And she poured everything into the Atelier. Was she trying to exorcise the ghosts of old? And which ghosts were those exactly? What happened centuries ago was not her fault and could never be changed. And yes, Margaux tying her to this place was a particularly perverse punishment when all was said and done. She understood the disbelief in her relatives’s eyes when it came to her taking it over. But her barrier spell was holding, and her dreams were filled not with tortured witches of old, but a woman who could’ve been Prudence’s twin. So ancient history was just that to her. Ancient history, with all the ghouls better left there.
Could it be that she was aiming for the more recent developments? Well, Rhiannon still remembered her first time stepping into the Atelier. Dark and busy, it was filled with thousands of old books, tools, and papers. The scent of glue and ink, leather and ancient pages filled the space, making it both smaller and yet comfortable. Her fingers shook just thinking how much she wanted to touch everything. Rhiannon Crowhart, age eighteen, had been given a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn under the no longer steady hands of old master Jerome Maginot. A recluse who chose to leave France behind and bring his once-in-a-generation talent and knowledge for restoring antique tomes to the US.
She had been hungry for that knowledge. Then hungry for his wife. And then hell opened with its own hunger for them all.
Rhiannon blinked and the vision of the Old Atelier faded, the renovated space filling her sight. It didn’t smell the same, she had made sure of it, the dozen or so dispensers enhancing the air with a powerful scent neutralizer. And yet she still felt eighteen and awed. That hadn’t changed. However, she was no longer hungry. And she didn’t want to be here, neither in this room nor in this town, and hence nothing quite drew her.
Except whatever it was Lachlan was droning on and on about. Because he has been doing just that for what seemed like an hour now since Ceridwen left and he returned from the mysterious errand he had to run the second her sister showed up.
“It’s not mysterious. I went to see Pru. We’re BFFs now.”
He shuffled to the bucket and tried a two-pointer instead.
“Dammit, I keep missing today, but not with Pru. She’s a sure thing, I’m telling you.”
“Pru?” Rhiannon looked up to where the one chandelier had just been installed, inspecting the handiwork.
“Prudence Fowler. The mayor’s daughter. The pretty girl next door. She’s my fair maiden and I am an honorable knight.” He missed the two-pointer as well.
Well, damn. Fowler. Fate had a strange and perverse sense of humor. Sure, Rhiannon figured that the widow Fowler left her bookshop to family, but she just didn’t remember Jed Fowler having children. Some remnants of casual old conversations between her mother and Victoria about his divorce flitted in her mind, and she perused them absently.
It didn’t matter, and yet it felt like a cursed circle of sorts. Jed Fowler’s daughter. It should be funny. After all the things that had transpired between them. Even if he acted as if he let bygones be bygones when they met at the town hall in August, it was quite an irony. It should be hilarious, really. Jed Fowler’s daughter. Damn, indeed.
Rhiannon’s palm still smarting from her earlier excursion warmed up. Just a touch. Nothing as violent as when Ceridwen mentioned the neighbor, but Rhiannon felt it just the same. She turned slowly to see Lachlan’s long-suffering eye roll as he was forced to pick up the mangled plastic bottle and deliver it to the bucket.
“Is she aware that you would abandon her in a moment’s fancy to take up with the court’s jester? Or a footman?”
“I’d do so even with a chandelier cleaner, Your Majesty. Or the baker’s boy?” Lachlan came closer and they both proceeded to pretend that the aforementioned work of glassblower’s art was of immense interest to them both. “And yes, she is aware. She is also not troubled by such developments as she’d rather run away with a fellow fair maiden, unless she could get herself in the sights of the Queen herself.”
His voice was coy, all aflutter with mischief and innuendo, but Rhiannon was not ready to bite yet. She kept her eyes steady on the intricate glasswork. Lachlan sighed then sobered.
“And she has an abusive ex. Or somewhat abusive? There was some sort of situation there. Maybe still is.”
And now both of Rhiannon’s hands flared and all the back windows were flung open, the gust of angry wind overtaking the tranquility of the room.
She said nothing and proceeded to close them one by one, giving herself some time to settle down. Twenty-two years she had no issues controlling her craft, her power dormant and silent, her barrier spell holding steady. By her own design. It wasn’t easy, but it had to be done.
And yet the moment she stepped within the town line, her ankle boots touching the concrete of the Broad Street, Rhiannon knew her days of keeping the power leashed were over. Too many memories here. Too much pain. And now, apparently, amystery. A connection she neither needed nor wanted. Nor—if she was perfectly truthful with herself—able to take up.
“Abusive?” Rhiannon did not recognize her own voice.
The Prudence from her dreams had sad eyes. Rhiannon knew their shade and shape, their warmth and their tears. She had wiped those tears herself, half-suspended in the sensation of soft skin, half understanding that it had been a dream, one where she touched and comforted, one where she wanted and was needed, but a dream nonetheless. Even in that dream, her craft raged against the bruises her hands caressed. She felt it now, howl just under her barrier spell, just as angry, just as desperate to sooth, to allay, to save.
She could see in the periphery that Lachlan winced before reaching for another bottle. His ability to act as if she wasn’t leaching magic, dripping it like blood from an open wound everywhere she went, was truly astounding. He took his time with the water, and she figured he needed something to do with his hands, and it only made her skin burn hotter, since whatever he found out must have distressed him.
“She didn’t say much.”
“Lachlan…” She turned to face him fully, his name a warning, and he lifted his hands palm forward in surrender.
“Look, I don’t know. She is…fragile. If I had to choose a word. I can’t explain. And yet there is a strength there that was a lovely surprise. For what it’s worth, she didn’t mention abuse, just that I shouldn’t feel sorry her relationship of seven years ended. That she was better off.” He twisted the cap but did not raise the bottle to his lips. “It was more that her expression was…relieved? And you and I both know the relief of something painful ending. You’ve lived it and I’ve seen it in your eyes.”
If he had thrown the water in her face, she’d have been less shocked.
“Lachlan…” If the first time his name was a warning, this sounded like a plea. A white flag of surrender. She had no idea he knew what had been going on in her marriage. And the knowledge that Prudence, that naive, innocent woman next door, could have lived through anything remotely resembling her own experience…hurt her in a way she couldn’t explain. The fire under her skin aside, it was the slow stutter her heart gave, the low ache under her rib, the one that made her touch her chest in a useless effort to quiet it down.
“You sleepwalked through the last five years of your life, Rhiannon. You can’t think I didn’t notice. And you can’t honestly believe that I didn’t know who was causing your dissociation from everything and everyone.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know, Lachy.”
