Chapter 4 Rhiannon
RHIANNON
My eyes were bleary as I awoke. The ceiling above me slanted downward, rain drumming the roof. A briar of thick roses and greenery clustered on the walls around me, giving the room an eerie greenish glow in this light. Whether the effect was claustrophobia-inducing or cozy, I couldn’t decide.
With a little trouble, I sat up in bed, confused and stiff.
The room was nearly dark, but the lace curtains were open just enough for me to see outside.
Sure enough, rain pelted the leaded glass window, obscuring my view.
But I didn’t need a clear view to see the green outside.
Leaves on the birch trees in the garden.
That wasn’t possible. I leaned forward, staying in bed and glancing about the room.
The quilt that covered me was different shades of white fabric, pieced together in a wedding ring pattern.
My suitcases were stacked neatly next to one another on one side of the room.
Eryx’s single duffle bag was nowhere to be seen, but a cable knit cardigan that was clearly his lay draped over a comfortably lumpy overstuffed chair in the corner of the room.
How had I gotten here? I wracked my sleep-addled mind. The last thing I remembered was being in the garden with Eryx. I couldn’t help but smile at that as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. My muscles were stiff, my joints aching just slightly as I rolled my neck and shoulders.
Footsteps on the stairs caught my attention. Eryx’s head popped up over the banister, his dark expression brightening when he saw me. “You’re awake.”
The relief in his voice was palpable. I glanced down at my nightgown, frowning. I didn’t remember putting it on. “What happened?”
The thought that he might have changed me into my nightgown, that his fingers might have touched my skin—that he might have seen me naked—should have been upsetting. But it wasn’t. It was thrilling. My blood felt as thought it might burst through my skin, I flushed so hard.
Eryx came into the dark hallway, but stopped at the doorframe, leaning against it.
It was as though he was afraid to come closer.
Then I remembered. My nightgown was practically sheer.
Why that was embarrassing when I’d just hoped he’d seen me naked was beyond my understanding.
I drew my feet back up into bed and pulled the quilt up, nodding to the chair.
He breathed what looked like a sigh of relief.
It was hard not to take a little bit of offense to that.
Was my body really that terrible to look at?
A little inkling in the back of my mind said perhaps that wasn’t the reason he was relieved.
Men were typically rather predictable, but I couldn’t read Eryx Necroline to save my life. Not that I had to.
When he was comfortable in the chair, he spoke.
“When we entered the house, it put you into the same sort of daze it has every other time we’ve been here.
” He paused, obviously waiting to see if I remembered that.
I did, so I nodded, not wanting to speak and derail this explanation.
“You said you needed to rest. So, I carried your bags up here, you got your nightgown out, and that was that.”
“That was… that?” I asked when I was sure there wasn’t more to the story.
He nodded, but said nothing else. It was rather lovely that he never chattered on needlessly, but sometimes, one did wish he’d say a bit more. “For how long?” When he frowned, I added, “Was I asleep? For how long was I asleep?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Sorry, I’ve just been so worried… for three days.”
I stared out the window at the obviously warm, rainy day, rather than the snowy winter we’d arrived in. “Three days?”
“Oh,” he replied as he followed my gaze. “Yes, that is disconcerting. It’s summer in the garden.” It was clear there was more to the haunting than I’d expected. “Maybe you should get dressed and come downstairs and see.”
I nodded and he got up, but there was a faint hesitation in his movements. He glanced at the sloping walls once, his jaw clenching, but only said, “Be careful on the stairs. They’re steep, and objects appear on them without warning.”
There were sharp edges in his voice that made me nervous.
Now that he was gone, I noticed a book next to the chair, topped with a heavy pottery mug.
It was empty. He’d been watching me sleep.
My breath caught for a moment—my head still blurry-feeling from my long sleep.
As it cleared, it occurred to me that Eryx Necroline was nothing if not respectful.
He’d never sit and watch me sleep for three days if he didn’t have a damn good reason.
