Kessian shifted a little.
“How’s your leg?” I asked.
“Sore.”
“And … how are you otherwise?”
A sad smile played across his lips. “Wishing we’d gone back to Lunaris together.”
The wraith might have got us anyway, but … “Me too.”
We were fortunate the clock had slowed to the extent we didn’t have to worry about losing time. Less fortunate that there was no place to sit. I held Kessian to support him, but it wasn’t the same as letting him lie down. He didn’t complain, but from the way he ground his teeth, he was in pain.
An hour into our wait, when he’d started to look particularly pale, something strange occurred.
The pantry transformed.
Just a shelf. It jutted out farther, the contents shuffling to the side, and a cushion was conjured so Kessian could comfortably sit.
He stared at it for a second. While I passed through most things here like a ghost, he could sit. The cushion held him.
He sighed. “I have never known relief like this.”
I stared, intuition prickling.
“Did your grandad have a magic pantry?” he asked.
“No … I have a feeling it might be— Never mind. Probably not. Nothing makes sense here.”
The sound of glass shattering splintered through the quiet.
Scattered shards of Edwin’s teacup lay strewn across the parquet, tea seeping into the cracks. He stood back from the oven, chin quivering.
It was the sort of oven that had an arch of bricks like old cottages often did, with a large range hob and a grated extractor fan in place of the chimney flue. Soot rained down from the flue, disturbed by something rattling inside.
I knew what it would be before it emerged, one smoky limb at a time, crooked like a spider. The wraith melted through the narrow grate, unfolded onto the floor, and rose above my grandfather.
“How did it get here? It follows me. It only followed me, and I was nowhere near Shearwater at the time.”
With terrible gravity, Kessian whispered, “But you’re here now.”
Chapter 35
Grandad didn’t flee, though he looked frightened enough to. His chin wobbled as he spoke. “I knew this day would come.”
The wraith tilted its head, antlers dripping dark ichor, which hissed and evaporated.
“I don’t know if you can speak or understand me, but … I’m sorry I failed you.”
“What’s he talking about?” Kessian said.
“I don’t know.”
The wraith kept tilting its head until it was at the entirely wrong angle.
“Are you too far gone to understand or remember me? I should expect as much. You’ve been gone so long.”
What did that mean? Did he know the wraith— Was it a person?
