6. Extinguish All the Lights #2
Bran stared at the ceiling. “This had better work.” Or he’d be dead.
But in that case, he wouldn’t know if it had worked.
And really nothing would be different. Everyone thought him dead to begin with.
And Guinevere would be free of him and his title would go to someone who actually wanted it. “Go ahead.”
Apollo did a few more stretches. Then he stood, legs wide, hands hovering over Bran’s body.
First the lights in the room extinguished, every gas lamp and candle flickering out at the same time.
Then the fire in the grate slowly, slowly, slowly died.
“How are you feeling?” Apollo murmured, his voice low and almost rhythmic.
“Same as ever.” But his lips formed the words with effort, and his tongue was heavy.
“I suppose you can’t check in the darkness to see if your glamour is still on. Can you feel it? A regular glamour feels like a light almost tickling warmth.”
“I know… And yes… I feel it.”
“I suppose this is no different from what you did previously. Hmm. Hold steady.”
Silence.
Then even the shadows outlining their bodies in the darkness disappeared. Bran had only thought they’d sank into the dark before. This was true darkness.
Each thought stretched into nothing.
Every image popped out of existence like a dying fairy light.
Words existed in the black void of space, more out of reach than stars.
Bran—whoever, whatever that was—floated in the flimsiest sense of consciousness, a gossamer spiderweb, almost invisible, ready to break.
But it didn’t break.
It unraveled into nothing.
He was being slapped. And someone’s voice was too high pitched. And another voice was low and worried, and those hands just kept slapping him, the first voice rising and rising and—
“Fucking Jupiter.” Bran’s head felt like it had been split by an axe. His mouth was dry and didn’t quite work right. He reached up to make sure the weapon wasn’t still there. Found only skull.
Until other hands found him. “Braxton! Good Gaia, Braxton, what happened?” The hands—small but strong—wrapped around his wrists.
He tried to sit up.
Wrong move. Bile rose in his throat.
“I’m going to be sick,” he managed to choke out.
“Don’t be sick on me.” That a man’s voice. Apollo Chester! And it seemed to come from somewhere below Bran.
And those hands were still on him like little butterflies, fluttering all over, never quite landing.
Opening his eyes was like peeling away a bloody bandage from a still-sticky wound, but he did it, and light seeped in. Small pinpricks. Candles. The general glow of a fire somewhere nearby. In the dim light, a face hovering above him, pale and pretty and worried.
Guin.
“What happened?” she asked. “Why is Apollo on the floor?”
“Lost consciousness for a brief second.” That Apollo again. Still from the general area of the floor.
“Lost consciousness!” That Sybil. “Why?”
“Showing the duke a trick.”
What a trick. Killing a man. Bringing him back from the dead. Bran remembered now and swallowed the contents of his stomach as he sat upright.
His clothes were the same as before—blue and fine and unbothered by a bit of mortality magic. He still wore the glamour. And he couldn’t try dissipating it with the women around.
“What happened?” Guin demanded again. Her hands had settled on his shoulders, and her eyes brimmed with fear.
For him?
“I’m well,” he said gruffly, though he wasn’t quite certain that was a fact. “Did you find your plants?”
“Yes, but, Braxton—”
“We’ll be leaving now. My thanks, Chester.”
“Look here, duke”—Apollo pushed to his feet, his wife steadying him—“you should stay a moment, recover.”
“Nothing to recover from. Charge my account for the plants. I must get the duchess home.” The room spun, but Bran stood and led Guin out the office door. “Have them delivered to my Mayfair address.”
“Wait for a moment, Bra—” Chester ran a hand down his face. It trembled. Then he offered his wife a smile. “Take Lady G out into the shop, please? I need to speak with the duke.”
His wife’s narrowed eyes said she trusted him about as much as anyone else did, but she did as he asked, leaving Chester and Bran alone.
“Try to release the glamour,” Apollo whispered, leaning on the back of a chair, pale and almost breathless.
Bran tried, tugging at the glamour’s edges. “Nothing.” As solid as before.
“Damn. Well, there was no guarantee. You shouldn’t rush out. Not after that.”
“I’ll hail a hack.”
“Fine. But if you die—”
“I already did.” Something clawed out of his throat that sounded ominously like a laugh. Or like an ominous laugh. “I might need to sleep. My gratitude for trying, Chester.”
“I think you should call me Apollo after that.”
“Apollo.” Bran slapped him on the back. “You know you’re glowing, right?”
Chester—Apollo—stretched out his arms. “Holy Hades, I guess I am. Wonder if that means…” He seemed transfixed by his hands, turning them over and over.
“Means what?”
“Nothing. Never mind. Let me know if anything unusual happens to you.”
Bran nodded, then found his wife, and then found a hackney.
Instead of doing two, three, or four more things, she let him take her home to Mayfair.
She watched him as they traveled through light and shadow, her cutting eyes never leaving his face.
She had the kind of gaze that could terrify a man.
But he’d always thought it worth dying for.