“We thought so too.” He pulled the covers up so they covered my chest.
“He snatched me from the sparring room,” I said, “and took me to the prince’s study on the second floor.”
“He did what?” Clive’s arm wrapped possessively around me.
“It wasn’t really him. The prince—the one in the portrait over the fireplace—was possessing him, inhabiting him, whatever it was. He was the prince, and I was a fisherman—I think. I’m not entirely sure what role I played other than possible suitor to his daughter Cordelia. The poor thing was already battered. The prince was quite mad, and I believe fae.”
I thought about it a moment. “I’ve never heard of fae ghosts. Is that a thing?”
“You’d know better than I would,” he said. “So Cadmael was possessed by the ghost of a fae prince?”
“I believe so. I mean, he’s never liked me, but I didn’t think he actively wanted me dead before.”
Clive’s eyes went black. “He cracked your skull and crushed your throat.”
I patted his arm. “I think it would be more truthful to say the prince did those things using Cadmael. I hoped the fae blade would break the connection, maybe even kill off what was left of the prince. By the time I made it to the gathering room with it, though, Cadmael was there, staring at the portrait. He had me by the neck when I threw the axe. Now you tell me the rest.”
Clive closed his eyes and gently kissed the side of my head. When he opened them again, they were back to stormy gray. “The axe was in the portrait. The skin of Cadmael’s hands had been burned off, so we wondered if he was the one who’d thrown the fae blade or if he was trying to free it. Since we scented the blade on your hands, we assumed you’d put it there, so we left it where you put it.”
“Good,” I said.
“I swear, Sam, we are never again traveling out of San Francisco without a healer.” Leaning forward, he rested his lips against the side of my head. “I can take away your pain, but I can’t heal you. I called Lilah to see if she knew a healer in Budapest.”
I tapped his arm. “But you’re not allowed to tell anyone where the Guild is.”
“Darling, Vlad and I put paid to that when we killed everyone in that room. There are now only a handful of Counselors in the world: Cadmael, Vlad, and the ones who weren’t here.”
Grimacing, I said, “That doesn’t sound good.”
“Probably not, but I’d do it again. We’ll figure something out. We have before and we will again.”
“Wait. And you, right? Aren’t you a Counselor now? Vlad said they were just going to offer it to you outright and then you won the competition anyway.” I remembered who he’d been competing against and what had happened to them. “Oh. I liked Oliver. He seemed like a good guy.”
Nodding, Clive somberly replied, “He was.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he said. “I don’t know how long the prince has been working on Council members, but it might explain some strange behaviors I’ve seen from people I’ve known for a very long time.”
“There’s something powerful at play in this building, though. Maybe the prince’s power is what makes the ghosts so strong. I don’t know why, but I feel like Léna is behind a lot of whatever has been happening here too. Like the ghosts are siphoning the prince’s power and using it.”
I paused, considering. “She came to me as soon as we arrived and showed me what the asylum was. She showed me the abuses, the cruelty, and she led me to Aliz so we could return her to her family.
“When the prince—Cadmael—whoever—smashed my head, she was the one whispering in my ear to wake me up and get me going. She knew I had to do something to stop the prince and she helped as much as she could.”
I started to shrug and realized my shoulder hurt too. Probably from one of the many times I’d hit the ground today. “This used to be the prince’s palace. He was insane and horribly cruel with it. He’s probably been poisoning this place for hundreds of years. The asylum was wretched. That might have been his influence, an influence that’s also been inadvertently super-powering the ghosts.”
“This place is cursed,” Clive said, looking around the room.
“No argument from me.” And then I had a thought. “English!”
Clive tilted his head. “I am, yes.”
Smiling, I rolled my eyes. “Not you. One of the biggest issues I’ve had with all these supercharged spirits is that we can’t understand each other. They show me things and I have to figure out what they mean by their actions, facial expressions, tone of voice, but I could be interpreting it all wrong. Like Vlad telling me it was Léna’s father who had been raping her. I couldn’t get that from just watching him dump her off.
“It’s been so frustrating not knowing what any of them are saying. When Cadmael took me to that room and spoke as the prince, he spoke in English. So did the servant and the daughter. Maybe because it was all coming at me through Cadmael…” I looked away from the flickers on the ceiling to Clive. “Did I dream it?”
“Your cracked skull tells me something more violent than a dream happened,” he said.
