“Oh,Nadine. You must be feeling better. Thomas said you were too worn out to join us last night. We all felt so sorry for you, huddling alone in your room like that.”
“I—”
“Did the painting give you bad dreams, my dear?”
Nathaniel had seated himself across from her.The better to watch you, my dear.Terrible thoughts were pounding through her head like iron spikes—thoughts she didn’t dare give voice to, but made her painfully aware of the tender place beneath her ear.
(Blood is the nectar of life)
Cal rested his hand on her thigh and squeezed once.
A warning?
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t remember my dreams.”
She looked at Cal. His face was turned from her, but unsmiling.
“What a pity,” his father said. “Some dreams are worth remembering.”
Nadine went stiff and Cal’s hand squeezed tighter.
Oh god, she thought.Was it him?
“I heard my son giving you a tour of the house earlier,” Nathaniel said, apparently tiring of the previous subject, in spite of her racing heart. “It didn’t appear you were enjoying it. Was the garden so very disappointing?”
“It’s a nice house,” she said automatically. “Very interesting.”
“Funny,” Nathaniel murmured, filling his own glass of wine. “I heard you call it scary.”
An image popped into her head of that sparrow under the dome. She felt like that sparrow, trapped and gawked at, feeling as if the air in the room were slowly leaving her lungs.
(someone’s watching)
“It’s hard not to,” she said, with a brief flare of anger. “This house pays deference to violence.”
Nathaniel’s mouth curved with interest. “Did you hear that, Corrine? Nadine here thinks your decorating is the stuff of nightmares.”
Her eyes swung up in shock as the older woman took her seat beside her husband. She was wearing a tie-waist dress, and her hair was half-up and half-down, left loose enough to tumble artfully over her bare shoulders.
“I’m sorry our house isn’t to your taste, Nadine,” she said stiffly. “Not everyone appreciates history—” she glanced at her husband before lowering her eyes. “Or tradition.”
Nadine looked between them, struck by the suspicion that there was more being unsaid than said. That she was just a pawn in whatever game it was that they were playing with each other.
“I’m sorry if I offended you—”
Ben walked in, and her voice died as she watched him take a seat between his mother and Odessa. The head of the table for the head-of-the-house-to-be, she guessed, realizing with a sinking feeling that Noelle probably would have occupied the other end, next to Nathaniel.
There were dark shadows under his eyes and his face was unshaven. Whatever was going on with him made his face look raw and gaunt, all at once, except his eyes, which were fierce.
“I do wonder,” he said, “why you stay here at all, if you claim to dislike it so much.”
“I invited her,” Odessa said, which made Ben shoot her a long, heavy look.
“This is no place for the wilting.”
Cal took his hand from her thigh as some servers entered the room with what appeared to be soup. “She has plenty of spirit,” he said. “She just likes to hide it away.”
“How long are you going to be staying in Argentum, Nadine?” Corrine asked, leaning back to allow her own soup to be served. It was viscous and bright red.
