Chapter 16
RHIANNON
I stood at the door of Magnus’ office, frowning. Briony would say “the vibes” were off, which felt apt. The man’s office radiated bad energy. Eryx had been quiet all morning, though we’d moved around each other with a kind of ease which had not been there before.
But something was worrying him. That much I was sure of.
He was currently in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
The air in the cottage had gotten so hot and stuffy it was tempting to open the windows, but—if possible—it was worse outside.
As Eryx bent over the sink, I took a few steps back to appreciate the view.
Because it was so hot, he wore a pair of gym shorts so tiny, they were almost obscene.
I was fairly certain he was mimicking the outfit I’d chosen for the day: a pair of hot pants I’d found at the local Thrifty Penguin on Ninth and a halter top.
His eyes caught mine in the mirror right after he rinsed his mouth out.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, Bronte?” he asked with a smile.
“Your ass,” I admitted. “You can’t blame me for ogling. Those shorts are delectable.”
He came out of the bathroom, pushed me up against the railing and grabbed my ass, pulling me into his orbit with a kind of fevered energy. Instantly, I wrapped my legs around his waist, licking my lips.
“Don’t make that face,” he murmured.
“What face?” I asked, all wide-eyed innocence.
His head bent towards my neck, and a trail of kisses that ended with my earlobe in his mouth had me panting. “The face that makes me want to get inside you and stay there all day,” he growled. “We have shit to do, Bronte. I can’t live with my head between your legs.”
There was a sound I made with him that I’d never made with anyone else. Something between a whimper and a sigh. I made it now, pushing my hips into him.
“But I want to,” he added, his voice rough with as much needy energy as I had. He squeezed my ass hard, his erection pushing into my core. “Maybe just a little taste,” he growled before his lips met mine.
His kiss was hungry, desperate, as he moved me away from the ancient railing to slam me against the opposite wall. Suddenly, the hallway was freezing cold. Eryx stopped kissing me, but didn’t put me down. In fact, he held me tighter. When my eyes met his, there was something like panic in them.
I put my feet on the ground. The way he had me caged against the wall was protective, like he thought someone might snatch me from him, and he’d stop them by the sheer barricade of his enormous body.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. He glanced behind him, furtive. Then towards the open door to Magnus’ office. Mysteriously, it had been open this morning when we got up. Dread seeped through me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Last night, after you fell asleep in the tub—there was music coming from inside the office.”
I swallowed. “Music? What kind of music?”
He shook his head. “Old music. I don’t know how to describe it. Not creepy, but creepy in context, you know?”
I didn’t, not exactly, but I nodded anyway.
“And then the light turned on and the door opened.” I sensed there was something else. Something he didn’t want to tell me. I crossed my arms. The chill in the hallway was spirit activity. That was Ghosts 101. He sighed. “I had to use the vox spiritus on you.”
The spirit voice. “Why?”
He shook his head. “It got inside you, Rhiannon. It spoke through you.”
It felt as though I was falling, as though someone had simply pulled the floor out from beneath me. Eryx caught me, pulling me into him. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner, but… I.”
His fingers clenched around me, and he opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was a cowardly move to hide something like this from me.
“What did I say?” I snarled. My anger was so quick to rise to the surface. So full of frustration at not having been told something that happened to my own body. I was just so sick of people keeping things from me.
“I am sorry I didn’t tell you first thing,” he repeated. Again, he seemed to struggle with his words, finally saying, “It was a mistake.”
I ducked under his arms, taking a few steps towards Magnus’ office, trying to quell the rage within me. It wasn’t all about him, or what he’d done, after all. As I stared inside, I insisted again. “Tell me what I said.”
His head hung slightly, his shoulders tight.
He opened and closed his mouth again, twice, and then forced out.
“You said…” He paused, looking like he might scream or cry for the briefest moment.
What was wrong with him? The tone of his voice was odd, almost strangled.
Something in my gut tightened. And then he said, “Take me back to the gods of destruction. Tell them all I did in their endless names.”
I swallowed hard. The verbiage was hard to mistake. “You’re sure that’s exactly what I said?”
He nodded. “Yes, does it mean something to you?”
Fleetingly, I was tempted to draw this out and make it hard for him. But it was so obvious he hadn’t told me because he was frightened of what might happen to me. There was no doubt in my mind that Eryx Necroline wanted to protect me. Somehow, some way, we had to talk about what that might mean.
“Yes,” I finally answered. “The gods of destruction are Tanith and Amarante—their dark aspects, anyway. Death and immortality paired are either a healthy cycle of life and existence, or a recipe for destruction.” I sat down in the doorway to the office, not wanting to set foot inside, especially now.
