Chapter 19
ERYX
Love was the key. That was why she let us go. It had to be. I’d said I loved Rhiannon. I’d said I would die for her. I glanced back at Rhiannon as I practically dragged her through the rose hedge. She looked younger than I’d ever seen her, her lineless forehead creased with worry.
But those eyes. Those eyes were ancient, and when they met mine, I wondered if she had worked out what I had. If she suspected what I did. I didn’t have the chance to ask her.
Ember Verona came rushing out of the back of Hemlock House as we approached in a wild fury, snatching Rhiannon into her skinny arms. I was about to slip past her when she caught my sleeve, and with her trademark strength pulled me into her embrace as well.
“Ares and Av had to go to an emergency exorcism uptown,” she said, making eye contact with me. “The shit hit the fan while the two of you were gone. We have a lot to catch up on—everyone else is out.”
The Orphium Maere’s commander had tears in her eyes when she let us go, words tumbling out of her mouth in a torrent, like she’d been keeping them in for years. “The hedge… It made us forget you. And then yesterday Briony remembered the day you left…”
Rhiannon took her oldest friend’s face in her hands and said in the calmest voice I’d ever heard, “Slow down. It’s going to be all right.”
I tamped down the immediate irritation I felt that after all Rhiannon had just been through, she had to comfort Ember now. This was their dynamic, and she didn’t need me passing judgment.
Ember nodded, but it was clear that she might burst into tears at any second. She was holding back because I was here. Rhiannon turned to me, giving me a look I took to mean, “Could you give us a few?”
Immediately, I resented the way Ember relied on Rhiannon to be the calm one.
My heart thumped. Ares and Av rarely knew how I felt because I kept it all from them.
It was the same for her. We were the same, in so many odd ways, but I had to let her work this out on her own.
I couldn’t solve it for her, no matter how much I wanted to.
The important thing was that we were out.
I’d done what I needed to: I got her out, and we’d found out the source of the problem with the cottage, though not the why of it.
Right now, Rhiannon needed a friend who would help her investigate a whole lot more than she needed an overprotective lover.
And I had somewhere I needed to be—someone who needed to answer for what had caused years of suffering at Oleander Cottage.
I could do this. I could leave her with Ember. I forced one foot in front of the other, squeezing her shoulder as I passed her. “I’ll be back in a few.”
She nodded, leading Ember into the kitchen of Hemlock House.
I waited in the foyer, listening as they dialed my brother and the other Maere into a conference call so Rhiannon could tell them what had happened to us, and what we needed from them.
I didn’t wait to find out if she would reveal that Roman knew about what Magnus had done.
Before I spoke to my brother, I needed to talk to our father. Ares would want to handle things more respectfully than I would. I wanted to throttle a ghost, and if I wanted to, I was pretty sure I could find a way to do it. Ares would only try and stop me.
My motorcycle was in the garage. It looked like Av had been working on it. Fresh oil change, a tune-up and a wash. She’d clearly missed me, and now that we were out of the Cottage, I missed her too. I hated the way the Cottage had fucked with my head. Had fucked with Rhiannon’s head.
Now I wanted to know the truth.
The cemetery where Roman was buried wasn’t too far away. This was Necroline territory, after all. I didn’t know how long we’d been trapped in the cottage, but it looked to me like the monsoons could start any day now. There were signs of life everywhere, but I’d been hollowed out in the last hour.
A tower of evergreens canopied the narrow street to the cemetery, neon city lights shining through the thin veil of trees.
The smells of the city in early spring were pungent.
Wet earth and trees, eclipsed by the ever-present scent of the industrial haze that clung to Orphium.
The pavement was wet with melting snow, mist hanging over it in heavy clouds.
I’d never managed to talk to my parents after the shop burned. They’d been at peace when they went, and for that Ares and I had always been so grateful. Our mother’s best friend Amanita, who had died with them, had not been. But it wasn’t until the heist that Ares had found her.
Mist rose over the road, swirling around me. The air chilled as the vapor swallowed the motorcycle whole, dampening the world around me. I’d never admitted to Ares that Roman wasn’t at peace. That I’d seen him at his own funeral. That he was avoiding us like the plague.
