XLVIII #2
Victor’s grin widened as he offered his arm. “A wise choice, October. Let’s show them how the living do it.”
As he led me forward, the glamour deepened.
Shadows thickened, and shapes bloomed along the walls. Men in tailored coats materialized. Women in satin and lace, pearls gleaming against throats of smoke.
An entire ballroom, full again.
Phantom couples glided onto the floor, their skirts whispering over the wood like a thousand dry leaves. For one heartbeat, I stood inside a century that no longer existed.
Victor’s hand settled at my waist and guided me into the current of the room. The violins rose. I felt the glamour catch at my feet, adjusting my balance, smoothing instinct where I had none.
I didn’t stumble once.
“You’re cheating,” I said as he turned me neatly through the first sweep of the waltz.
Victor looked delighted. “Hosting. There’s a difference.”
We spun through a cluster of phantom dancers.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Theo watching Ruby as she whirled with a still-bitter Vera. At the table, Heaton and Kitty leaned together, heads bowed in private conference.
The tether vibrated with the echo of Heaton’s distress, a low thrum of anxiety.
“I could tell you what they’re saying,” Victor whispered near my ear.
“No.”
A low hum of approval rolled through his chest.
“Impressive. Most living things can’t help themselves.”
He spun me, a dizzying turn that sent my skirts blooming like a garden rose. When he pulled me back in, a wicked shadow crossed his smile.
“I can see why he’s lost his mind over you.”
I almost laughed.
“Hardly. He can’t stand me.”
Victor looked at me the way one might look at a person insisting rain was dry. He steered me through another wide sweep, eyes tracking Heaton’s dark silhouette at the table.
“October,” he purred. “He brought you here. Let you into this hotel. Let you sit at the table. Most importantly, he let you answer for yourself.”
His mouth curved.
“Do you have any idea how violently out of character that is for a man who usually treats the living like a smudge on a lens?”
I swallowed. “He thinks I’m a problem.”
“Oh, unquestionably,” Victor conceded. “But some problems are terribly difficult to stop studying.”
I glanced over his shoulder.
Heaton hadn’t moved a muscle, but the bond was screaming. He felt like a storm held behind glass—too still, too lethal. He was staring at the floorboards, but I didn’t need his eyes on me to know his attention had never left.
Victor followed my gaze and hummed softly.
“Yes. That face.”
“What face?”
“The one he gets when he’s pretending not to care and failing in ways only people who’ve known him for a century can spot.”
I looked away before the bond could betray me further.
“Then tell me something useful.”
Victor laughed under his breath. “Ah. Deflection. You fit in better than I thought.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He spun me once, slower this time, and when I came back to him, his expression had lost some of its play.
“He’s trying very hard to be noble,” Victor said. “It’s hideous to watch up close.”
“Noble how?”
Victor’s hand tightened briefly over mine.
“He’s starving himself,” he said softly. “Trying not to touch the flame because he knows what it would cost him if he did.”
His eyes darted toward Heaton, then back to me.
“That’s not disinterest, October. That’s discipline.”
I looked away, my heart racing.
“He still hasn’t told me what happened here,” I said. “To any of you.”
Victor let the next turn carry us before he answered.
“No. That sounds like him.”
The playboy ease didn’t leave him entirely, but it thinned.
“Well, my sister and I were born in this hotel,” he said. “The Dashwoods belonged to the mines. The Valentines belonged to the church. We all had our corners of town. Separate in life.”
His attention drifted over the ballroom: the chandeliers, the ghosts, the polished lie of it all.
“Death made us neighbors.”
“And Heaton?” I ventured. “Where does he fit in?”
Victor looked away.
“Ah. The heavier stuff.”
He guided me past a shimmering couple, eyes on Heaton.
“He lives on the edge of town now. As far from the mines as he can get.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it be easier to stay where the energy is?”
Victor let out a dry, mirthless sound.
“You think this is a free lunch? To charge up, to look like this—”
He gestured to his immaculate suit.
“—you pay in pain. You relive the moment you stopped breathing. The closer you stay to your death site, the longer the charge lasts. But it’s not a feeling any of us enjoys.”
He spun me, his grip firm now.
“When I heard he had bonded with you, I thought he’d finally found a way out. That he’d pull from your light.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“But he isn’t, is he?”
I shook my head. “He won’t.”
“Then he’s a fool,” Victor snapped. “Fire needs fuel. If he won’t take it from the mines, and he won’t take it from you, eventually the sun goes out.”
The music changed, slowing and darkening, preparing to end.
“He’s going to slip if he’s not careful,” Victor said. “And there’s no coming back from that, October. It’s a slow-motion suicide.”
I looked back at the table.
“But if it’s for survival, why doesn’t he just use the mines? Surely a few minutes of bad memories is better than fading away.”
Victor stopped dancing.
“October . . . ” He studied me with pity that hurt worse than Vera’s rage. “You really don’t know why he won’t go back down there?”
“I don’t.”
“Well,” he said mildly. “It’s where he killed his brother.”
His gaze drifted past me, toward the windows and the ruined town beyond them.
“And everyone else.”