His words sounded flat in the uncanny, muffled silences of the parlor. Ravensgate was ever-restless, just as he was: a slumbering beast caught in the stasis of hibernation. His place in the city, with all its clean lines and sterile fixtures was little more than a bell jar.
“When were you going to tell me?”
Nadine’s voice broke into his thoughts and he gave her the same look he gave his clients, who paid him generously by the hour to hold the rope they intended to hang themselves with.
You really don’t care for that neck of yours, do you, Nadine?
She stepped back from him, and her expression changed as her eyes shifted to the walls.
He had used to sit in this parlor as a child. After long homeschooling sessions that were first presided over by his mother, and then, when he got older, a constant stream of tutors who never cared to stay for very long, he would grow so wearied of it all that he needed to get away. Not just from the lessons, but from the burdensome history of his family legacy: his own rock of Sisyphus.
His mother had used to play piano in here but his father didn’t care for music and eventually the instrument had fallen silent, and dust had collected on its keys the way it did on the mounted heads the servants couldn’t reach. They had been expertly stuffed and in the depths of their polished eyes, he could sometimes convince himself that they were just a breath away from life in this perfect dome of silence. He would sit and watch them. Avidly.
Given that his great-grandfather had been the one to kill them, wishing them into an altered state of existence was probably tantamount to blasphemy, but he had wished nonetheless. He liked the chattering woods and the way the wind stirred through the branches, making the trees knock together like hollow bones. This house was his father’s kingdom, and it would be his brother’s after; but in this parlor, he had once feltlike he’d held the power to charm the dead back to life, if only he could find the way.
As Nadine regarded the various trophies with the ashen solemnity of a small child being dragged up to the altar to repent before the glaring death masks of saints, Cal wondered what dark miraclesshehad wished for. Because he had seen that same expression reflected in his own mirror.
It was the look of someone far too familiar with death.
“Our great-grandfather,” he said, when her eyes caught on the portrait of the man who could have been his double, if not for the weathered harshness of his patrician features and the heavy handlebar mustache. “He liked to hunt.”
“No kidding.” Her voice held a touch of dryness. She looked at the picture beside it. “Who’s that?”
“That was his second wife.” Ben spoke up before he could. Cal had forgotten that he was still here. His brother’s gaze drifted to her bare legs. “Evangeline.”
The word rolled between his teeth like gristle. Nadine tore her eyes from the portrait and gave his brother a wary squint. “What happened to the first one?”
“She died.”
“H-how?”
Cal took a slow step towards her. “From asking too many questions.”
A rusty squeak left her throat and she flitted around the couch, all aflutter with fear. But not just fear. For he could see her eyes, and the flush in her cheeks, and the quick rise and fall of her breast. She wanted him, poor thing.
And that scared her, too.
“She’s getting away, Baby Cal.” His sister laughed delightedly as Nadine hugged the couch in her fright, looking between them like a trapped mouse. “Don’t be a bungler.”
Cal lunged and she screamed—bright as silver, the sound slithered through his veins like a snake of ice as she released the upholstered back of the couch as if she had been shocked. “Where do you think you’re going?” he purred.
Oh. That look, those eyes, those trembling lips.
He could imagine what it would be like. Hunting her.Chasingher. Tracking her through the tortuous paths of Passer Woods before dragging her to the loamy earth and handing her the knife.
If she asked him prettily, he would even let her hold it to his throat.
Intent on his prey, he stalked closer, forgetting that his siblings were even in the room. Her shoulders flinched but she didn’t move. Her eyes were on his, focused and unblinking, as if she didn’t trust him enough to look away. Wise of her, though it wouldn’t help.
He took another slow step. And another.
Her lips had parted. He could hear the breaths that were stirring the wisps of hair around her face, quick and urgent. One more step, and he could touch her.
The fear in her eyes was fading. She leaned towards him.
Yes. That’s it, he thought.Come to me.
“We hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,” Ben said, “but hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.”
