Chapter 22
RHIANNON
The afternoon wore on with a mix of familiar arguing.
Terrifying as being trapped in Oleander Cottage had been, at least it was quiet.
My eyes were heavy with exhaustion that ran soul-deep.
Without thinking, I looked up, expecting to find Eryx waiting for me, but he and Ares were still out in the office.
Likely, they were still combing through everything that had happened with a fine-toothed comb.
A wave of fatigue hit me so hard I thought I might be ill.
Somewhere between extreme nausea and the urge to let out an endless shriek, I felt profoundly unwell.
If I didn’t get somewhere quiet soon, I was going to end up in a puddle on the kitchen floor.
I begged my pardons from my sistren, Av, and Briony, claiming I needed a nap in my own bed.
Really, I just needed to be alone with my thoughts.
The way Eryx had looked at me in the kitchen was more than I could bear.
We hadn’t talked about what would happen once we got back.
He hadn’t made me any promises, and I hadn’t made him any either.
And maybe it was just fear taking the wheel, but something deep inside me felt sure things would fall apart out here.
After all, I had only been here for a little while and I was already falling apart.
There was no way I could manage a relationship.
I hadn’t solved any of my own problems. Like always, I’d focused on someone else to avoid dealing with me.
And if I didn’t deal with my own bullshit, I was never going to be good enough for him.
A terrible spiral of fear and doubt caught me in a dangerous undercurrent as I trudged up the stairs. When we were locked in the cottage together, everything had seemed so easy, so obvious. Out here, things felt complicated—hard in a way my mind couldn’t currently handle or think through.
There had to be a way to solve this. To fix it so this didn’t all hurt so much. I was just too tired to see it. Too tired and shortsighted to figure it all out. Once I was shut inside my room, I set my phone on its charger and crawled into bed, pushing throw pillows onto the floor.
Someone had done me the favor of washing my sheets recently. They still smelled faintly of the lavender essential oil that Ember drizzled onto the felt dryer balls she favored. I buried my face in them, pulling the duvet over my head.
My phone buzzed softly, letting me know it was back on, but I couldn’t bear the thought of going to get it. Someone was always calling. I’d forgotten what that was like in the time Eryx and I had been at the Cottage. Always calling, always texting. Always needing something from me.
It wasn’t their fault. I’d let everyone close to me do it for years without setting a single boundary, or even waiting until I had time to talk with them. I answered every call, responded to every text. The second I saw them, I answered. And if I didn’t, I felt guilty.
If I let Eryx in, would he become another person I dreaded intruding on me? Would he be another thing to feel guilty over?
My breath came in ragged gasps, as my phone buzzed again.
I dragged myself out of bed to look at it.
It was Calypso, and she’d just remembered that I’d promised to recommend a shampoo to her before I’d left…
and did I remember which one it was? I did, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer her.
Instead, I opened the settings of my phone and turned off my read receipts.
This had to stop. I had so few pieces of myself left. I needed them for me. I closed my eyes and tried to clear some of the noise from my mind, letting my thoughts order themselves a bit more logically.
There was a number I could call to get my job with the Consulate back.
All it would take was one phone call, and I’d be back in my posh little condo by the sea.
In Aradios, everything had been quieter, but so, so painfully lonely.
And they would expect me to get back on the Blaire case, and I couldn’t.
I pushed that out of my mind. Right now, the quiet was all I could think of.
My thoughts overrode my desire for just a few minutes of peace to gather myself. Now that I was out here again, I couldn’t stop thinking. But one thought repeated itself: I couldn’t go back to working for the Consulate. And it wasn’t just the Blaire case. It was everything.
When I’d gotten the job, it made sense. I’d traded information that was completely useless to the modern Consulate about how magic worked in exchange for contacts.
First for the best doctors for Sera, and later, for information about the mysterious “Mother.” And, I thought, good information about who might have stolen our swords.
But “Mother”—the Admiral—had been too good at hiding herself and what she’d done.
I’d never once suspected her, or the island, and as a result, I’d probably given the Consulate more than was good for them to know.
I couldn’t go back to working for them, but I could go back to the warm quiet of Aradios.
There were other things I could do there.
Antiquities dealers who’d be grateful for my expertise.
Anything to get the distance back between myself and the people I didn’t know how to say no to. Anything to get away from Eryx before I hurt him. After everything that had happened with Francesca Lyon, he deserved someone who could love him wholly.
If I went back into that house with him, I would lose control.
I would let myself sink into him, and I’d lose myself further.
I’d let myself love him and destroy us both.
But the thought of leaving him left me nearly bereft.
I didn’t know how to fix this or change it.
I’d made too many mistakes, let myself get too tired.
All I knew for sure now was that the way he looked at me was dangerous, and I couldn’t trust myself with him.
My phone buzzed again, and then dinged. How had the sound been turned back on? Every vibration and ring from the phone felt like a shot to my frayed nerves. I shook, unable to move to shut it off, unable to stand the sound of it.
A horrible thought occurred to me. What if I couldn’t leave Orphium? What if eating the food of the dead had bound me to this place forever? I’d be trapped here. Trapped with all this noise I didn’t know how to stop.
I had to try to get out. I had to know I could escape, if I needed to. Just for a little while. I could call Marv at Sanctuary, the top antiquities firm in Aradios. I could call him and be gone in an hour.
Six months of easy work identifying old shit and sleeping for twelve hours a night might just do the trick. Six months of pure quiet would fix me. And then I could be the person everyone needed me to be again. My heart beat faster as my legs swung about, and my feet touched the floor.
