Chapter 7 Eryx
ERYX
Everyone loves you. How was she so imperceptive and still so good at her job? She was Orphium’s most successful assassin, after all. I saw her so clearly, and she didn’t see me at all.
Or perhaps she simply sees the best in you, a small voice inside me said. Perhaps she likes you more than she lets on.
Foolishness. Rhiannon knew exactly what kind of monster I was and why it was a good idea to stay away from me.
She’d always seemed like someone with her head on straight.
She might be a little down right now, but she wasn’t going to blunder into some kind of affair with me. Those thoughts were not helpful.
Outside, thunder rolled, sending vibrations through the shop, but none of the glass or china made a sound. I glanced out at the color of the sky. It had shifted to a darker green, a color I hadn’t seen in Orphium since I was a child, pre-industrialization.
What was this place? It was difficult to believe we were inside a complex illusion, but nor could I believe we were actually in some pocket realm or shadow dimension.
I took a long last sip of my latte, swallowing my bitterness and worry. When I set the cup back onto the saucer, it disappeared. I scanned the open shelves behind the counter, and sure enough, it had reappeared next to the other cups.
I shook my head at the strange phenomenon, returning my mind to the conversation at hand.
“There is a difference between people being attracted to danger and being loved,” I said.
“Ares is feared and hated because he makes the tough calls. People want to fuck me, because I’m the one who executes them. ”
That was the hard truth. People wanted into my bed for a few nights, maybe even a few months, but it never went deeper. Any time I tried, I hit a wall. It was humiliating. Another crash of thunder outside brought on the rain.
It wasn’t much different with friends. Some wanted a taste of Dynasty life. A look behind the curtain of the upper echelons of Orphium’s Trinity. But what they did not ever want was my true friendship. No one wanted to befriend someone who might someday murder them.
Rhiannon nodded slowly, staring first out the window as the light grew darker on the street, before her eyes turned to me. “What about Avaline Reyes? Does she feel that way about you?”
An Av-shaped hole in my chest made me shake my head.
I missed my best friend. Avaline had never once judged me.
Not when we were children, and certainly not now.
But there were times that I dreamed about it.
Sometimes I woke up sure she hated me, and I would jog to her place in the middle of the night and stand outside her door until she opened it.
I never had to wait long. She was the best friend a person could have.
She never asked me to stop waking her in the wee hours.
Av just put on a pot of coffee and we watched cartoons until the dream-feeling died down.
Until I knew there was one person in the world who loved me for exactly who I was, not who I could trick her into thinking I might be.
“Av gets me,” I answered. “I’m more than a tool to her.”
“And your brother?” she asked, lightning striking so near that the thunder should have shook the cafe, rattled the china. But it didn’t. The sound was loud, but the world did not react the way it should. Rhiannon didn’t seem to notice. “Does he see you as more than a tool?”
I realized what she was doing. “Yes. I’m lucky we’re close,” I answered, then waited for one, two, three heartbeats. “Do you want me to ask you these same questions about the Maere?”
Rhiannon sighed so dramatically I thought she might feign a swoon. “Please don’t be reasonable right now. I want to wallow.”
It was the most adorable thing I’d ever seen.
My fucking heart swelled a size or two in that moment, and I wanted nothing more than to pull her onto my lap and rock her against me until she’d cried every one of those unshed tears.
It was all going to come out, eventually. It had to. She’d locked too much away.
And just like that, I’d made a decision.
I came here to help her, to protect her.
The more I observed her, the clearer it was that she was incredibly unkind to herself.
She seemed to believe she didn’t deserve the benefit of her own care.
I was good at taking care of other people.
It wasn’t something I let myself do very often—not after Frannie—but this was different.
We were apparently stuck here together, and I was the only one who could keep her safe. For the time we had together, I was going to make sure she was rested and well-fed. If she’d let me help her unwind, I’d take that on too, risky as that would be for my heart.
Never one to hesitate once I’d made a choice, I stood. “Wallow on the move.”
“We should clean up,” she said, but as we stood, the dishes all disappeared. Her pale skin flushed pink, and for a dangerous moment, my mind drifted to ways I might elicit that reaction from her.
