“Are you sure about this, Grace?” Kilian asked with a flash of his bright blue eyes in Grace’s direction. His arched brows and wide eyes caused a stirring within Grace—but it was something beyond irritation that she felt while looking at Kilian this time. The softness in his gaze caught her off-guard, even as he dared to question the ideas that she had come up with to continue their mission to retrieve the legendary book.
“I’m telling you, Kilian,” she emphasized his name by lowering her voice and shooting an irritated glance in his direction. She was pleased to see his face split into a shocked smile, his teeth flashing brightly in the soft glow of the table lamp. “The place where we’re going to find the book, the one that the journal describes,” Grace held up the journal as if she was reminding him of its existence. A scoff worked up within Kilian as she did this, much to Grace’s delight. She pushed on, enjoying the rise that she was managing to get out of him, the same one that he managed to get out of her with just a look in her direction. “The place that all of those legends my father told me,” he met her eyes when she said this, any trace of irritation or skepticism wiped from his face. “I know that we will at least be moving in the right direction if we go this way.”
Kilian watched her for a moment, wordlessly. With his arms crossed over himself, Grace smiled as she realized that he was considering her words. Even though she knew she should expect much more than an equal say in the decision of where to go next, Grace still found herself overwhelmed by the concept of Kilian being capable of being considerate towards her. “We have a long trip ahead of us,” he said finally.
Grace looked up from the map at him, smiling when she saw that he had uncrossed his arms and had a genuine smile on his face as well. His eyes were brimming with excitement, the blue of his eyes looking impossibly deep underneath the yellow lighting. He blinked slowly as he looked over her face, sliding over the slope of her cheekbone as though he was still meticulously inspecting the map. His careful eyes glided over the length of her oval face, landing on the soft peak of her top lip.
“You’re right,” Grace said, turning her attention from Kilian’s wandering eyes to the materials on the table in front of them. “We should get some rest before we head out.”
He narrowed his eyes at her as one of his trademark smirks slid into place on his mouth. “We should,” Kilian agreed, leaning in towards her face to get a closer look at her eyes, at the feelings that she tried to snuff out like a hidden flame. Just as soon as Grace was starting to get anxious that she didn’t have anywhere to look to avoid Kilian’s leering, she felt him pull away from the table.
Grateful for the shift in the dynamic, Grace turned to ask about where she’d sleep for the night and turned just as Kilian lifted the hem of his shirt over the top of his head. His hair appeared suddenly, bursting into view as his hands moved to smooth out the strands of black that stuck out in random directions.
Grace’s eyes slid down Kilian’s body, over the tops of his muscled shoulders, the rounds of his biceps, the great slope of his broad, well-exercised chest. As he turned back to look at her, a dark shape on the front of his chest became visible—looking like a fresh stamp on the pale surface of his skin.
As the shape turned in the light, the darkness of the ink pulled in pools of the yellow light. It formed a beautifully-inscribed, upper-case K surrounded by a natural collection of blood-red roses and green vinery. Thorns spotted the length of the green vine, protruding out to either side of the tattoo as if it were threatening each person that looked at it. The sharp angles of the thorns gave the tattoo a menacing appearance, reaching out into the sides of his unmarked skin as if it had grown inside of him and had, one day, burst right out of his tissue.
“What’s that?” Grace asked, not daring to lift her eyes from the splotch of dark ink on his right pec.
Kilian looked down at his skin, tracing the ink that shaped the elaborately designed, iron structure that stood among the forestry behind it and around it. Grace wondered how many times he’d traced over the lines of ink, but quickly moved on to focusing about how old he must have been when he had his skin marked with it or if he had felt as much pain as she was imagining. “This is my family tattoo,” he said, lowering his hand to his side.
As Grace stepped closer to it, she began to make out the spots of rust that the artist had used to accent the blue metal of the K shape. It made the iron letter look as though it had been out in the sun for many years and that over the course of time, the powerful rays of heat had corroded the very top of the large structure, dyeing it permanently with the color of turmeric. Unable to restrain her hand from reaching up to trace the lines as Kilian had just done, Grace felt the raised lines of skin—those that had been irreversibly raised into a neat, colored scar.
“It’s beautiful,” Grace said, her voice barely above a whisper. She lifted her eyes from his tattoo, pulling her hand back out of fear that she’d crossed a line—and so early into their unsteady partnership. But to her surprise, Kilian wasn’t wearing the sneer she was expecting. His eyes looked glazed over, softened by the intensity that surged in the air between them. Was he feeling the same thing she was, or had she only been imagining the current that rocked through her body? Before she had enough time to contemplate how he was feeling, his hand clamped around the back of her hip, holding her just inches from his body. His other hand brushed a strand of her hair aside.
Wordlessly, they stared back each other. Ignoring the guilt in her chest for even being in his home, Grace leaned in towards Kilian. Grace’s eyes fluttered closed, waiting for the feeling of his lips against hers. Before she shut her eyes, she saw a smile creep onto Kilian’s lips—he leaned in to meet her halfway.