“And only someone from the island would use the phrasing, their endless names. It is a common way to end a prayer.”
He came to sit next to me, his body still taut with some emotion I couldn’t discern, and together we stared ahead. “I suppose that explains how all this is happening then, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Your people have power that parapsychs don’t anymore. Real magic, yes?”
I nodded, knowing there was a limit to what I could say. Until he knew the island more personally, there were guard rails, magical boundaries against talking about it. “Yes.”
He placed his elbows on his knees, and his chin in his hands. For a split second, he looked like a little boy, puzzling through a big problem. “The trouble is, how does it all connect?”
I pointed at the office. “I think we’ll have to go in to find out.
” Eryx didn’t respond to that, other than to look worried.
Decidedly worried. I bumped his shoulder with mine, resting against him.
“If it would help, I can go downstairs and look through the library again. Maybe there’s something we missed yesterday.
I’d like to have another look through the sitting room as well. ”
There wasn’t anything there; we both knew that, but it would make him feel better if I went elsewhere while he determined the possible danger of me going into the office. He was, after all, the expert in these things.
“That would help, I think,” he replied. “If you’re all right by yourself.”
I stood, first pressing a kiss to the top of his head before agreeing. “I am.”
He took hold of the hand that rested on his shoulder. “I was very scared I might lose you last night, or hurt you with the vox, but I didn’t know how to tell you what happened. Yesterday was so good. I just wanted to keep that feeling for a little while longer.”
My heart ached for him. For me. For two damaged souls who weren’t sure how to be happy. All my anger dissolved. “I get it. I was mad at first, but I’m not now.” I offered him a hand and pulled him up. “Go figure this thing out, okay?”
He nodded, solemn in the mission I’d given him, then stepped inside the beast’s lair. I took a deep breath and headed back downstairs, shivering from the chill that still hung in the air.
As predicted, there was nothing I missed in the library. Nothing to tell me who Cassandra was before she’d come to Orphium. Neither was there anything in the sitting room, the kitchen, or anywhere else that I could access downstairs.
I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, feeling discouraged. I let my mind drift, using a method that often worked at a dead end in an investigation. I closed my mind, and purposely thought of something else.
Fashion Week in Aradios, last spring. Everything I’d worn.
The shows I’d gone to. The galleries I’d visited for parties.
When my mind was clear of the track it had been on for the past hour, I opened my eyes and walked slowly through the downstairs of Oleander Cottage, trying to see it from a fresh perspective.
What did the choices Cassandra had made about decorating the cottage tell me? The wallpaper was nearly oppressive in its overwhelming mixture of patterns, and she’d deliberately chosen fabrics for furniture and window coverings that coordinated, but also were patterned.
“You felt trapped,” I whispered to her spirit, wondering if she could hear me.
Yes, a voice in my head responded. All the time.
The voice was familiar, but not, at the same time. I wasn’t sure how that could be. How could I know a voice, and yet also be so sure I didn’t know it?
I stared at the painting in the sitting room that rested on the mantel, above the fireplace.
It was a seascape, but rather melancholy.
Most seascapes from the period represented the ocean in the many sheltered, sunny bays of Aradios, rather than the roiling thing that was the truth of our world, full of monsters, full of threats. This was neither.
It was familiar somehow, though. There was no signature on it, so I peeked behind it, hoping to find an artist’s statement. The back of the frame revealed that it had not been professionally framed. There was no paper backing. But there was an artist’s mark. A very clear CN.
Did the voice sound so familiar because it was Cassandra? We’d only spoken the one time, when she’d appeared in her office, and I barely remembered what she’d sounded like. But some part of me obviously did.
I was almost certain the voice in my head was her, so I asked, “You painted this?”
Yes, the voice answered, sounding just as sad as the painting felt.
“Is it a real place?” I asked, squinting at it. There was something about it that I felt I’d seen before.
Not anymore, the voice said. It’s all gone now. Maybe it never was true at all.
I got the impression that she hadn’t answered my question, but the question I should have asked. I repeated her words to myself a few times to commit them to memory before asking, “Was it you that possessed me last night?”
I am so many people, she answered. I cannot remember them all. I cannot say if I have ever been you.
I couldn’t help but let out a wry laugh. That much I could identify with, though it was another cryptic answer. “Could you just tell me what’s happening here?”
It was the wrong thing to do, to ask. The finger trap of the cottage contracted, squeezed hard enough on my windpipe that I held up my hands in defeat. “I’m sorry,” I gasped, feeling as though someone had been trying to choke me. “I get it. I’m supposed to figure this out on my own.”
Cassandra didn’t answer. She was gone.