Chapter 7 - Shadows
Ididn’t sleep well.
I knew Allie was plagued with nightmares all night—and therefore so was I.
Visions of the monster decimating all the wedding guests, the terrified screams, the spray of blood, and the stench of death haunted her dreams.
Understandably.
However, this morning, the beating of the heart in my chest had gone back to a normal, steady pace. Clutching at my shirtfront, I took a deep breath to steel myself. It was quite a disconcerting sensation after centuries of nothing, of hollowness.
But all this confusion would soon end, I assured myself. I just had to endure a little bit longer and then I would get what I wanted.
As I sat on my bed to catch my breath, I tilted my head to one side at a faint noise. I looked around my silent loft and easily concluded that the noise was coming from downstairs.
Of course, it was.
With an exasperated grumble, I pushed up to stalk down the spiral staircase to check up on what the hell Allie was up to.
Was she trying to escape again? I wouldn’t have blamed her.
Halfway down the stairs, I blinked in surprise.
Allie had somehow resurrected many of the things I had magically whisked away. Her gaze was newly determined as she worked.
I didn’t sense any hint of fear or anxiety in her person.
Until she looked up and spotted me coming down.
But even then, her fear this morning was muted.
It was as though she’d had time to think, to calm down, to rationalize overnight.
Tilting my head, I assessed her aura once more. It was in neither of our interests if she got sick or became distraught from apprehension.
I had to clear the air first. “You weren’t supposed to be there.”
Not meeting my gaze, Allie shook her head.
“How did you even follow me?” I wanted to know.
“I jumped into your portal wake.”
“My…what?”
She pressed her lips together. “I was…eavesdropping. Again. When you were talking to Chez.” Her gaze dropped. “I saw you as you were about to leave for your mission. I don’t know why I thought it could work, but I jumped into the space you teleported through, and then I found myself where you were.”
My blood running cold, I clenched my jaw. “You did…what?”
“I was curious.”
My eyebrows snapped together in a nearly uncontrollable rage. What the damn hell—was she actually crazy? I surged forward. “You—have no idea how dangerous that was—what you’d done! You can’t always guarantee where those things lead. Who knows where you could have ended up?”
I suppressed the urge to throttle her, taking another step closer, making Allie stumble. She backed up until she was pressed against the glass wall. The giant exposed brass gears within the tower chugged mechanically behind her, the weights and chains pulling and shifting as the witness clock ticked and tocked.
A rumble of clouds mirrored in Allie’s wide eyes as my darkness descended into the room, almost blocking out the light from the windows, snuffing out the lamp lights on the table, rendering the space close to pitch black.
With a grave, menacing look, I caged her in with my body and bent my head even closer to rasp the words in her face. “Swear to me you won’t ever do that again.”
Unwilling to meet my cold gaze, hers was off to one side but she managed the words, “I-I swear.”
Vindicated, I couldn’t help a slight smirk. “Are you afraid of me now?”
Allie still wouldn’t meet my gaze.
That should have been my answer.
But for some reason, I wanted her to say it.
“Allie?” I prompted.
Swallowing hard, Allie shook her head. “I’m not afraid of you.” She looked up to meet my gaze evenly. “I’m not, Rabb.”
Unbidden, my dark clouds began to recede. What? “I’ve just told you I kill people and harvest their hearts. You already know I’ve done the same to you. I have your heart trapped. I hold you hostage. Even if you escape or try to run away again, I will always find you. You’re not afraid?”
She took a deep breath. “You haven’t hurt me yet. On the contrary, you’ve taken really good care of me so far.”
I met her gaze with a sneer, trying to will my terrifying shadows back. “I’ve told you I need you alive. It has nothing to do with taking care of you.”
Still, she shrugged. “I’m a scientist. All I know is the proof I have.”
Whether she was just saying it to put on a brave front, put me off-balance, or she really believed it, it was a futile thing to threaten someone who wasn’t at all frightened. I almost groaned in annoyance. I couldn’t seduce her. I couldn’t scare her. Did nothing I do affect her at all?
A bit confused and disoriented, I stepped back enough to give her space to breathe, the light in the room returning as the fog lifted.
I was at an absolute total loss for what to do.
Allie shifted in her stance. “Can I…ask you a question?”
I narrowed my eyes at her instead of responding.
She asked anyway, “Do—do you feel guilty at all? About what you just did?”
I sniffed. “I cannot feel guilt or remorse. Those feelings, those weak human feelings, have long been removed from me.”
“You…basically just massacred an entire kingdom, maybe even two,” she pointed out. “You don’t even feel bad in the least? Don’t you worry about—” She rolled her shoulders. “I don’t know, karma?”
Not understanding, I quirked my head.
“You know…” She threw her hands up. “Your comeuppance. The part where you get what you deserve in the end.”
Not defensive in the slightest, I folded my arms across my chest. “My soul has been black from the beginning. This is what I was made for.”
I had certainly never suffered anything untoward despite every wicked command of the Queen’s I had carried out. I remembered every horrible thing I had ever done. I had never once had to consider the consequences of my actions. It was my job. My sole purpose.
Nothing else mattered save for the clock to keep ticking.
