“Measure you?” she asked, picking up a measuring tape and gesturing at my torso.
“Sure,” I agreed, happy to finally be able to contribute in a way that didn’t involve talking, and stepped away from the counter so she would have room to move around me. Victor let his conversation with the tailor lapse, watching every move the girl made as she wrapped the tape around my body and noted down each measurement. “Surely you’ve been measured before,” I told him with a tiny, teasing grin. His hovering was strangely reassuring, but did he really expect this sweet woman to harm me with a measuring tape?
He eyed me with a raised eyebrow before apparently deciding that the tailor’s assistant was safe enough, then went back to his conversation with the tailor. “Anything she wants, simply let Master Blunthorn know to settle it with the Molchanov accounts,” he told the man quietly.
“Your husband?” the assistant whispered with slow, careful enunciation while tipping her head at Victor. She had an amused smile for some reason.
I nodded in response, feeling an odd sense of pride fill me at being able to claim such a striking man as “mine.”
An impish grin spread across her face. “New marriage?” she asked, squeezing her fingertips to the pads of her thumbs before tapping the gathered fingertips together.
I frowned at her in confusion until she made a kissy motion with her lips while glancing to make sure Victor wasn’t paying attention. I tried not to laugh and nodded. “Yes, a new marriage,” I confirmed before rolling my lips between my teeth to contain my grin.With our first real kiss only last night.
“I make you extra,” I thought she said with a wink and a mischievous light in her eyes. She chattered something about “him liking it,” but she spoke too quietly and too fast for me to catch it with her accent, so I simply nodded. “Colors?” She held up various bolts with some of the bright colors she’d brought out at Victor’s request, and they were beautiful, but I was so overwhelmed with all the choices that I had no idea what to pick.
“She likes this one,” Victor said, pointing to a sea foam green that I’d been eyeing—how did he know?—“and this one,” he added, selecting a soft, sunshine yellow that my hand had kept drifting back to.
“You like this, too?” she said slowly, holding up a lovely pale purple color that reminded me of thistle flowers, and I agreed. “Matches your eyes,” she told me with a sweet smile, and I was so grateful for her kindness.
We left after arranging to have the finished pieces delivered, and as we rode back, I had to lean against Victor. I was thoroughly exhausted and mentally drained, but I was proud of myself for venturing out and exploring something new. As we balanced together on the back of this horse made of shadows and gazed out across the mountain spires in the distance, I found myself looking forward to more days like this with Victor.
We were almost back to the keep when an unexpected wave of fear washed over me, my heart breaking into a sprint and my skin prickling in alarm. Victor’s left arm came around my waist to hold me steady as his mount came to a stop without needing to be told. A low oath behind my ear was all the warning I got before the air around me seemed to darken and a flock of crows burst out of the shadows pooling across the ground beneath us. They dashed into the sky and swooped back down into the rocky cliffs above us, screaming and cawing in a riot of feathers as they attacked something hiding between the rocks.
“What—”
“Ghouls,” Victor interrupted as a tall, black scythe formed in his right hand.
I turned to glance at him over my shoulder, but he was staring up into the cliffs where the birds slowly took to the sky again before winking out of existence one by one. “You have ghouls here?” I asked. That explained the fear that I’d felt—they couldn’t be seen, but we could feel them.
“Banshees,” he confirmed. “Among others. Every realm has them, but they aren’t as much of a danger to the other races as they are to you.” His eyes were paler but not pure white yet, and darkness flowed in billowing swaths from his shoulders.
I pondered that as the wraith began to pick its way down the path again, and I made sure I paid better attention to my physical and emotional responses now. “Why are they more of a danger to me?” I asked. I tried to access my defensive magic, reaching and flexing, hoping to help protect us if needed, just in case. But there wasn’t anything for me to use. I was completely dependent on my husband, something that made me both humbled, grateful, and upset all at once. “Ahealthyhigh-fae can blast a banshee out of existence,” I groused, acknowledging that I wasn’t there yet.
“Correct,” he agreed. “But all fae arealsomore vulnerable to their predation, not just you. The other races have sturdier connections between their bodies and their souls. The high-fae live a little closer to the spiritual veil, physically speaking.”
“What does that even mean?” I asked, my confusion eclipsing even my effort at vigilance. I pictured my soul becoming untethered and drifting away from my body. The thought was horrifying.
“In a practical sense, it means the humans have no magic at all, but as long as they’re alive they generally have very little to fear from the spirit world because their bodies protect their souls.” He leaned against my back as he searched the path in front of us, and his voice dropped into a low grumble. “Which is convenient for them because the Void has some of the most disgusting spirit predators in existence.” He dropped back into the saddle and loosened his grip on my waist, nudging his mount to a faster pace. “Your people are on the other end of the spectrum,” he continued somewhat absently, “with the least protection physically, but the most access to the old magic. The other races all fall somewhere in between. This type of banshee seems to be attracted to high-fae in particular, I think. They were all but extinct when your people lived here—or so I’ve been told—but I’ve killed more of them since we’ve been at the keep than I’ve ever seen.”
A chill flooded me as something clicked in my brain, my mind flashing back to all the times he’d suddenly excused himself mid-conversation and disappeared.“What were you doing outside?” … “Removing vermin.”
Another familiar wave of adrenaline hit me just before Victor’s arm tightened around me again and he swung his scythe in a blur of shadows in front of us. The feeling faded before he had even settled himself back in his seat again. A gesture of his wrist preceded an entire pack of black dogs taking shape from the shadows along the path and joining us at a swift trot all the way back to the keep.
Victor kept me close to him for the rest of the evening.
Chapter 18
Celeste
“Havetherebeenanymore banshees?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself as I approached Victor in the library the next afternoon. I couldn’t suppress the shiver that shuddered through me at the memory of the fear and adrenaline that had warned me of the ghouls’ presence yesterday, or Victor’s explanation thatmy soul wasn’t as sturdily attached to my bodyas the other races’ were. What did that evenmean?The very thought had all kinds of horrifying implications. I might have been mentally flailing about it since waking this afternoon.
“None today,” he said, raising his eyes to meet mine over the top of his book and lifting his hand to gesture with long fingers at the overly large armchair across from him. His eyebrows drew together as he studied me. “Are you cold?” He closed his book such that his finger held his place and started to reach for another log to add to the fire, but I shook my head.
“Can I sit with you?” My voice sounded pitifully small in my own ears.
“Of course—” he started to say, his hand extending once again toward the high-backed chair across from him, but that wasn’t what I meant.
I gently moved his arm aside and climbed into his lap.
