak it aloud. He knew there was something I wasn’t telling him.
Honestly, he was more right than he knew.
My suspicion that the Priest might be Bones, and the existence of my odd sun primal weren’t the only things I’d kept to myself over the summer. I hadn’t told Alaric anything about the night of the Eleusínia Myst?ria dance yet, either, or my aunt’s death.
But then, I hadn’t told anyone what happened that night.
Alaric definitely wasn’t the only person in my life I’d been lying to.
All my closest friends heard the same story.
I told Miranda, Draken, Luc, Jolie, Alaric, Darragh, Nyx, and my date that night, Graham Strangemore, that I’d gotten too drunk, and hadn’t been able to get back to Grathrock College on my own.
I said I’d found an out-of-the-way couch in Frumpy’s, the enormous student lounge in Malcroix Mansion, and, sensing my need, the magical field around Frumpy’s covered that couch with pillows and blankets.
Then, according to my story, I promptly made myself invisible, and fell dead asleep for six hours.
Everyone pretended to be amused.
Well, except Jolie, who wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions, and Alaric, who never had any desire to, at least not with me. He’d glared at me for two full days after he heard the story, and lectured me off and on well into the following year.
He was looking at me in a similar way now.
I was relieved when Wraith jumped up on the table and directly into Alaric’s lap, batting at his hands with her paws and head-butting his chest, demanding cuddles.
After a few seconds of cooing and pets, Wraith sprawled out over his thighs, purring with half-lidded green eyes, her furry tummy exposed.
She kneaded her razor-sharp claws in the air where they hung over one of his legs.
I warmed my teacup from the pot and offered him some, but he waved me off.
He’d gotten a wineglass out of my suite’s kitchen when he made tea, and now, likely because he’d emptied his flask, he poured himself a glass of the dark-crimson Craven Label Bloodwine he’d brought over for us to share the night before.
That particular bottle, a disgustingly expensive vintage only available from the royal family of Romania, had been stolen from his father’s wine cellar.
Alaric insisted his father wouldn’t miss it.
Honestly? I didn’t believe him.