Allie bit her lip. “Can I ask you another question?”
She probably had about a million questions by now.
“What?”
Allie was staring intently at my chest. “If you carry mine in there, where is your heart?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think I ever had one. Or if I did, it’s been lost a while.”
Her one eyebrow quirked up. “You don’t want to find it?”
“I’ve never needed a heart to live.” Nonchalantly, I turned away. “I know I’m a monster.”
“The Queen is a monster,” Allie corrected. “For making you do this. She’s manipulating you for her own gains…” Her forehead creased as if in an inkling of a recollection and a dark shadow crossed her face. “I think…maybe I might have also done something like that.”
On the brink of eagerness and anticipation, my eyes widened. “Are you starting to remember something about who you are?”
She dropped her gaze. “I have a feeling I was not truly good either.”
I studied her face, waiting to see if she remembered anything else. If she did, then perhaps all my troubles could be over as soon as today.
A brief streak of sunlight slipped through the clouds, filtering in through the windows, but the momentary glimmer of a trance on her face passed just as quickly.
Pursing my lips, I straightened up. I supposed I shouldn’t have expected it was going to be that easy.
Allie dropped her gaze. Her thoughts had visibly shifted. I could almost see the gears in her mind turning. “That girl, last night—she…died when you put her heart in that thingy.”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“But I didn’t die when you took mine,” she noted.
“They don’t always die,” I dismissed since I couldn’t explain any further.
All these centuries of doing this, it had never once occurred to me to ask how exactly a Heartlamp functioned. And why should it? Such details were irrelevant to my job.
I tapped my chest, gesturing between us. “Besides, you might have noticed. One doesn’t always need a heart to survive in Wünder.”
Allie’s eyes narrowed. Her busybody brain was working on something. “Right. So the fact of the matter is…you don’t really need me. For some reason, you just need my heart. And I could go on happily existing even without it.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say ‘happily’. You should have lost all your emotions.” Or at least she shouldhave.
I knew this much for a fact. Wünder had a certain population of people wandering around, sallow and stripped of feelings, many of them victims of my services. These people moved through their day-to-day like ghosts haunting their villages. They may as well have been ghosts.
But for reasons I was cautious to admit even to myself, Allie, of course, was nothing like them.
“What?” I prompted, my tone lowering half in dread. I wasn’t sure if I ought to be worried or not about Allie’s slow nodding as she processed this information.
“The other day, you offered to help me.” Allie met my gaze. “I have a counteroffer. An exchange. You help me find a way home and in return, you can keep my heart. I mean, all the evidence suggests you don’t really need me—at least, not me in particular.”
I sneered again. “I already have your heart. I own you. You have no leeway for negotiation, no leverage.”
Allie narrowed her eyes. “But I have a distinct feeling you’re as eager to get my heart out of you as I am to get home. And if you haven’t ripped it out of your chest just yet, I’m sure there is a reason. Given what you are, and having observed your behavior for the last few weeks, I even deduce that it’s actually detrimental to you to have a real heart after all these years. Ergo, I will help you with what you need if you help me with what I need.”
I blinked at her unexpected insights.
Damn, this girl was clever.
“And if we don’t find you a way home?” I quirked an eyebrow.
“Well, then that is my risk to take.” She nodded solemnly. “Do we have a deal?”
“What if I don’t accept your offer?”
“Then-then I’ll be relentless.” She stuck her chin up. “I already know, for some reason, you aren’t able to kill me—maybe you can’t or just don’t want to. I’ll try to escape every day and get into all the trouble I can find. Either way, you’ll never get a moment’s peace.”
My eyes flashed. “Look, you—” But I stopped short when something clicked in my mind.
Allie didn’t know what the Duchess’s job was. She didn’t know how the Heartlamp worked either. She didn’t have the faintest idea about magic or how Heartfire embers were used in Wünder. This was something I could use to my advantage.
I folded my arms across my chest. “Fine. Have it your way.”
Allie narrowed her gaze at me in suspicion.
Drat.Perhaps I had agreed too quickly.
She peered at my face. “How do I know I can trust you to keep your word?”
Giving her an even glare back, I measured my words carefully. “I assure you I have no interest in keeping you around. You were right in what you said before. I am as eager to get this heart out of me as you are to get home. I promise you we will both get what we want.”
Satisfied with that, Allie nodded. “Fine. First things first. I need to get my memories back. The other day, you seemed to have an idea how to go about retrieving them.”
I cleared my throat. Starting again, I tried to make my tone as guileless as possible. “I mean there have been stories of a similar case like yours. I believe there is a way to restore your memories.”
She tapped her chin. “What did you call that thing where you put the girl’s heart again?”
“A Heartlamp. It is the only vessel that can contain a Heartfire ember.”
I had to control the eagerness in my tone. If I could convince her to go see the Duchess… That was, if I could convince Allie to willingly deposit her Heartfire ember in a Heartlamp then perhaps I would get what I want. And once the power of her heart was extracted, Allie would no longer be my problem.