And there wouldn’t be that edge in his voice either. Something sank within me, a heavy weight I’d learned to pay attention to far too late in life. This place was more than it seemed.
When his head disappeared down the stairs, I got up.
The air in the attic was warm and damp. Not at all what I’d expect from the first bluster of winter.
I walked to the window and though rain streamed down it, wet from the angle of the wind, I could make out not only the green of the birch leaves, but the watercolor riot of flowers in the garden.
I nearly choked. That simply wasn’t possible. I blinked a few times. I’d grown up in a time where magic was plentiful in the world—in a place where true mages worked incredible spells—and I’d never seen anything like this. The seasons were unchangeable.
Weather magic? Of course. On the island there had been women who made it rain when they cried. But to change an entire season was impossible. A flash of lightning broke through the gloom. Thunder rumbled through Oleander Cottage, and dread seeped through my clammy skin and into my bones.
What had we gotten ourselves into?
With my teeth brushed, my face washed, and a pair of navy parachute pants and a white tank top on, I was comfortable enough. I’d only brought winter clothes, of course, but luckily, I was a fan of layers. As I folded my nightgown, movement caught the corner of my eye.
I spun, expecting to see Eryx coming up the stairs, but there was nothing behind me. I tucked my nightgown into the top drawer of the nightstand. Eryx had left a glass of water for me, and I drank it down, suddenly quite thirsty. Again, something just beyond my range of vision moved.
Instincts I was born into my current life with stirred.
The fact that the Maere couldn’t die in this life had never made me fearless.
In fact, it was my first life—which would have been immeasurably long compared to a human’s, had I lived it—that built my instincts as one of the Maere.
It had been part of the spell that made us, to keep us keen as warriors.
And now, my heart raced like something hunted me from within Oleander Cottage’s walls. I breathed deep, getting my bearings, then turned. Once more, there was nothing to see behind me, but my eyes locked on the wall, just where the slope of the ceiling creased.
The thick briar of thorns there was interesting somehow, though I could not say why. As I watched, it began to move, as though one finger pressed into it behind the wallpaper itself.
I swallowed the immediate fear that flushed through me, hot and damp at first, then cold as a second finger and a third pressed through the wallpaper.
My breath wouldn’t come, stuck in my throat as a full hand pressed against the paper, straining to get out.
My eyes went wide and unblinking. Someone was trapped in the wall.
“Rhiannon?” a voice said from the hallway. When I looked up, Eryx was standing there, his brows knitted in concern. He followed my gaze to the wallpaper and shook his head. “Come downstairs.”
The hand was gone, the wall just as it had been. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Gently, Eryx moved towards me, reaching for my hand, his fingertips grazing mine. “Come downstairs, Rhiannon.”
I glanced behind me, at the evidence that he’d sat by me while I slept, as I followed him downstairs. He knew what I’d seen, and it had scared him too. The haunting at Oleander Cottage was more than whispers and spirits showing the living how they died. Of that much, I was sure.
From the kitchen window, I could see quite clearly that it was not winter outside. In fact, it looked to be full-on summer. I stepped into the mudroom, angling my head to see past the rain.
“There’s a black cat in the garden,” I murmured, squinting a little to try to see past the blur of water on the glass. “It will get wet.” Eryx didn’t reply. He just crossed those giant arms of his, quiet at my side. I sighed. “Well, you’ve been awake, I assume?”
He nodded, a muscle in his neck flexing slightly, as though something about his vigil strained him. He glanced sidelong at me for a moment, and when I returned his gaze, his cheeks flushed.
The frown on his lips cut straight to my soul. Truly, I didn’t understand him. I turned to leave the mudroom. A heavy wooden butcher block sat at the center of the kitchen. “Was that there before?”
Eryx shook his head. “No. There are many things here now that were not here before.” He stared at me, long and hard. It was impossible to discern what he was thinking.
He’d grinned just a few days ago in the garden. Grinned about coming with me. Where was that smile now?