Spirits could lie, but they seemed to have a more difficult time with subterfuge than people did in life.
Or perhaps, since they were dead, they no longer cared.
Necroline philosophers and metaphysicists had debated this for centuries.
But there was one sure place a restless spirit couldn’t avoid a necromancer’s summons, and that was their grave.
The mist parted as I approached a set of curled wrought-iron gates.
This time of day, they were open and I rode through, feeling the change in atmosphere.
Necromancers buried their dead in hallowed ground, a testament to the fact that this land was once imbued with magic.
That once, parapsychs had lived in harmony with a world that needed us.
Our abilities had not been “paranormal” then—they had been sacred.
The cemetery was dark, tree branches blocking out what little light we were getting on such a cloudy day. Skyscrapers loomed above this small sanctuary for trees and the dead, sharp neon cutting through the clouds, giving everything an eerie glow.
I slowed down, parked my bike at the base of an ancient redwood cedar, and walked up the hill to Roman’s mausoleum. I sat down on the stone steps outside. There were rituals people did for this kind of thing, proper channels and all that.
As a clairsentient, I rarely bothered with such nonsense. I had a direct line to the dead and I’d never been afraid to use it when needed. It was needed now. “We have to talk about Magnus. Don’t make me force you out.”
I would use the vox spiritus, if I had to, but I’d rather he do this on his own. He’d hid from the truth for long enough. If he was even a fraction of the man I’d hoped he was as a child, he would do this for me now.
For a moment, nothing happened. I closed my eyes and waited, contemplating violence.
And then he appeared, incorporeal and huge, right next to me.
Like both Ares and myself, he was dark haired, with skin so pale he’d been nearly translucent in life.
It was easy to see why many people assumed he was our biological father. We did look a lot alike.
“Hair’s gotten long,” he said as he materialized. “You look good, kid.”
After what I’d seen in the garden, I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t angry. “You look dead.”
He shrugged. For several heartbeats, he was quiet. I started to wonder what he knew about where I’d been and why I came. Roman had always seemed to know all in life, though I’d had secrets from him. Secrets a child never should have had. “So, Cassandra’s message finally found you.”
I nodded. He’d done a lot in life to keep me away from Oleander Cottage, and now I knew why. He hadn’t wanted me to know that he’d seen it all and done nothing. He’d been afraid she’d show me.
But why hadn’t he stopped all this in the first place? There were dozens of ways he could have prevented the subsequent deaths at Oleander Cottage, but he hadn’t. The only way to find out was to ask. “Is it true?”
He rested his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands as he steepled his fingers. “Did you know that your mother was my cousin?”
This was not what we were meant to talk about. He was evading. I didn’t answer him, but I had not known that. I tried not to sigh. Roman had been infuriating in exactly this way in life—I’m not sure why I expected this to go differently.
“When she met your father, she asked that we cut ties. She didn’t want this life for herself. For you and Ares. She wanted you kept out of the Dynasty.”
My heart sank knowing that. I wondered if wherever she was now, she was disappointed in me. If Roman was trying to make me feel better, it wasn’t working.
Roman continued, “But they found her anyway, the Chiorics. And when they sent people after the two of you... I couldn’t leave you to rot. You were all I had left.”
The sinking feeling in my heart deepened.
It felt as though I was being pushed into ice cold water.
This wasn’t what I came here for. I sank into the shadows the ancient pines cast onto the mausoleum, letting the chill permeate my bones.
I rarely thought about the problems having such long lives caused, but this was certainly one.
Everyone became a disappointment, at some point.
Everyone but Rhiannon. The thought swirled in my head, feeling something like hope in the muddy dark of this moment.
Roman sighed. Incorporeal as he was, he was the same as he’d been the last time I saw him. Larger than life. “Not helping Cassandra is one of my many regrets. I didn’t want to believe what was happening right under my nose, and when it was too late, I was a coward.”
“Yes,” I agreed, my anger building. “You were. But why? Why did you let him kill her?”
Roman blew out a huff of air. Spirits were like that. They didn’t have bodies any longer, but they remembered what it was like to be corporeal and still had their same mannerisms in death as they had in life.