The only way to stop this constant, soul-crushing exhaustion was to leave. It was never going to get better here. All I needed was my suitcase and summer clothes and this would be over.
My body moved without much thought, gathering my things.
I was practiced at this, at running from my problems to solve them.
It was the only thing I was good at anymore, and coming back here was never supposed to be permanent.
Ember had Calypso now and they’d fared just fine without me, so far.
They would be fine for another few months.
I had made a promise though. To Cassandra. I would stop by the Cottage before I went to explain. I told myself she would get it. That out of anyone, she’d understand why I was running from a Necroline man.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
I glanced up to find Lara glowering at me. She’d used my methods for silence and managed to sneak up on me.
“Leaving,” I said.
She snatched a bikini from my hand. “No.”
I snatched it back, feeling instantly resentful. This was the problem. This idea that I wasn’t allowed to make my own decisions about things. That I owed them some part of me. “You don’t get to boss me around anymore, Lara Achilles.”
She smacked the bikini out of my hand and shook me by the shoulders, all in a lightning-fast movement. “We need you, Rhiannon.”
It was the wrong thing for her to say. I didn’t want to be needed.
Or noticed. Or even loved. I wanted to disappear.
To find the endless peace of being unknown again.
Aradios had been so quiet. Lonely, but so quiet.
Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
I didn’t fight back. I just looked away, my hands shaking as I shook my head. “You don’t. You never have.”
“Holy fuck,” she breathed, her grip on my shoulders tightening. “You don’t get it, do you?”
She had no idea what I meant. She wasn’t understanding me, because I was failing to communicate myself correctly. Again. This was how it always was with us. It was like we were having two different conversations, one hundred percent of the time.
“You are the fucking glue, Rhi,” she murmured, shaking me again. Hard. “You know how to handle every single fight, make sure we come to the right conclusions… You are irreplaceable.”
Her words slid off me as easily as if I was made of glass. It was hard not to laugh. She understood, but still didn’t get it. Still didn’t get me. I’d never wanted to be irreplaceable. I just wanted to be one of them. “You’ve all been fine without me.”
She let go of my shoulders, only to grab hold of my chin, forcing me to look at her. “Don’t be a fool, Bronte. We survived it, but no one is ever fine without you.”
I pulled out of her grip. Anger was all I had left. This was a misunderstanding of some sort, but I couldn’t be the one to solve it. Not this time. “Well maybe you need to learn to mediate your quibbles without me. I’m not your fucking mother.”
Lara bit down on her bottom lip, shaking her head and raising her hands in surrender. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”
She spun on her heels and I grabbed the bikini off the floor and shoved it in my bag, marching down the back stairs in the opposite direction from her.
Before I knew it, I was downstairs, slipping into my shoes by the back door of Hemlock House.
Tears threatened, but I couldn’t let myself cry.
I had to get to Oleander Cottage and talk to Cassandra. Then I could leave.
Then I could find rest somewhere. Peace. All I wanted was quiet. My head ached with too many overwhelming emotions. If I didn’t get quiet soon, I was going to implode. I sat hard on the bench by the shelf for shoes, fighting back angry tears.
My shoes had been put away in a cubby with my name on it. Briony’s bubbly teenage letters were sweet, cheerful. Why couldn’t I find peace here? Going back to Aradios would only cause more problems. I knew that. My head fell into my hands, and I tried to focus on my breath, but nothing helped.
Every second, trapped without respite, made things worse.
The sound of Lara following me infuriated me further. Why could she never let me be? Without looking up, I growled. “Leave me alone, Achilles.”
When she didn’t answer, I raised my eyes slowly. Eryx had changed his clothes—now he wore a pair of dark gray sweatpants, and a Pizza Queen baseball jersey that hung over his hips in a way that was far, far too tantalizing. His face was twisted with emotion.
“Lara says you’re leaving?” He framed the words as a question, but they came out as an accusation. “Were you going to go without saying anything to me?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. I was fairly certain I was scowling. It was different with him than it was with the others, but I was too deep into my fury to say the right things. Now I wanted to make everything worse. “I don’t owe you anything.”
He took two steps across the mudroom, his eyes blazing. “The fuck you don’t. You can’t just leave.”
“Why not?” My words sounded like a child’s dare. This was wrong and I knew it. I knew it and I was going to push him harder. Hard enough to break this thing between us once and for all. I stood. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating off him. “Why. Not?”
I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to say, but I expected bravery I didn’t have at the moment. It was an unfair desire, a selfish one, even. But I was backed into a corner, embarrassed, exhausted… My knees buckled.
Eryx’s arms were around me as darkness clouded my peripheral vision.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I whispered, as the room slipped out of focus.
Nothing felt real. I was going down, my lungs unable to take in air, my eyes unable to stay open a second longer.
Words tumbled out of me, meaningless or meaningful, I knew nothing more than that I was speaking. “I need to take a nap.”
My eyes drooped shut, but I didn’t pass out. It wasn’t that type of swoon. It was as though I was dropping slowly off a cliff, into a dark abyss. I felt Eryx’s arms close around my body, strong and safe as he gathered me into his arms.
Suddenly, breathing was easier. My eyelids weighed a ton. Darkness seeped in, close and comforting as Eryx’s body heat. “Then it’s a nap you’ll have,” he murmured, his voice gentle now as I nuzzled against him. I’d forgotten why I wasn’t supposed to. “You’ll have all the rest you need.”