Careful not to let anything slip, I tilted my head as I spoke. “The Duchess is the only being on Wünder who makes the Heartlamps. I think if we could get the Duchess to craft you a special Heartlamp, it might help unblock your memories and you’ll remember who you are.”
Allie’s response was a slow nod.
I shrugged. “I mean, I won’t have the faintest clue how to find your way home back to…wherever you’re from. I’ll not be able to help you there.”
“I know. Leave that to me.” She gestured to her work table. “I’ve been working on an experiment that should help me find a way home. In fact, I was very close before you magicked away all my stuff.” She waved her hand as if mimicking what I’d done. “I found replacement parts for most of the things you threw away. Can you get them back?”
I gave her a no-nonsense look. No.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I guess I’ll have to make do.”
A meowing near the stairs caught her attention as Chez padded down the spiral steps.
“Chez!” Allie broke into a smile.
Chez pounced along and jumped up to the table beside Allie. “I brought you a gift.”
Allie plucked a small metal item from the purple cat’s collar. Her eyes widened in pleasure. “This is great, Chez. It’s the last thing I need to make another frequency detector. Thank you so much!”
I glanced from one to the other. I could care less about their tedious exchanges.
“How are you doing, Allie?” Chez asked, his tone adopting concern.
“Okay, I guess.” Allie shrugged as she spun to settle in her seat. “I still keep thinking this is all just a dream and that I will soon wake up, safe in my bed. But I guess…there goes that theory.” She drew out a few tools and scattered certain things before her. “The good news is Rabb has agreed to help me with my mission.”
“Did he now?” Chez looked amused, if not in disbelief.
I gave Chez a pointed look. “I told Allie we need another Heartlamp that only your mistress, the Duchess makes. She makes all the mystical Heartlamps for the Queen. We’ll need her to make another one for yours. And once you’ve deposited your heart in the Heartlamp, you’ll definitely regain your memories.” I raised an eyebrow, almost daring him to contradict me. “Isn’t that right, Chez?”
Chez looked puzzled for a moment before he caught on. “Oh—oh yeah, right. That’s definitely something that’s very possible. The Duchess can definitely help you with that.” He rolled over on the table, stretching out. “Besides that, I mean that heart really shouldn’t be inside you, Rabb. It’s just…off-putting.”
Allie’s forehead creased in curiosity as she met my gaze. “Why didn’t you have a new Heartlamp made before?”
I shot her a pointed look. “I haven’t told anyone about this, Allie. About you. If anyone finds out I’m keeping a—” coeur, I almost said before stopping short to amend, “your heart, we’ll both be in grave danger.”
“Perfect.” Allie pounded the table with her fist in enthusiasm. “Then there’s only one thing to do. Let’s go see this Duchess.”
Chez tilted his head to look at me. “You know you’re going to have to cross the River of Tears, right?”
I resisted the urge to groan. “I know.”
Chez’s eyebrows shot up. “Okay. Wow.”
Allie looked from me to the cat and back again. “Is that a big deal?”
Wordless, I averted my gaze.
“Rabb hates that river. He hasn’t been across it in decades,” Chez relayed. “The River is…dangerous for people like him.”
“Dangerous how?”
“Magic doesn’t work there. Rabb will be powerless.”
Allie’s mouth formed an ‘o’ in acknowledgment.
Chez went on, “There’s a man they call The Dodo. He’s a slimy, unscrupulous fellow, runs a gambling den on a steamboat that cruises up and down the river.” He tiled his head to point out, “Only way to ensure no cheating is not to have magic. It’s the only place gambling thrives. He’s carved out quite the market for himself. Of course, the house takes a cut off the top of all earnings, so really, the only winner is The Dodo.”
Her attention now back on her work, Allie merely nodded. “Sounds logical.”
Chez chuckled. “I knew I liked her.” He cast me a glance. “Rabb, doesn’t Allie just glow with such…an ominous positivity?”
I huffed and whirled around to make my leave.
From behind me, sparks lit up the room as Allie soldered something on her work table and a rusty tang tickled my nose.
I glanced back to see Allie blow the dust and smoke from the object on the table before picking it up. I narrowed my eyes at the yellowish orb hanging on a chain as Allie drew it around her neck.
“So,” Allie started to Chez. “This scary Queen of yours. She sounds quite gruesome.”
“Yeah, she eats all the hearts she can get her hands on. Nobody escapes that.”
“Except me,” she quipped.
“Well, we’ll hope so.”
I turned to climb back up the stairs but I couldn’t help but dally near the top so I could eavesdrop on the rest of their conversation.
“Chez?”
“What?”
“Why can’t Rabb give my heart to the Queen?”
“I told you, it’s a weird one.”
“Weird how?”
“It’s empty, for starters.”
“Because I lost my memories?”
“Probably,” Chez relayed. “Most hearts hold fond memories of loved ones in them. It’s part of what attributes the power. Do you remember anyone you loved?”
Allie’s gaze glazed over. “I think… I think I may have loved someone. But I don’t remember.” She fiddled with her fingers as if straining to remember before blowing out a resigned breath. “What do you suggest I do now, Chez?”
The cat shrugged—in as much as a cat could shrug. He gave her a pointed look before responding, “I say…follow the white rabbit.”