Chapter 34
Emmerick
“The sweetest things in life stay that way when preserved. Otherwise they rot.”
My chest grew tight. Ouch. I shouldn’t have followed them to the door. Her words echoed down the hall, loud and clear.
For so many years, I’d trailed El across the grounds. It felt natural to follow her now, like an adoring puppy. Maybe her name of endearment for me wasn’t so far off.
Elsedora had felt like she belonged in my arms. She fit there. If it hadn’t been for the biting cold, I’d have kept her in that pile of snow for eternity. How could she not feel it too?
I jogged back to the parlor as her steps grew nearer.
When she returned and padded over to her chair, my leg bounced and I itched to move.
As though sensing that, she asked, “Would you like a tour of the estate? We can walk and talk.”
“Very much so,” I said too quickly. “It’s beautiful, what you’ve done.
The last time I was physically here, this place was in ruins.
” Waving a hand around the parlor, I soaked in every cozy detail.
The rich oil paintings, the deep-burgundy curtains that were pulled back to expose dark oak windowpanes.
“Physically here?” she questioned as she stood.
“Well...” I fumbled for words.
I’d depended on her comings and goings to ground me. Now, it felt like an invasion of privacy.
“I had dreams about seeing you here.”
Half-truth.
“You dreamed of me, puppy?” She tilted her head coyly, glancing my way as we walked beside one another down a wainscotted hallway.
My cheeks heated, and my stomach interrupted her teasing with a loud grumble. I hadn’t taken a bite of food for over twenty years as my body lay frozen in time.
I couldn’t actually remember what my last meal had been. El’s gaze wandered down to my abdomen, and it sent a course of heat through me when her eyes trailed lower.
“Hungry?” Her brow quirked up.
Her auburn hair was gathered atop her head in pins with wisps kissing her neck, and the woven wool robe she wore dipped just low enough in the front to reveal defined collarbones that guided my gaze downward.
I pulled my attention away. Fixating on her would do me no good.
She toyed with me for fun; it wasn’t genuine interest or attraction. Her honest words in the hall proved that. Maybe I’d put more weight into that day when she’d professed my importance to her than she’d meant.
“Ravenous,” I answered with too much insinuation. Maybe playing into her game would help cool my wish to embrace her again.
She’d always touched, tempted, and teased when she’d visited me at Helos. I cursed my inability to separate physical trysts and emotional connections like she could.
Wildflowers grew wherever they pleased—beautiful and untamed. My attachments were more akin to a bur stuck in one’s coat. I wouldn’t survive falling into a trap of unrequited affection. Not again.
Elsedora Lamoreaux would ruin me for any other if she gave me even a glimmer of hope.
I couldn’t lose her. I’d take whatever she offered. Settling for mere friendship was better than any alternative where she was not a part of my day.
She laughed, undeterred. “The kitchen is the first stop on our tour, then.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught pink overtake her pale freckled cheeks. She took pleasure in making me squirm; I’d never seen her look flustered.
Well, once... the night before our means of communication had ceased. When I’d imagined her feelings had blossomed into something more.
“So, a kiss woke me?” I asked.
Dread coursed through my veins. If Lark’s ramblings were true, then Sybilla had kissed me. It still surprised me that she was my truest of heart.
It felt wrong.
We walked down a long hallway with dark floral wallpaper, and Elsedora’s hand found the crook of my arm to guide me into the kitchen.
“Yes,” she said, though her expression seemed guarded. “I would have stayed until you woke. But it didn’t seem that you would.”
She swallowed hard.
Smirking, I squeezed her forearm to remind her it had worked. I truly was beside her—a bur difficult to be rid of.
I stifled a gasp. I’d never seen a shelf so stocked with spices, never seen a butcher block so large. Letting out a low whistle, I became thoroughly distracted with all the perfect tools to accomplish mouthwatering culinary decadence in her kitchen.
“I could have a lot of fun in here,” I mused. Dammit. My tone sounded far too sultry again.
She raised her auburn brows.
I needed to get a grip. My mouth kept digging holes for myself.
“I could have fun cooking in here,” I corrected.
She chuckled. “The kitchen is charmed to cook since I don’t. You can ask the estate to make you whatever you’d like.”
“You don’t cook? With a kitchen like this?”
“I’m atrocious at it.” She let her hand fall away from my arm, and I missed her touch. “But, as a child, this was the way it always looked—my mother enjoyed cooking.”
Even the innocent warmth of her fingers twined through mine as we’d walked through the orchard had felt indulgent. I was starved for food, starved for touch, starved for joy.
El shifted her weight onto one hip. “Angeline planned to teach me after you’d awoken and I’d found the last of the relics. I’ve learned little things when they’ve came for dinner, but it hasn’t stuck.”
“You haven’t found the third?” I asked.
She shook her head, no.
I unfortunately had a hunch as to why.
How could I explain that I’d seen the ghost of her late lover? He’d claimed my son was the third key to stopping Caym.
It couldn’t have been real.
It was a hopeful hallucination.
If I had a son with Firose, would El hate me for it? The late High Enchantress of the North Corridor had wronged Elsedora’s brother, my friend, so inexcusably. I wasn’t ready to face the possibility myself, never mind admit it to El when having me back brought her joy.
I swallowed hard. The inevitable question burned on my tongue before I asked it. “And Caym—he’s truly trapped?”
Her head tilted. “Yes… and no. The prophecy says he will rise again on the next black moon with Isolde’s power anew—nothing has changed. He just doesn’t hold you any longer. And that, I will celebrate. For now, he’s locked in the mirror, but it’s only a matter of time before he finds a way out.”
