Chapter 32 Eclipse at Noon
Sapphire
I am sitting in the woods, wearing an expensive black ball gown, eating pheasant and blackberry sauce next to the man I grew up hating.
Yet I woke up this morning to a hot meal, served on a rock. Dellilian was hovering over it, politely waiting for me to wake up and grant her access to some of my food. Not shockingly, Niklaus was an asshole and didn’t make her anything to eat.
I eye him suspiciously as Dellilian and I finish off my plate. Blackberry sauce is my favorite. I eat it with most of my dinners at home. So much so, Krimson used to tease me and say my insides were just goopy blackberry sauce.
“We need to figure out your triggers for traveling,” Niklaus says, putting out the fire.
I dust off my dress and pat Dellilian on the head, smiling down at her little mouth covered in blackberry sauce.
“I know.”
“So, let’s make our way to the city and talk about it.”
Ah, so that’s why he made me breakfast. Trying to butter me up so we can figure out a way to go home. Can I really blame him though?
“We’ve traveled, what, six or seven times so far?”
I hang my head as we walk. This feels like we’re discussing the symptoms to a shameful disease I have. “Yes.”
“What’s been the trigger?” Niklaus flicks his gaze to Dellilian, dillydallying behind us. “I thought it was when you were scared. But unless you weren’t afraid of Absinthe and that bar of soap, I don’t think that’s it.”
My fingers are drawn to pat my lips as I fight those sick images that want to suck me back into the memory. The taste of that soap and acid is seared into my taste buds, like pouring vinegar into a deep, festering wound.
“Yeah. I definitely would have traveled if it meant I could have gotten away from that punishment.”
“And when Absinthe attacked you,” Niklaus adds.
I’m still not healed from that. “We don’t have to rehash these incidences.”
“So, what do you feel right before it happens?”
I think back to the attack in the woods. The fighting. The clashing of swords. I can practically see the dark cosmic smoke of the Nightlung breathing me in and closing in on me as it throws us into a new time. I take a deep breath.
“Fear. Panic. Adrenaline…” I shrug.
Niklaus stops, perking his head up. “Adrenaline?”
I nod.
But Niklaus looks past me, and I follow his glower. Dellilian kicks at dirt, nodding with me like she agrees with this assessment of my travel triggers.
“You know something, Dellilian?” Niklaus barks, causing her to flinch.
The black wolf with starry eyes backs away as if she’s being cornered, darting her eyes between the two of us in distress.
“Hey! If you know how to fix this and get us home, and you’re choosing not to say something, I swear to God—”
I shove at his broad, stone chest. “Leave her alone!”
But the asshole advances, pushing his chest back into my hands, and pointing an interrogating finger down at the frightened wolf.
“No! She knows how to get us home! Look at her!” His voice is a beat of thunder that rolls beneath the earth.
I make the mistake of glancing down at Dellilian. She trembles at the sight of Niklaus’s anger. And that does it for me. Watching a sweet creature like that cower in fear at a man I grew up hating is all it takes.
Krimson taught me this.
He made me practice it with him twice a day.
He made sure I’d get so good at it, not even my own brother would see it coming or be able to stop me.
I drop down into a squat, swing my leg out and like a blade it cuts through his stance.
Niklaus falls backward, hitting the dirt with a grunt as I jump on him, straddling his waist, and pinning his hands to the ground with my feet.
With my forearm pressed to his throat, I let him see my stare.
That in this moment of rage, I have the intent to kill. If he hurts her, I’ll break his neck.
“What kind of man enjoys intimidating something smaller than him?” I grit through my teeth.
Niklaus blinks up at me in surprise, peeking down at my legs spread over his torso. The muscles along his stomach coil tightly together, forming hard squares under my seated position. And I’ll be fucking damned if he doesn’t look…aroused.
“I am not trying to intimidate her, Spitfire. I am trying to get answers out of her,” he says, though his voice is too calm, too sensual for someone with an elbow to his throat.
“Don’t care. I’ve had enough of your attitude toward her.”
Niklaus relaxes under my grip, like he’s getting comfortable. Like he has no intention of fighting his way out of my grip.
“I realize you seem to hate animals. Even though my DaiSzek saved your life as a child, you still hate creatures like him—but I don’t! They’re better than humans. Understand?” I huff in his face.
His relaxed gaze bounces from my green eye to my brown eye.
“Understood.”
“Very good. Apologize to Dellilian.”
The asshole narrows his eyes at me with a curious glint that I haven’t seen before, and his smirk is faint, almost unrecognizable.
“I’m sorry, Dellilian.”
I look over my shoulder to see the mystical black wolf sitting upright, watching us meekly. “It okay, Mr. Niklaus.”
The sound of her voice in our heads is so precious, so innocent, so childlike—I turn back to Niklaus, sticking my bottom lip out with round, gushing eyes at how cute she is.
“God,” he groans, but his smile bleeds through his annoyance.
“So sweet!” I prattle. But as I peer back again, the small black wolf is gone. Vanished in a puff of black sand, back into the Nightlung.
“Mmm-hmm. Are you going to take off your dress for me and finish what you started or are we going to keep moving?”
Even though that statement sends a rush of unwanted heat between my legs, I practically levitate off of him.
“We need to get new clothes. We draw too much attention like this,” he says, as if his suggestion moments before didn’t punch me in the gut.
But I agree quietly, replaying him asking me to remove my dress with disgust at myself for allowing my toes to curl at the thought of that ever happening.
Our walk to the city is agonizing. This dress is comfortable and light…until you walk miles wearing it. My bare feet are covered in splinters and sliced with thorns. The corset waist is cutting off the circulation to my ribs and stomach. And fuck, it’s so heavy I might collapse.
But the amber glow of the streetlamps peek over the horizon.
And the world of the Chandelier City returns in full view.
The scent of essential oils, buggy exhaust, freshly laundered cotton, and newspaper ink.
Feminine clusters of laughter, heels clacking against the cobblestone, and the hollow ring of a church bell.
It’s all familiar, except…
“Is that…?” Niklaus trails off in shock.
He sees what I see. It’s hard not to. We’re standing in its shadow.
A piece of architecture that we’ve only ever seen in history books.
It’s bigger than I imagined. A monolith of human suffering.
And this shadow, this cloud of eerie stillness away from the sun—long and unyielding, like it has a mind of its own.
Like it’s decided it wants to claim me too.
Niklaus and I hold our breath, crank our necks, and stare up at the towers piercing the stormy clouds. We have no words. No commentary. No way to express the feelings that fall over us.
Because we are standing in the shadow of…
The Emerald Lake Asylum.