Chapter Seven
Rhys sat on one of the stone benches that lined the front of the house. He leaned against its back, his head dropped on the hard marble line along the top, and watched as the sky shifted from purple to gray to a blue so dark, it might as well have been black.
And then he counted stars.
He didn’t speak the numbers aloud, but all the same, little puffs of white steam escaped his mouth as he traced them across the sky.
He didn’t know how long he sat out there.
Long enough for the cold air to brace him back to sanity, he supposed. But too long to remain on his guard.
Which was why he startled so badly when someone’s foot arrived to lightly kick at his shins.
He scrambled upward, an undignified noise tearing from his throat, to find Persephone Boswell hovering over him, looking very pleased at his foolishness.
She was holding a knit blanket. And a steaming mug. “Are you going to make room so I can sit?” she asked expectantly.
“Maybe,” he replied, rubbing a spot on his elbow he’d dinged in his startle. “What’s in the cup?”
“Chicken stock,” she said, holding it out. “I can’t have you catching sick before we even make it to Lewes. Drink it, fool.”
He took it, giving her a skeptical, little squint as she settled next to him and threw the blanket over their laps. “Where’d you get chicken stock?”
“I conjured it from the air,” she said immediately. “Behold and tremble.”
“Hm,” he replied, looking down at the swirl of golden liquid and its pillars of curling steam. “All right.”
“I smelled it in the kitchen and asked Hattie to get me some,” she said, sounding a bit exasperated as he took a sip. “I expect your dinner will incorporate it somehow.”
“Our dinner,” he said, sipping again and sighing in pleasure as the warmth spread down his chest. “You’re staying. Look how dark it is.”
“Hattie offered the coach,” she replied, and then she chuckled as he shook his head. “Fine. I’ll eat dinner, but I’m sleeping in my own bed tonight.”
He nodded and did not answer, continuing to sip his deliciously salty warmth. His eyes tilted up again, finding the Seven Sisters.
Neither dead nor alive.
“Libba gave me the dragon,” Seph said, following his gaze up to the sky. “This morning. Thank you.”
He gave a disappointed click of his tongue. “She wasn’t supposed to say it was from me.”
Seph chuckled, turning her head to look at him. “A dragon in red stone? Who else but a Welshman would send such a gift? I just can’t figure out why.”
He pulled a face, refusing to look at her. “Because it is a good idea. And when you have a good idea, it is torture to let it go to waste. Even if the only person who can make use of it is your nemesis.”
“Ah,” she said. “Of course. You know, the name Merlin on the envelope got me thinking. About another Welshman. Another dragon. Well … a Pendragon.”
Rhys couldn’t resist looking at her then, taking another noisy sip of broth. “What?”
“Arthur,” she said. “Legally dead, but only sleeping. Waiting for Camelot to need him again.”
Rhys laughed despite himself. “I can think of several times it has needed him and he just kept on snoring,” he pointed out.
“That isn’t the point,” she said. “The point is the wonder. The promise and hope of it. And it’s not limited to Wales, you know. My best customers are obsessed with ancient things, especially from Egypt. They have a king who died and came back too. Osiris.”
“The green fella,” Rhys said, nodding. “That’s true.”
“Yes, the green one,” she agreed, blinking at him in abject surprise. “Did Willa teach you Egyptian mythos too?”
He nodded. “And Norse and Greek and Roman and even some far-flung tribes that she’d read books on. Slavic and Celtic and Muslim too.”
“Huh,” she said, blinking. “So you know what those birds mean on the chairs in the parlor?”
“‘Birds’?” he repeated. “The gangly, white ones?”
“Ibises,” she said, nodding. “For Thoth. God of the Night.”
He couldn’t fight a smile at that, either, the muscles at the corners of his lips twitching. “You don’t say.”
He did not correct her.
He did not say, “God of the Moon.”
It was close enough.
“I do say,” she returned firmly. “We Celtic have half a dozen resurrections in our own ancient mythos, don’t we? Morrigan and Cerridwen and Bran the Blessed?”
“Yes, and now we have Jesus and Lazarus,” he said, rolling his eyes. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t nonsense. Hell, even Juliet is dead and not. Look how that turned out.”
“Ah, yes,” she mused, tilting her head slightly so that the blonde wisps of her hair brushed his sleeve. “And you too, Mercutio.”
He stared at the hair on his arm, at the golden wisps of it glinting in the moonlight. He squeezed his eyes shut, banishing the image that rose in his mind of the long-dead princess in his prized book upstairs and sighed.
“Is it true,” he asked, “that you cried? When I died?”
She huffed, a little noise through her nose, but did not answer.
“I hope it is true,” he said. “But you don’t have to tell me, I suppose.”
“Yes, I imagine you do,” she said without any sharpness. “My tears would be the ultimate feather in your cap.”
“The premiere feather,” he said, chuckling.
