Chapter 3
ERYX
HEMLOCK HOUSE. ONE DAY LATER.
The snow had fallen thick and heavy overnight. And though we were practically snowed in at Hemlock House, I’d barely seen Rhiannon. She hadn’t left her room much in the past day, but when I had seen her the circles under her eyes were darker, and her phone almost never stopped buzzing.
Calypso, the new Maere from Aradios, found an ancient warding ritual that Ember could use to shut Oleander Cottage off for a while.
Briony, our teenage charge, had been found at the garden gate just this morning, glassy eyed and muttering about the hedge being too thick.
It had sent a chill through me when she fought Sera, one of her favorite people, tooth and nail to return to the gate.
If we were going to live here, someone had to deal with the Cottage, and it couldn’t be Ember and Ares.
There was too much for them to do now. Ember had to reestablish the Maere’s position with the Consulate, the Trinity, and the Authority.
Now that Orphium’s guardians had their swords back, the exciting work was over, and she would have to weave herself, and the other Maere, back into the evil fabric of our broken society—all with my brother by her side.
I didn’t envy them the job—it was going to be intense work that would take months, if not years. But it was worth it to create a better world for our people. We couldn’t have the new alliances we were trying to establish here disrupted by the guest cottage sucking people in and killing them.
So the warding would work as a temporary fix, though it didn’t solve the problem of the haunting. Ember and Ares were going to close off the cottage today, and my hope was that now that winter had set in, I could spend it researching the cottage’s history.
There had to be a reason the haunting had targeted Rhiannon and me first, and so doggedly.
Briony hadn’t been the first of us to hear its whispers, or to be drawn to the gate, but it hadn’t pulled anyone else in—not yet, anyway.
I was determined to find what had caused the haunting, and resolve it before things got any worse.
I was on my way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when I heard Rhiannon on the phone.
She was tucked into a dormer window seat in the hallway, and sounded nearly frantic.
“I’ve asked you to stop calling me. What don’t you understand about the word no?
” She paused, then sighed. I was trapped.
If I passed her, she would know I’d heard her.
If I turned around, she would probably see me.
I chose to keep walking. As I approached, she got up, saying, “I told you before I left that I want off the Blaire case. Permanently.”
She walked into her room, and the door was still open as I passed. “There is only one person who gets to decide that I no longer belong here, and it certainly isn’t you. For the last time, stop calling me.”
The sound of her phone thumping against the plush rug in her room made me wince. Rhiannon was careful with her things. She treated all of her possessions with a kind of gratitude and grace that I rarely saw with people these days. I paused, worried that she might not be all right.
Sure enough, I heard her strangled sob. Then a shuddery breath.
She did that, I noticed—buried any trace of emotion she ever let out.
It hurt to know she did it when she was alone as well.
I leaned against the wall outside her door, listening.
I didn’t want to be a creep, but Ember and Lara seemed unaware that she was hurting. Rhiannon needed a friend.
She was whispering to herself, “I just need a little break. Just a little one.” There were muffled sounds, drawers opening and closing. “It can’t be that haunted.”
Was Rhiannon thinking of hiding out in Oleander Cottage? There was no way in hell I was going to let that happen. If she’d decided on something, I knew her well enough to know that arguing over the wisdom of taking a restive break in the city’s most haunted house would do neither of us any good.
My mind combed through my options. I could go too.
Yes. That was the move. Whether she liked it or not, I was going with her.
I’d kept her safe from the cottage’s spirits this far, and I’d keep doing it.
She couldn’t die, but neither could she go there alone.
There were worse things than death, and being tortured endlessly by malefic spirits was most certainly one.
I changed direction quickly, heading back to my own bedroom. She was too busy packing to notice me passing her open doorway. Once inside, I glanced outside in the yard. Ember and Ares were out there with salt and coffee, getting ready to ward the cottage.
Rhiannon might not want me to go with her, of course.
There was always that possibility. For a split second, I hesitated.
