Chapter 18 #2
I shook my head, crying now. “No,” I said through choked sobs. “No, I can’t.”
Eryx’s hands were on my trembling shoulders. “You won’t have to watch that part. I promise.” He pulled me to my feet, crushing my body safely against his as he turned me.
I shook my head, eyes squeezed shut. “No.”
His arms around me were gentle. “Rhiannon. I will block your view. Please, open your eyes.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. Silent sobs wracked my body.
“Trust me,” he whispered, his voice warm, his bulk steady behind me.
Trust us, Cassandra said at the same time.
The funny thing was, I did trust Eryx. He’d never given me a single reason not to. I opened my eyes. I faced Hemlock House. The conversation between Magnus and Cassandra restarted. I blocked it out.
Eryx brought his lips to my ears, his broad chest secure and steady against my back. “Watch the upper window,” he murmured, his palm splaying across my stomach, pinning me to him.
If it had been anyone else, I would have cut off their arm for handling me so.
But it was Eryx, and we’d forged something that allowed it.
That allowed me to let him take me somewhere I didn’t want to go, with the knowledge that with him, I was safe.
I didn’t need a single soul to keep my body safe.
I could save myself in that way. But my mind was safe with Eryx—and maybe too, my heart.
“Look.” His whisper was a dark rasp in my ear. “There.”
The rose hedge had lowered slightly. Nor was it as thick as it had been the past few days.
Now Hemlock House was actually visible. Or, at least one window was, in the upper part of the house, which had once been the principal bedroom.
It was Calypso’s room now. Ares and Ember preferred a suite of guest rooms downstairs so they could be near Briony.
Thoughts of my real life streamed back in.
Thoughts I’d been surprisingly absent of during the time we’d been here.
I suddenly missed Ember and the other Maere fiercely.
Eryx held me tighter against him, the sounds of Cassandra dying a horrifying soundtrack to this moment. “Watch the window,” he urged me. “Now.”
A figure appeared: Roman Necroline. He looked more like Eryx than I remembered. But maybe I’d just never noticed it before. When he was alive, I’d had no reason to pay much attention to his adoptive sons. Every head-of-dynasty had heirs, after all. But now I saw it. They looked related.
Why had Roman Necroline been so interested in saving Eryx and his elder brother from the streets?
What an excellent question, Cassandra’s voice said in my head. I felt her presence next to me. She wasn’t on the ground, she wasn’t being strangled to death by the man who should have been willing to do anything to save her. She was next to me. I felt her.
Roman clearly saw what went on in the garden—and did nothing. He made no move to help, though it was clear from the expression on his face that he was horrified by what he saw. That he did not approve.
That look faded. His face hardened, and when the noise behind me stopped, when the garden went unnaturally silent, he turned away.
A rage deep as the ocean built within me.
How dare he watch her die and do nothing?
How.
Dare.
He.
The sky darkened, crystal blue fading away, oozing into gray.
The thick grass of summer faded under our feet, the rose hedge receding until it was no more, and early spring appeared.
The garden gate came next, and we stood in the last muddy remnants of rained-on snow, both of us dressed in clothes suited for the hottest of summer days.
Now you know what I know, Cassandra said, materializing next to Eryx and I, as she pushed back a black veil. She was dressed in corpse garb.
“No,” I replied aloud, a strange sense of relief filling me that the malefic spirit had been Cassandra all along. Was it possible that she was also the one who had orchestrated all this? “We don’t. What was Magnus doing? Why did you take the key?”
Cassandra laughed, her voice soft. You will sort that out on your own. The two of you are clever. Go home now and use the tools at your disposal to understand Oleander Cottage. Learn what we know, and bring us peace.
It had been her all along. But how? In life, Cassandra had barely any power.
She was a failure as a parapsych—but even that didn’t seem true now.
My mind whirled, trying to make sense of all this.
The stranglings that had taken place here.
She’d been trying to tell people for all these years what had happened to her.
My stomach turned at the thought. I couldn’t make sense of this. It was too twisted. All she’d wanted was for us to know that Magnus had killed her and that Roman had known… but why? She’d also wanted us to find the keys that she and Magnus had hidden—that much was clear.
But again, why? What had been worth all this death and destruction? We’d come here to solve the mystery, to rid Oleander Cottage of the blight that had killed other inhabitants. I wasn’t sure we could just leave.
I glanced back at Eryx—maybe he had a better idea of what the right thing to do was—and he nodded. He gripped my hand hard, pulling me towards the garden gate. “We need to go.”
I hesitated. This felt like undone business. “I—”
“Rhi.” His voice was pleading. He’d never used the diminutive for me before. “Rhi, please. I have to get you out of here.”
I glanced back at the house. We weren’t abandoning our mission. We were only widening our scope of knowledge. We would solve this and return. “May we return to Oleander Cottage?” I cleared my throat. “Will it be safe for us?”
For you, Cassandra replied. Only for the two of you.
“We’ll come back,” I promised. “We’re not going to ignore this. I promise. You promise too, don’t you?” I asked.
Eryx took a deep breath. “Only if Cassandra promises in return that no harm will come to you, that she will give us both full autonomy from here on out.” His voice changed, that eerie, unearthly quality coming back into it. “Can you promise us that, Cassandra?”
I promise that you will be free to come and go, and that no harm will come to either of you from my working, Cassandra replied.
Her working. So she admitted that she had done all of this.
She continued, You are nothing like your father or your uncle.
Make certain your brother has not fallen into the trap that Roman did.
“And what was that?” Eryx asked.
Cassandra’s voice was quieter now. He believed fear would save us. Her voice was far away, as though it came from directly inside the house. But love is the key. Make certain Ares Necroline understands.