“Premiere,” she repeated, her eyes drifting up to the sky again. “Maybe it just meant first. Brighton’s premier illusionist. She with the longest tenure. Not best. I did start doing tricks at the pavilions before you did. When I was very small.”
“I remember,” he told her.
“And people hardly know you’re back yet,” she continued.
“You only performed once since inheriting your venue, and it was for a local funeral. One full season on the seaside and you’ll have overtaken me, I’m certain.
I only perform anymore from the confines of my shop, and it’s the same half a dozen tricks, over and over, to sell the kits. ”
“Well, if that’s true, it’s a waste,” he said easily. “A real waste.”
“Perhaps it is,” she answered, sounding a little farther away than she had before.
She gave a sharp sniff through her nose and straightened, brushing her hand over her face, her voice snapping back to briskness.
“I would like to leave early on the tenth, if it suits you. We can arrive in Lewes in time for shop openings and I can resupply my puzzle boxes and dioramas.”
“Ugh,” he moaned, frowning at her. “How early?”
“Daybreak,” she said. “Unless you want to find your own way into town and somehow track me down before midnight.”
“No, thank you,” he grumbled. “Fine.”
“Good,” she said. “Now, shall we go inside? I’m half frozen. I don’t know why you’re not.”
“Magic,” he suggested, standing and wrapping the blanket around his shoulders.
And perhaps it was magic.
And a bit of chili dust on the fruit in his pockets besides.
*
He did catch sick, a little.
For the next three days, Rhys nursed a sniffle and a weight of lethargy that kept him bedbound and deeply displeased about the matter.
He had written to Seph immediately, instructing her to plan any necessary logistics for the tenth via written message rather than having her come by and also get sick. So, of course, she had immediately violated that directive and shown back up at the Rest.
She had evidently brought several tins of her bizarre confections for his siblings, and for him, she appeared in his room grinning and proffering a familiar pink tin. “I thought you liked them,” she said, shaking it, “since you stole all the rest of the ones in my flat.”
“I don’t,” he told her, somberly and masculinely, and then ruined it by sneezing six times in a row while she stood there and grinned.
She was wearing orange and a dark, slate gray that day. She always wore two colors. Always had.
“The chili will speed the sniffle,” she told him, tossing it onto his bedside table. “And if you get me sick, I shall find a way to maim you. Eat them and rest. I’ll be back at dawn on the tenth.”
“Did you see the mouth plants?” he called as she turned to leave, which did give her pause.
“Not yet,” she said, frowning. “I saw them still all shriveled and black. Errol says they need another few days. They don’t have teeth.”
Rhys returned her frown. “No? Gummy little buggers, are they?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “They have a fringe of little feelers on the outside of their lips, like antennae or tentacles. Perhaps those are the teeth.”
“He’s going to have to find things to feed them,” Rhys mused, sniffling and dabbing at his nose again. “He won’t like doing that. Errol doesn’t like dead things.”
“Flies and mosquitoes aren’t very abundant as it gets cold, either,” she said, nodding. “Oh, but I have some dried ants and crickets at the shop! I shall offer them. Though the ants are covered in chocolate.”
“What?” he barked, though she’d turned to leave for truth this time. “Seph! Why do you have ants in chocolate?!”
It was no use.
She was gone.
And he was stuck achy, and clogged, and listless in his bed. It was a very nice bed, at least. And though he’d never tell her so, using the spicy fruits when he needed to clear his cursed head enough to breathe through his nose was actually very effective.
Shortly after the delivery of the pink tin, he found himself sprinkling the powdered heat concoction from the bottoms of the fruit paper into his mugs of tea and broth, to astoundingly tasty results.
When Monica Thresher, the sweetest of his sisters, came to read to him, he insisted she try it, too, and glowed in pleasure at the look of astounded enjoyment on her round, pink face.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she breathed. “Seph ought to sell it in a shaker.”
“You tell her,” he said. “I’ve given the wench enough business ideas.”
Which only seemed to amuse Monica. “Shall I read to you?” she offered, drifting over to his bookshelf and tapping the spines until she found his tales of Welsh legacy on the rack. “Gwenllian again?”
“No,” he said, faster and sharper than he’d intended. “No, not her. Not right now.”
“Really?” Monica asked, turning with surprise in her eyes. “You love Gwenllian.”
“Not right now,” he said again, and he sneezed a few times for good measure. “Erm … Bran the Blessed. It’s in the same book.”
“But I don’t know that one,” she protested, withdrawing the book and flipping through it as she swayed back toward the chair at the foot of his bed. “Oh, a giant. And a king.”
“It gets worse,” he assured her.
And settled in under his blankets for a tale of a wronged Welsh king who used Irish magic to become a talking, decapitated head.
Why did that feel so right just now?
Rhys decided that no one could say.
It was a mystery.
A total and complete mystery.