I cleared my throat, banishing that thought entirely.
When she was ready, if she was ready, I would be there.
But I couldn’t go down those roads on my own.
“This is witches’ work, Rhiannon,” I said as another crack of thunder made no impact on the cafe.
“Whatever is going on here, it’s deeper than spirits with unfinished business. This is magic.”
A rash of gooseflesh raised on her bare arms, the flush subsiding. “I know. We should get to the Library.”
I nodded, and we made our way towards the door.
I wondered if we should find an umbrella, but Rhiannon had already pushed the door open.
As soon as we stepped outside, we were back at the garden gate—as though we’d never left Oleander Cottage.
The weather was calm, though the sky was still that old shade of green.
Without speaking, we both went through the gate and back to the street, only to end up back inside the garden again. Twice more we tried this. Twice more, we found ourselves staring at the wrong end of the gate.
“I don’t think we can intend to go to the Library,” she said. “But I’m not going hungry again. There’s a grocer on Eighth and VanHausen, or at least there should be. It’s been there for nearly a century.”
I agreed to this change in plans. This time, the gate squeaked open, and we stepped onto the sidewalk. It was nighttime outside the gate. Rhiannon glanced up at me as we walked, the neon lights that had switched on in the dark illuminating her pale skin.
“There are rules to this, then.”
The pervasive nothingness of the atmosphere was still disconcerting enough that I wanted to turn and face the horrors of Oleander Cottage rather than this barren city, devoid of life, but I nodded anyway. “Apparently so.”
Steam poured out of the vents as we walked, but that made no sense. The night air was hot, there shouldn’t be steam.The streets were just as empty as before, but there was no rain. We walked in silence, both of us obviously perturbed by the quiet.
Like Delicia’s, the little market was full of food that Rhiannon determined to be real, but no one was working when we entered. The walls had last been painted a shade of green, but they were peeling now, revealing layers of other colors beneath, and traces of old wallpaper.
Rain pelted the windows, storms blowing through the city in rapid turns that weren’t true to life. I stared at the way the green neon sign across the street for the local apothecary reflected in the raindrops splattering the window. An ominous heaviness hung in the humid air of the grocer.
“Do you think this is how people died in the Cottage before?” Rhiannon mused as she selected oranges, while I selected vegetables for salads and soups.
The oranges disappeared. The entire crate was simply gone. She froze. We both froze. Nothing else disappeared. Slowly, I shook my head at her. She drew in a heavy breath and changed the subject.
“What was this neighborhood like when you were a child?”
Rhiannon’s question came wrapped in significance and it was my job to decipher its meaning.
It was obvious this world behind the real world, this illusion the Cottage existed within, was listening somehow, almost sentient.
There was no doubt that we were being watched, and that being cautious going forward was necessary if we ever wanted out of here.
A few seconds ticked by as I sorted out what she was up to.
What did the question mean?
It was a test of whatever magic governed this place.
Anything that might get us closer to finding a way out was not allowed, here in the deeper aspects of the illusion.
We found that out by trying to go to the Library.
But exploring our own pasts? Perhaps that would be permitted.
I could wish she hadn’t chosen something so painful for me to think of, but that too might serve a purpose.
“Busy,” I said, feeling cautious. We both waited. The food remained. “My parents’ shop was close to here.” Still, nothing changed. “Would you like to see it?”
There was a slight thickening to the air. Not a change in temperature or quality, but a closeness, a contraction of sorts. Rhiannon’s eyes widened slightly. “I would. Perhaps tomorrow? I think we should unpack.”
We waited. Nothing changed about the shop, but neither did that oppressive quality of the air decrease. Finally, I nodded. “Yes, and then perhaps I could make you dinner.”
The air returned to its normal consistency. Go slow, seemed to be the message. The oranges returned. Rhiannon put a few in her basket. “That would be nice. We might need to settle in.”
Her words and tone were neutral enough, but the message behind them was hardly masked. She thought we might be stuck here for a while. Much as I hated to admit it, it was clear she might be right.