37. Something’s Not Right
Chapter thirty-seven
Something's Not Right
Ione
"I can't remember what I was thinking about." I say to Ambrose over dinner.
"You were talking about your sea shells, cutie." He smiles at me. "Don't you remember?"
"No, that's what I just said." I snapped. "I'm tired."
"Ok." He watches as I walk out of the kitchen, unmoving.
My feet stop in the hall, across from his potions room.
What was I supposed to be doing? I'm getting frustrated, irritated that I can't seem to recall.
Someone was talking to me today, I can feel hands on my body.
A kiss on my lips. Who was that? Someone important to me.
I had feelings that were…what were they?
It's sometime later when Ambrose joins me in the room. He places one arm over me and cuddles up close. "Sleeping?"
"I was," I sigh. "Before someone came stomping into the room."
He laughs. "Want to hear a story then?"
"About?" I have no choice, turning over on my back, he moves away and props his head up.
"My sisters, my life before." He sighs, trailing his fingers down my forearm. "They were kitchen witches."
Why does that word start a fire within me. "What does that mean?"
Ambrose smiles. "My oldest sister, she looks just like me, well, I look just like her, anyway! They were skilled with herbs and cooking. Weaving spells into cakes, pies, porridges." He sighs. "Easy way to kill a man or charm one."
My heart begins to race, my skin turning cold. Swallowing hard, my mind is remembering something. My hands shake as my breath comes shattering from between my teeth. "Ambrose…is that what you're doing to me?"
"No, what? Come on now." He lifts himself so he's leaning over me. His brown and green eyes are gentle. "What made you say that?"
He's searching my face for answers. I can't look away, something inside tells me that if I look away, I'm guilty, he'll know what I've done. What did I do?
"A thought." I whisper. "And you could back up a little." Pushing his chest, he pretends to fall over.
"So mean," He cuddles up to my side once more. "Anyway, they were very skilled, no one could taste a thing."
His voice drowns on and on. Jeez, he really does love to hear himself talk. Certified yapper indeed, I don't remember falling asleep.
It's three days later, that Ambrose and I are heading into the jungle, or whatever this thickness of trees is on this island.
"Tell me something, Ione," He says, waving his hand so that the trees move from around us. "Do you remember someone named Athanasius?"
The name strikes my heart. Tears begin to take over, I let out a sob and stop in my tracks leaning against a tree.
Why do I feel like this? Like I've lost something?
Someone. Athanasius. Athy! Wait! Recognition flares in my brain, and I throw myself at Ambrose, striking his chest and arms as he attempts to hold me at arms length.
"You fucking bastard! I knew it! What are you doing to me! Where is he?" My strength is giving out, crumbling to the ground, I cover my face and cry. I'm forgetting him. Ambrose is making me forget him. I loved him. Loved? I still do? Where is he?
"Lost to you, he doesn't want you anymore, Ione, can't you see that?" Ambrose chides softly, kneeling in front of me. "It's you and me now babe."
"No." I can still hear his voice in my mind. The night does not belong to me, I love it on you, Ione. "He loves me. He said I was his consort. You're lying." I bolt upright and take off into the jungle.
I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what's going to happen to me and I am scared.
I'm trapped here, on this island, for who knows how long.
My family. My life. He's snatching it from me.
Suddenly, there are arms around my waist, pulling me back and I'm fighting, kicking, and screaming, all the way back to the castle as Ambrose sets me on the stone floor.
"Enough!" He sighs. "You want proof? I'll give it to you, look." He waves his hand and the air shimmers in front of us.
A portal between space and time begins to open.
It's hazy at first, warbling at the corners, transparent, and odd looking until it shows me a desert.
I don't know which one, but the sand is beet red, the sun is setting in the sky and an old man with gold rimmed glasses, holds the hand of a woman draped in a slinky black mini dress.
"Master, she may not be your consort, but she is a salve for now. An eager follower of yours, someone to take the sting off. I promise, every desire she will fulfill." The old man twirls the girl around.
"Athanasius?" I whisper.
He's sitting on a throne made of bone. Stark white against the sand, he watches the girl and closes his eyes. "For my amusement?" He drawls slowly.
Ambrose closes the portal and tears well up in my eyes. No. He wouldn't. Not that easy, not like that. Our connection, I haven't severed it.
"He is a Primordial," Ambrose clucks his tongue. "He doesn't truly care about you, Ione, do you see now?"
Standing, I swallow hard and swipe out, my left hand connecting hard with Ambrose's cheek. "Fuck you."
I have no choice but to eat. What can I do? I can't starve myself. I wish I had the strength to. I've been trying to pick at my food, drink water from the bathroom, but tonight I can feel the haze again. Who am I when I'm like this? What can I do?
"Are we done with our tantrum?" Ambrose sighs. He watches me sit on the edge of the bed. "I've spared you that fate, Ione, trust me."
"I can't trust you." I mutter. "You're drugging me.
You're making me forget him, what's the long game here?
Make me denounce him? Yeah, cause that will—" Realization slams into my front lobe, clear as day.
"I renounce him and he can't stay on this plain.
He has to return to his realm, he needs me as his anchor to hold form on this realm, or he has to absorb my life to walk in his true one.