My heart dropped as his words took on another shape in my mind. Many things that were not here before… “Like, us.”
He nodded. “Yes, like us. The house changed as soon as you fell asleep. Objects appear and reappear. The cat—” he gestured towards the mudroom. “Comes and goes.” His jaw clenched. “It looks like Stanley.”
The poltergeist cat that often accompanied Avaline Reyes and had attached itself to our protégé Briony? “Strange.”
He nodded. “And the wallpaper…”
“You don’t like it,” I murmured, looking him over. He wore a t-shirt that was probably twenty or thirty years old. It was merchandise for a Necroline autobody shop that the Authority put out of business a decade ago for being a front for illegal exorcisms.
“Okay,” I sighed. “Level with me. What are we dealing with here? Surely you have some idea.”
“Yes,” he answered. “I think this all has something to do with my uncle—Magnus, and his wife Cassandra.”
I wracked my mind, trying to remember if I’d ever met Cassandra. Magnus was Roman Necroline’s brother, and I’d certainly met him. He’d killed Roman to take the Dynasty from him. Cassandra though…the name was familiar, but my mind was fuzzy. “Wasn’t she a Seer of some sort?”
Eryx hummed his assent. This was getting ridiculous.
Why couldn’t he just talk to me? Irritation mounted in me, but then I heard it.
The whispers. I couldn’t make out the words, but it was obvious he could.
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing slightly as his head turned slowly to look at me.
Whatever he was hearing that I couldn’t, was not good.
I needed to change the subject. A memory flitted across my mind; I caught it before it slipped away. “Didn’t Cassandra predict some kind of natural disaster?” I bit my bottom lip and his cheeks flushed again, his eyes trained on my mouth. Did he like that? “A tsunami?”
Eryx nodded; the lines of his handsome face solemn as he dragged his gaze from my mouth to my eyes.
He was so serious. “She did. Shortly before she met Magnus. It’s what got his attention.
She saved the lives of everyone in the northern peninsula.
They evacuated and not one person died. She was a hero… ” he trailed off.
Now I remembered her better, though vaguely, as though through cloudy glass. A woman about my height, with strawberry blonde hair and wide sapphire eyes, cloudy from her failure as a Seer, probably. “But it was her only clear vision, wasn’t it?”
Again, Eryx nodded. “She disappeared a few years after they got married—he claimed she went back to Aradios, where she was from.” His crossed arms tightened around his chest.
“But you don’t think that’s what happened?” I asked.
Eryx shrugged. “I think it’s hard to say. What was easy enough to figure out is that there’s a malefic energy here—”
“Not a malefic spirit?” I interrupted.
Eryx leaned against the butcher block. “Well, yes, but it’s more than that… like a web, almost.” He flicked a hand towards the window, bringing it immediately back to his chest. “That’s not a trick, Rhiannon. It’s really summer out there. I can’t think of how that could happen without…”
“Magic,” I finished for him.
He nodded. “But there’s not real magic in the Three Cities anymore? Just what the Maere can do with their swords, right?”
There was a hint of suspicion in his voice, as though I, as the Orphium Maere’s assassin, might know something he didn’t.
Or maybe he thought I’d learned something useful in my time at The Consulate.
But I hadn’t. I had no idea how someone could do real magic here, or how powerful they’d have to be to change a season.
Slowly, I shook my head, before asking, “Have you been outside yet?”
“No,” he answered quickly, his cool eyes flicking towards the stairs. “I wasn’t keen to leave you.”
I took a deep breath, assessing our situation.
This was more than a terrible haunting then.
If someone was using magic here, I needed to let Ember know.
“I think we should go back to Hemlock House for the night,” I said.
“It might give us some perspective on what to do next. How to solve whatever this all is.”
He didn’t answer. He did that a lot, I’d noticed. It seemed to indicate he was thinking, whereas I always had a quick answer. Though I’d cultivated the ability to appear patient, I never truly was. “What do you think?”