Chapter 21
ERYX
A cacophony of opinions broke out, but Rhiannon stayed still, her eyes locked on mine as the rest of them spoke over one another about a door to the underworld and the key Rhiannon and I had found. That was at least part of what Cassandra had been hiding—what she’d been trying to show us.
It was obvious to me that she knew something about Blaire she wasn’t saying, but why? The memory hit me. The day we’d left for the cottage, I’d heard her on the phone. “I told you before I left that I want off the Blaire case. Permanently.”
It couldn’t be a coincidence that Stanley had brought Blaire up now. The family was practically Orphium royalty, generations of wealth going back centuries. The Blaires had been among Orphium’s First Families, humans who’d overthrown their parapsych kings and formed the Authority.
Archibald Blaire wasn’t just one of Orphium’s oligarchs, he was an integral part of the Authority. Beyond reproach. Beyond any law. Beyond what even the Maere could do something about.
I tried to keep my thoughts straight, tried to think of what to do next, but the azure depths of Rhiannon’s eyes held me captive.
No wonder she’d wanted to hide from the Consulate.
If they were having her look into Blaire, but she hadn’t been allowed to do anything to stop him… that would eat her up inside.
For weeks, all I’d wanted was to get her back here, where I thought she’d be safe from whatever dangers Oleander Cottage posed. And now I wanted to march her straight back there and lock her in, where no one could reach the woman I loved.
Ember too stayed silent, her gaze shifting from me to Rhiannon, understanding lighting her eyes. When they rested on me, her hazel eyes were warm, her mouth curving into a small smile.
My earlier frustration with Ember fell away. Perhaps I’d judged the situation too harshly. Or maybe it was just more complicated than clear lines of good and bad actions. We were all a tangle of emotions and behaviors.
Still. Whatever Rhiannon thought Ember might have to say about the possibility of us, it was obvious to me that she’d been wrong. Rhiannon’s fear stood between her and the truth. Ember wouldn’t stop us from falling for one another. She wanted the people she loved to be happy.
Ares would have a whole diatribe of cautions and warnings for me, but in his own way, my brother was the same as the partner he’d chosen.
Being here, being surrounded by his family, had changed him.
Cassandra Necroline didn’t need to worry.
My brother had already chosen love. This love that surrounded us now, even without his presence.
As though called forth by my thoughts, the back door opened and closed.
Briony’s chatter about what had happened at school died, as the sounds of the Maere arguing over what would happen next reached her ears.
When the two of them joined us in the kitchen, they were silent observers, though Briony rushed to Rhiannon’s side.
Rhiannon opened her arms for the teenage Maere-to-be and the girl fell right in.
In no time, she was whispering happily in Rhiannon’s ear, grinning like there was no tomorrow.
The kid wasn’t the smiley type. She was a clever girl, but not cheerful.
Rhiannon murmured something to her, an obvious aside from the conversation at the table that had Briony’s eyes sparkling with humor.
The woman could make anyone feel like the center of the world—but she was the true center. The bright star around which everything rotated. It was a quiet power, subtle, but I wanted to stay in her orbit for as long as I could.
My brother bumped my shoulder with his, a sturdy weight reminding me that Ares and I always fought to stay on the same side of things. We weren’t Roman and Magnus, and we never would be. “Glad you’re back.”
Stanley yowled at him, and to my surprise, my brother picked the little poltergeist up and closed his eyes, nodding as Stanley caught him up. “Saints,” he murmured when the feline disappeared. “What a fucking mess.”
His voice was low. The Maere were still arguing over whether or not it was safe for us to go back to the Cottage.
Briony had joined in, loudly proclaiming her opinion that there were mysteries to be uncovered at the Cottage, and that Rhiannon was the best person to uncover them.
The teenager was a prodigy hacker, and I had no doubt she’d spent the time since we’d been gone doing all sorts of nefarious snooping.
“This is good,” I said, feeling better already.
Ares raised an eyebrow. “What’s good about it?”
I shook my head, a rare grin finding my face. “What isn’t?” I asked, gesturing at the room full of people we both loved.
We had been alone so long, he and Avaline and I. To navigate the mess Magnus had left behind, we’d had to isolate ourselves, even from our own people. But working with the Maere to get their swords back had given us family, and in turn had also given us our community back.
Nothing had changed in Orphium. Not really. The Authority still ruled in every way that was meaningful. But we were here arguing over what to do about a problem that would seem ancient to most humans. Together.
We all had our roles to play, and we would have to break off for each of us to do our part.
But we’d do it together. The Authority could make any rule it wanted.
It could make life harder for us in innumerable ways.
But it couldn’t stop us from loving one another.
That was why Cassandra had wanted me to warn Ares about the dangers of ruling through fear.
Fear kept us from this. From this lifeline our people needed. That we needed just as much. Love really was the answer. Rhiannon’s eyes had drifted from mine as she spoke to Briony, but now, the teenager was settling into her own seat, opening her laptop, and Rhiannon’s gaze returned to mine.
I wondered if it were possible that she thought along the same lines I did. If she wondered, as I did, right now, what it would be like to love each other. Saints knew the two of us needed someone to love.
Not someone.
Each other.