But then I thought of the way she’d stifled that little sob.
Even alone, she denied herself any opportunity to let out her feelings.
Rhiannon Bronte was the most capable woman I’d ever met, fantastic at making sure everyone else got exactly what they needed, while she neglected herself entirely.
If I asked to go with her, she would say no immediately, and not necessarily because she didn’t want me there; she had a terrible habit of denying herself even the slightest bit of comfort. But if I simply showed up, ready to go with her...
I packed quickly, shoving random shit into my bag before rushing after her.
I meant to confront her alone, in the hallway, or her bedroom, but as always Rhiannon was quick, silent, and gone.
She was already in the garden by the time I reached the back door.
My brother and Ember were faced away from us.
From the way their heads were bent towards one another, it was obvious they didn’t notice Rhiannon moving towards them.
It was impossible to tell how she did it, but from my vantage point I could see nothing different about the way she moved from usual. It was as though her footsteps simply didn’t make noise in the snow. How she’d managed to get her suitcases to quiet themselves was the real miracle.
Ares took Ember’s coffee cup from her, and the movement was so sweet, so full of love, it nearly gagged me. I didn’t want my brother to be alone, but watching him and Ember when I wanted Rhiannon so badly, and couldn’t have her, was heart-wrenching.
Ares bent his head towards Ember and said, “Let’s get this done and then we can sort Rhiannon out.”
She was standing right behind them. I cringed as she replied, “No one needs to sort me out.”
They both jumped, visibly startled. I smirked and took the opportunity to text my best friend.
I needed to let Avaline know that I was following Rhiannon to Oleander Cottage.
Her response was nearly instantaneous. She was at the cemetery today, having what she called her “office hours” for the restless dead that hung around there.
That is good, Av replied. She is going to need your help.
Her first text was quickly followed by another.
Av rarely texted all her thoughts at once.
Wish I could come help, but there’s a problem with the ancient Necrolines and the renaissance Cognoscenti right now…
and it’s, the text cut off. Another appeared: COMPLICATED.
I smiled, laughing softly before responding. You’re the best one for the job of sorting that all out. See you soon.
Be careful, she cautioned. The renaissance Cognoscenti say that you and Rhi should keep your wits about you.
Will do, I replied, then shoved my phone back in my pocket. Ember was shouting at Rhiannon, who was, rather calmly from my perspective, explaining that the Consulate had been calling her for weeks. I had to get out there before there was any question of her going alone.
Rhiannon was still talking as I approached: “...they insist I can do both. I can’t. I don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
Rhiannon turned; her blue eyes wide with fury at being interrupted. Her gaze fell on the bag slung over my shoulder. “What are you doing?”
I don’t know what came over me—maybe it was how beautiful she was out here in the fresh winter air, maybe it was that she hadn’t told me to fuck off immediately—but I grinned at her. “You’re going to have them lock you in when they ward, right?”
Rhiannon blinked, obviously surprised. She knew exactly what I was up to, and instead of her earlier fury, she was merely shocked that I would come with her. She didn’t have to say a word of what she was thinking; her feelings were written clearly on her face.
Her answer was simple: “Yes.”
She hadn’t refused me. She just answered my question, which in Rhiannon-speak meant that she wasn’t going to say no.
It was not precisely a yes, because she would never say yes to an offer of help.
But if she truly didn’t want me with her, I knew she would say so.
There was only one bedroom in the cottage.
She knew exactly what we’d be getting into.
So, I said what was on my mind. “Then I’m coming with you. The spirits like me.”
Those azure eyes of hers narrowed for a second. She bit her bottom lip and I just about lost it. She was biting back a smile.
Fuck. I was in so much trouble.
But what had been true since the moment Rhiannon returned to Orphium was still true now: I would follow Rhiannon Bronte into the netherworld itself without so much as a second thought.
She needed me, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she wanted me with her.
I stood my ground, waiting for her to deny me.
We stood there; eyes locked on one another for a long moment.
Ember spoke first. “No. No.”