He guided her away with a slight tug at her sleeve. Lux’s lip curled, but otherwise she did nothing. Because she realized something staggering. The impressive and imposing Mothlock Manor didn’t call to her at all.Thathouse did.
Kent blocked her view once more, the door screeching a second time.
“But why build up a manor on an already crumbling cliff?”
“The wonders of a skilled mason, Ms. Thorn. Now, I think it’s time we go back inside.” As if urged by his words, the brambles shifted, arching over the path beside her. She stumbled away only to notice they did the same on the opposite side. “It doesn’t help to linger,” he added, his tone ominous.
Lux, carefully moving nearer to him, said, “They sense a person’s presence?”
He turned away and began to walk. She couldn’t share the path as she might have with Corvin, and so she fell in line behind him. When she glanced over her shoulder, the brambles had yet to return to their original place, still stretching high and menacing over the lane. The statues were gone inside them. All she saw were stems of teeth.
“Your heart,” he answered.
She shivered, the chill he’d warned her of suddenly apparent. “And wish to do what with it?”
The collector remained silent for longer than she expected. “Such a question makes me wonder at your history, young Necromancer. But as for its answer: to siphon from it. The plant is called guardian’sleech. In that it is both protective of its territory and consuming. Those tooth-like petals are hollow. In one moment, they may inject a toxin. In the next they might draw in. It is important you don’t ever allow the latter.”
Her face twisted behind his back. “Allow? And how does one go about dissuading a plant from drinking your blood?”
Kent glanced over his shoulder, his light eyes hidden in shadow. “By telling it so. Of course, once it has a taste, it will not stop. Not until it has taken its fill.”
Her gut told her she knew the answer; she asked anyway. “How much is that?”
“All you have.”
She stared at the brambles with renewed horror. “Corvin said nothing of that. Only about the toxin.”
“Yes, well, they’re usually kept well fed, I’ll give him that. I’m sure he didn’t want to frighten you off after just finding you. But you’re here and out in the garden alone. I will not coddle anyone.”
Wellfed? Devil’s own tits.“You feed them blood?”
“Are you being obtuse? He’d said you were bright. Of course we feed them what they need.”
Lux’s anger flared at once. Her lips parted to say something scathing. However, in that brief moment, she recalled exactly how the giant of a tailor had pummeled a man only minutes ago. And there was no one out here but them. Her teeth clenched. She ran her thumbs along each pointed nail.
Kent continued, “I’m sorry your breakfast didn’t go as you wanted. I heard you’d run from the manor. You were reported as rather indisposed.Are you enjoying your time at Mothlock? It requires some adjustment for most.”
Lux could outrun him, she knew. Barring the problem of being enclosed and unsure how to open a gate that looked as if it weighed more than a carriage. She bit down on her anger, but it wouldn’t return to less than boiling.
“Too early to say. It hasn’t even been a full day,” she ground out.
“Hasn’t it? My, how slow time goes when in anticipation for something.”
Lux didn’t answer. Instead, she focused on her breaths. Focused on forcing her heart rate to ease. She glanced again toward the melancholic woman as they passed her by, her stone features fraught.
She blurted, “What do you know of the madness of brilliance?”
The man slowed. He stopped, and when he turned around, she could feel his hard stare. “The madness of brilliance,” he repeated.
Her nails dug into her wrist. She waited.
“It is very rare, what you mention.” But before Lux could latch onto any small relief, he said, “Of those who have suffered, it is the dark brilliances that progress the quickest. The Grimrook family is the most notable for falling to it. Some faster than others.”
Dark brilliances.Around and around the phrase went in her head. She wasn’t sure she breathed. “I’ve heard that term before. I didn’t know brilliances had categories.”
“Anything and anyone can be categorized. Casting of curses. Manipulations. Necromancy. These sorts of enchantments feed on dark energies. You feed yours draughts of death. A necessary darkness, but darkness all the same. Tell me, have you fed it other things?”
She thought, belatedly, she should stop them, but for once the words tumbled out. She wanted too badly to be put at ease. “Guilt. Hopelessness.”