" My eyes mist over as I stare at Ambrose.
"You want him to leave here. You want him gone. "
Ambrose shakes his head. "Took you long enough.
You'll do it though." He crouches in front of me.
"It won't be long." He kisses my knees. "You'll forget him, you'll renounce him, he leaves this realm, and then you're mine.
"Ambrose lays his head on my thighs. "How is that for revenge?
I get the one person The Withering cares about in this world as my consort. "
"You're not a primordial." I shoot back, unable to remove him from my lap. "You can't have a consort."
"No," Ambrose nibbles my knee. "But I can be something else."
He darts up, pushing my body back on the bed, his brown eyes with flecks of green begin to glow as he slides his hands up my waist. "Look at me, Ione, yes, keep my gaze cutie."
I can't look away. I'm trying to force my eyes shut. "Stop."
"Why? Aren't we having fun?" He winks, as his eyes keep burning into mine. Something is happening, but I can't stop it.
Aren't we? Yes. I think so? My brain is foggy again, my body relaxes, and slowly Ambrose lets me go. "There we go." He leans down, planting a kiss on my forehead. "That's my good girl, you've put up such a good fight."
"Thank you," I mutter. There's two versions of me. This one and another one, she's inside of a glass box, banging her fists on the surface, screaming at me. What's her problem? "Where are we?"
"Everywhere and nowhere." Ambrose's eyes stop glowing. He lays next to me, lazily dragging his fingers up and down my stomach.
I float on a sea of silk, the bed beneath me whispers against my skin.
The air smells of something sweet—too sweet.
My limbs feel like melting wax, heavy and slow.
Beside me, Ambrose hums low under his breath, his fingers tracing idle patterns along my arm.
I turn my head sluggishly to look at him.
His brown-green eyes are alight, glowing like twin coals stirred in a deep forest fire.
He smiles at me—a smile full of sharp teeth hidden behind honeyed lips.
"Just relax, princess," he purrs, voice rich enough to drink. "No need to struggle. You're safe with me."
Safe. The word cracks against my skull like a whip. Behind my closed eyelids, another world spins into view. I see myself—two versions of me.
One, the me lying drugged on the bed, outside a massive glass box. The other—me, real me—is trapped inside it. Her hands slam against the cold, transparent walls. Her mouth moves frantically, but the sound is muffled, distant.
Get up.
Run.
My heart jerks in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, trying to block out the visions, trying to focus on Ambrose’s fingertips burning trails across my skin. His voice is syrupy, coaxing, drowning me. “Don’t fight it, cutie," he coos. "You’ll only make yourself tired. Let go. It’s easier.”
The woman in the box screams silently, punching the glass with both fists. I stumble closer in my mind, hands trembling.
Find the potion room. Drink the locator potion. Hurry.
Her voice is slipping away, fading under the lull of Ambrose's spell, but the urgency—the terror—punches through the fog.
And then—Athanasius.
He appears like a phantom behind the glass, his silver hair wild, his black eyes desperate. His voice thunders through the dreamscape: "Help me, rabbit. I need to find you."
My body jerks, every nerve in me suddenly snapping taut. I shoot up off the bed.
"Whoa, whoa!" Ambrose yelps, half-laughing, half-startled. He reaches for me, but I'm already moving, bare feet slamming against the stone floor as I tear out of the room.
Down the corridor. Down the stairs. The world tilts and spins, but I keep running.
The potion room looms ahead, its door slightly ajar. I crash through it, the shelves blurring into streaks of glass and colored liquid.
Behind me—A sharp curse. Then Ambrose’s voice, sharp as broken glass: "Ione, cutie, stop!"
I rip through the shelves, knocking vials and bottles to the ground. They shatter, releasing a whirlwind of scents—biting herbs, rotting sweetness, acrid smoke.
"Gods, woman!" he howls, following me into the room. "Do you even know what you're touching?! What you're breaking?! That’s six months of work, you monster!"
My hands fumble across a cluttered table. My fingers brush a small violet bottle, the locator potion—I just knew it. My gut screams it's right.
I snatch it up, whirling to face him. Ambrose stands framed in the doorway, his coat half-off his shoulders, his purple hair tousled and wild.
He looks furious. Magnificent. Terrifying.
"You don't even know what that does," he hisses, stalking closer with slow, predatory steps.
"What’s your plan, Ione? Chug it down and hope? "
I lift the bottle to my lips. My hands are shaking so badly I almost dropped it. "You won't let anything happen to me," I say, voice steadier than I feel. "You need me."
His mouth twists into a sneer, but there's a crack in his performance—a flicker of panic in his too-bright eyes.
"I'm going to hide you so deep in spaces in between nothing, that he'll have to claw through stars to find you." His voice trembles around the edges. "By the time he finds you, you'll denounce him so fast it'll make that fuckers head spin."
I smile grimly. "Good thing I can't die." And I drink.
The potion is cold fire down my throat. It hits my stomach like a lightning strike, the world tilting, folding in on itself.
Ambrose lunges for me with a snarl, but I'm already falling—falling away from him, away from the room, the air, the world—he grunts, soft hands under my body and then everything goes black.