His hand shifted to the small of her back, pulling their bodies closer together. Grace pressed her hand against his chest, laying it over the top of his dark tattoo. The anticipation stretched on as she leaned towards him, blindly searching for his lips in the darkness. Feeling her cheeks flush, Grace felt Kilian’s neck strain as he closed in.
“Sleep well tonight, Grace,” he whispered. Grace could feel his hot breath on her lips, but when she opened her eyes, Kilian had pulled away from her and had backed away. His hands were in the pockets of his black sweatpants, hidden away from her. He continued backing away, and sent her a wink as he made his way down the hallway. He never turned around to face forward, knowing precisely how many steps to take before reaching the doorway to his bedroom. He nodded at her before stepping into the room.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Grace let out a sigh. Confused by all the conflicting emotions she’d felt today, Grace sat down on the couch and placed her forehead in her hand. For the first time in years, she craved the taste of alcohol on her tongue. It didn’t take much longer for the feeling to subside and to be replaced by the longing for a good rest.
Grace succumbed moments later after pulling one of the spare blankets from the coffee table over her.
11
Grace wokeup naturally the next morning, allowing the streams of the early morning sunlight to tickle at her senses as she wavered back and forth between the dreamscape she’d lumbered off to the night before, and the world of the living.
Finally giving up on holding onto her dreams from last night—the dreamy caverns that her mind had conjured up as the final resting place of the legendary book that she had committed herself to finding last night—Grace’s eyes fluttered open.
Her eyes scanned the unfamiliar living room around her. On either side of the leather couch she had slept on, there were tall end tables with matching lamps. Each of the lamps were balanced on top of a short stack of hardback books, ranging from the official geography of Ireland, to the art of playing jazz guitar. Grace cocked an eyebrow at the idea of Kilian playing an instrument, let alone something that called for a surplus of soul.
Grace was certain that he was incapable of connecting on the same emotional level that she’d come to expect from the people around her. Although she couldn’t see any instruments sitting out in the open, Grace felt the urge to poke around in the closets to see if, somewhere in his place, Kilian had stashed a secret hobby.
On the far, outside wall of the lake house, Grace could make out an extensive record collection. The spines of the vinyl were too thin to make out any of the names from her place on the couch, but from where she sat, she could tell that Kilian had organized them by color—creating an ombre from the deepest red down to the darkest purple. He’d clearly spent a lot of time arranging the place where he lived, especially the area that she was currently occupying—to her surprise, she felt a swirl of guilt in the pit of her stomach. Had she kept him from enjoying his own home last night and by extension, was dragging him into this whole journey, pulling Kilian away from his responsibilities?
In front of her, there was a large entertainment center that housed a flat screen TV. Video game consoles sat on either side of the giant screen with their controllers resting on top of them—Grace wondered if Kilian had left the controllers out in a rush based on how thrown together the top of the piece of furniture looked.
As Grace rose from her place on the couch, she threw her arms over the top of her head and stretched her back into a long, glorious s-shape. As she lifted her head to look at the ceiling above her, she could make out a vibrant green shade on the white ceiling, so green it almost looked yellow. Amidst the vibrant color reflecting through the window behind her, there were bright, squiggling lines of sunlight that reflected from the tops of the waves outside. Moving through the unfamiliar space as her body acclimated to standing, Grace heard a buzzing sound—the image of a chainsaw conjured in the forefront of her mind.
Searching the corners of the lake house with sleep-laden eyes, Grace rubbed at her drooping face to keep herself alert. She needed to know where the noise was coming from, especially now that she was working in secret with Kilian. Stepping her bare feet onto the kitchen tile, the sound suddenly intensified, echoing against the cold tile underneath her. The sound drifted from the other end of the hallway and all at once, Grace knew the source of the noise.
Grace kept her steps light as she made her way down the hallway and towards Kilian’s bedroom. She peeled the bottoms of her feet from the tile as delicately as one would peel a sticker from its backing paper, careful not the let the sticking noise of her slick skin trail down the hallway. Right now, she had an advantage over the sleeping Kilian. The moment he woke up, her opening to retrieve the map from his possession disappeared. Grace hadn’t thought far enough ahead to think about how she’d make her way towards the islands on her own, and part of her had been ready to rely on Kilian during their trip, but she knew that his presence would ultimately end in a larger fight, one much more crushing than the one she’d put up in her father’s office.
A sharp snore ripped through the hallway. It was quickly followed by the sound of Kilian turning over in his bed, the shuffling of bedsheets and a heavy comforter—Grace paused, waiting for the rhythm of his snoring to pick up again.
The seconds ticked by like hours, suspending Grace in a state of panic as she imagined him catching her there, just in front of the threshold to his bedroom. With her hand reached out in front of her, curved into a talon-like shape to grab a hold of the door handle, she could only imagine what he might say to finding her attempting to sneak into his room. All the potential taunting aside, Grace knew that despite the obvious jokes Kilian would make, he would understand why she was actually looking to sneak into his room so early—she’d never get another shot at snatching the map, at retrieving the relic for her father without the son of his mortal enemy blocking her at every turn. Another snore cut through the air—louder, somehow, than before. Grace placed a hand on her chest, applying a firm amount of pressure to relax her heart. Taking another moment to calm herself, Grace reached for the door handle and turned it slowly.
