We take a deep breath in unison.
His bare skin is warm despite the chilled breath of foggy air swarming our nearly nude bodies. It’s soothing against my cheek. Calming. Making it easy to drift—
“Son of a bitch!”
Ice-cold hands touch my bare stomach.
Liquid rolls of my skin.
I’m on the mattress again. My arms restrained, my legs—
“Relax,” Niklaus growls. “I’m cleaning you up. You’ll get an infection and die. Then I’ll really be stuck here.”
Moonlight pours through frosted glass, casting a green glow over the sheer ceiling. Vines. Flowers. Shrubs. Potted plants. The earthy scent of wet soil and moth balls. This room is a cocoon of warmth, yet I shiver violently.
“We’re in my father’s greenhouse,” Niklaus explains reluctantly.
My back flexes and goes stiff.
“We have to get away from him…” I choke, barely able to get volume above a scratchy whisper.
“Not Niles. My birth father.”
I look around awkwardly.Oh.
“I don’t think he ever came out to his greenhouse much. Just his gardener. We should be safe for now.”
I have been in this greenhouse before. This great big house is where Aunt Ruth and Uncle Warrose used to stay when they would visit, until Niklaus moved in when he turned eighteen.
Krimson and I would hide in here when we’d mischievously hide Uncle Warrose’s weapon’s belt so he couldn’t leave. Then he’d find it, and we’d fill his boots with rocks to slow him down.
He’d find us camping out in this greenhouse and call us the twins from hell. He’d say that this was our father’s way of laughing at him from his coma. All the while, I could swear his hazel eyes would glisten with tears as he’d say goodbye to us.
“Any idea”—I clear the gravel in my throat—“of where in time we are?”
Niklaus wrings out a blood-stained sponge in a metallic bowl of bloody water. He pauses as russet drops drips from his hands.
“I saw your mother walk into the house. In a navy-blue conformist’s dress.”
A ghost without a name presses its cold forehead to mine, and my soul flinches at the sudden realization that we arehere. In the era my parents first met, so close to the infamous asylum that has been dissected and over-analyzed by savants.
“Really?” I hold my breath.
Niklaus glances at me in response, gently dabbing at a spot on my ribs with the sponge. His large hands are calloused but careful, treating this act of service like a task rather than a kindness. And with even, controlled breath, he tears off a piece of gauze with his teeth.
“Where did you get the supplies?” I ask.
I watch his black lashes lower as he presses medical tape into my skin.
“I snuck into his house.”
I lift my chin. I suppose that wasn’t too hard for him to do, considering he knows the estate better than anyone at this point.
“Did you see him?” I press.
“No.”
I take in a deep breath through my nose as he cleans the wounds on my right cheekbone. The garden air is humid, heavy with the scent of wet soil and fallen flower petals. As he mimics my deep breath, I can tell the scent soothes him.