Words of a silver-haired ghost revisited me.
“They’re searching for a relic—an item. My last duty is to make sure that you know they’ve got all they need already. Funny, really.”
Dread coursed through me once again.
“So long as the boy lives, the realm will not see a new black moon.”
My shoulders slackened. “Well, why don’t we get a head start on those cooking lessons, then? I can show you.”
I shooed her out of the way, eager to explore and avoid the weight of that dream.
Elsedora balked at me with amusement and watched me gather up vegetables and a large iron pot. She rested her forearms on the butcher block, leaning there—a view I could get used to while cooking.
After I lit the fireplace, I carried on, “My mother has this saying ‘No one deserves a good woman if they can’t cook as a good woman can.’ Which feels quite antiquated. But her grandmother used to say it to her mother, and so on... Then she passed it to me.”
Talking about Mama, while she lay in bed, too sick to move, felt unfair. But when I looked up, the way Elsedora’s gaze fixated on me, watching my hands work on cutting carrots and other root vegetables, brightened my mood.
There was no room for me at the cottage since Papa was sleeping in my old nook while Mama rested. Being here with El, my head felt clearer.
“She holds the right to her traditions. And I suppose that concludes it—I’m not a good woman, after all,” she teased.
Though her tone was breezy, I ground my teeth.
I set the blade down and turned to her. She shifted, leaning against the cabinet beside me. I wiped my hands on my breeches before I stepped in front of her. Her back arched above the butcher block, and her chin tipped up to meet my gaze.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I replied with more intensity than I’d meant to.
She’d been my source of levity in the darkest of places.
Throughout her own pain, she remained there for everyone around her, relentless in her cause.
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met—inside and out.
“I don’t give a horse’s ass if you can cook, Elsedora. You are as good as they come.”
She opened her mouth, looking ready to sling back some sarcastic remark.
Before thinking it through, I let my fingers dig into her hips and lifted her up onto the butcher block; she let out the most delicious gasp. I smirked, trying not to revel in catching her off guard.
Her lips hung open, and her knees spread—an invitation, one that I would not be accepting despite the heat coursing through my body.
I hadn’t completely lost my sense of propriety. Instead, I stepped back beside her and continued chopping carrots like nothing had transpired.
“Now that you have a better view, I’m going to make us chicken soup and then bring the rest to the cottage. If you really want to learn, then pay attention.”
“Well, alright,” she squeaked out.
I glanced over at her before setting the pot on the hearth. She had crossed one leg over the other. Her hands gripped the butcher block, and her cheeks were bright red as she watched me intently.
I’d never seen her look timid or embarrassed before, and I almost felt ashamed to be so smug about it. I couldn’t help it.
Where she was concerned, I didn’t know which way was up. But all was well so long as she was there.
Pretending she was mine to care for gave me a purpose, whether she wanted more or not.
It did not take long for Elsedora to recover her confidence and the will to turn the blush-inducing commentary back on me.
As we strolled into the formal dining room, she quipped over her shoulder, “And this table is solid oak. Just in case you need a place to pick me up like a doll and set me down again.”
I would let her hide behind salacious teasing for as long as she wanted to.
Groaning, I rolled my eyes. “I did not pick you up like a doll.”
“Puppy, I don’t understand how half the women in Luz weren’t knocking at your bedchamber door, begging to be thrown around like a doll.”
“Enough trying to turn me into putty, already,” I lobbed back at her with a pitiful excuse for a mock glare.
I’d loved every second of it. I was doomed.
El laughed and took a seat across from me.
I needed to avoid bedchamber talk with this woman. She made my cheeks heat and my fingers dance against the bowl I’d set on the table. Fidgeting had always been a nervous tell of mine. It had bothered Sybilla, as she’d found it tiring.
I glanced around the room—dark wood wainscotting met lighter molding. The floor-to-ceiling windows on one side of the room had burgundy curtains peeled back to reveal a setting sun over the orchard.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s like the everplums protect this place. I didn’t understand an attachment to trees until I set foot on these grounds again for the first time,” she said as she took a spoonful of soup. “Sources, this is good. You’re welcome in the kitchen anytime.”
As she chewed with a satiated moan, pride swelled in my chest. Feeding her, sitting with her at this table—it felt unreal in the best of ways. A dream I’d happily repeat.
“Lucky for you, I don’t mind that arrangement.” I dug into my meal, groaning as the salt touched my tongue.
My spoon hit the bottom of the bowl before I’d caught up with the fact that the broth was all gone. Too consumed with the flavor, I hadn’t noticed El had slipped out of the room.
She returned and set another bowl down. “Can you make that noise again for me?” she asked, altogether too amused. Her smile took over her entire face. Instead of feeling any shame, I laughed and happily thanked her for the second serving, which I then devoured.
Finally content, and lazy with gluttony, I slumped back in my chair. She was watching me with her elbows on the table and chin rested on her hands like I’d just performed an incredulous trick.
She met my gaze and said with no hint of teasing or insincerity, “I’m glad to see you, Emmerick.”
The warm glow of lamplight had replaced the sunlight. The smattering of freckles across her cheeks was more noticeable now, and the glint in her hazel eyes entranced me.
For the first moment since I’d woken up, my joy outweighed every other emotion—there was no duty to run from, there were no sick loved ones, there was not anything else in the world.
Just her.
“I’m happy to be here with you,” I replied, heart sinking with the realization that I’d endure it all again for this moment.
It felt unfair to let her be the foundation of all my hope.