Rhiannon Bronte and I needed each other.
I broke eye contact with her, keeping my voice low. “They’ll be arguing about this for hours. Can I speak with you?”
He nodded and gestured towards the back door.
We’d made our office in the space above the carriage house’s garage.
I followed Ares out the back door and into the damp chill of the dark spring afternoon.
It was hard to tell if it would rain or snow, at this point.
We entered the carriage house through the back door, trailing up the narrow staircase to the bright office with its wainscoted walls and vaulted ceilings.
Ares worked to start a fire. “Stanley caught me up pretty well, I think. What did you want to talk about?”
“I spoke to Roman this morning,” I said, cutting right to the point. “He didn’t give me much, but he knew that Magnus killed Cassandra. He said he was a coward about the whole thing. That he’d intentionally looked the other way.”
Ares blew out a sigh, settling into one of the leather chairs we’d brought from our old office in the Carlyle.
I sat in the one opposite. Someone had found a beautiful antique rug from Palladiere to spread under the small semicircle of chairs and chesterfield couch that were set up in a cozy arrangement around the hearth.
Ares seemed at home here. He’d replaced his usual suit with jeans, though he still wore polished brogues, shirtsleeves, and a tweed vest. “Roman was an enigma,” he murmured. “Since I took over, I realize how hard things must have been for him. The ways leading fucks you up.”
I nodded, settling into my chair. Ares was a deep thinker.
It was necessary to let him talk through this, to work whatever he needed to out on his own.
My brother leaned forward, his green eyes narrowed and intense.
“But I need you to know that I wouldn’t look away.
No matter how hard the truth is, no matter how disappointing, I won’t look away. ”
It was a promise to me. Ares always understood. He knew how rigid I could be about doing what was right. Even when we had to do something rotten, deep in the muck of the moral low ground, I’d always maintained that we had to be sure we were doing it for the right reasons.
I’d held back my hopes for myself for too long. Now was the time to let Ares know what I wanted. “When I’m done with this job. When the cottage is safe—we have to change the way we do some things. We should have done it after Frannie died—”
“You’re right,” my brother agreed. “I’m sorry I didn’t see it. When she was killed, there was just so much going on.”
I’d always avoided thinking about that time. It had felt like I was so alone. But when I looked at the deep lines etched on my brother’s ageless face now, the places his brow creased that were familiar with his sadness, I realized I’d been understanding it wrong.
When Frannie died and Magnus nearly beat me to death over it, Ares had started planning our uncle’s demise.
And it had taken years to accomplish. Years for the two of us to mature, for our talents to ripen, to become strong enough to stand against Magnus.
And we’d had to bring Avaline up with us, making her strong enough to withstand anything that came next.
Ares had managed it all.
I’d always thought he moved by instinct, but in retrospect, it had all been carefully orchestrated. My brother was strategic in a way I hadn’t given him enough credit for, because I was in too much pain to see it. “You killed Magnus for me. For Frannie.”
My brother’s jaw clenched, old rage burning in his eyes. “You’re damn right I did. And I’d do it ten more times if I could. Killing that fucker once wasn’t enough.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry it took me so long to understand.”
He smiled. “What is immortality for if not taking our time?”
It was so easy to filter everything in life through our own singular perspectives, to put ourselves at the center of the world, and miss that other people’s lives were as complex as our own.
I’d lived inside my own head for far too long.
I hadn’t meant to do it, but I’d lost sight of all the ways that my brother had shouldered the responsibility of the Dynasty on his own.
The way he’d sacrificed for me and Av for so long, so that the two of us would have some semblance of a life, while he’d had nothing but himself to rely on. Something loosened inside me that I hadn’t known had been knotted tight.
I managed to laugh, and then so did he. Resentments I hadn’t quite known existed dissipated in a moment of clarity that felt like letting go and growing, all at once. “Are you happy with Ember?” I asked. “You love her, she loves you, and you’re happy?”
Ares just nodded, but the smile in his eyes was all I needed to see. “And you?” he asked. “Will you tell Rhiannon what you feel for her?
“I’ll try,” I replied. “And if she’ll have me, I’ll be with her for the rest of my life.”
Ares let out a long breath, his jaw clenched with emotion, covering his mouth with his hand. It was rare for him to get choked up. He was still processing it all. Still working through what we’d learned.
“I am happy for you,” he finally said, a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “I worried after Francesca that you’d never be whole again. But now.” He took a shuddering breath, nodding his approval. “So, you’ll go back to the Cottage?”
I nodded. “We told Cassandra we would.”
Ares frowned. “Is there a need now, though? If she took the key to keep him from accessing the door to the underworld, couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
I shook my head, sure of something now that I hadn’t been before. The door to the underworld wasn’t in the basement, or the Ossuary. Oleander Cottage was the door. Cassandra didn’t steal the key to keep Magnus from the power the dead might wield. There was something else down there.
Something Archibald Blaire and the Authority had wanted. And if they’d wanted it then, there was no way they didn’t want it now. “Listen,” I said to my brother, as I leaned forward. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
Ares’ eyes took on that gleam they did when he was about to come up with a brilliant scheme. His body bent towards mine. “Tell me everything you know.”