“Eric, please.” It’s a tired plea, and I almost say nothing.Almost. “One thing I’m certain of is that Edmund loves me?—”
“But not healthily,” I add offhandedly. Let the implication sit between us. Her lashes tremble, eyes closing and bracing for impact. The sight guts me, so I force myself to continue. “Look, I’m not saying he’s behind this. I’m not. I just need you to be aware that something’s off there. Just… keep your eyes open, please. Can you do that for me?”
Pale green finds me, all glossy and fragile, and she’s silent for so long I think I’ve already failed a test she’s set for me. But then she gives a nod so minute that it could be mistaken for a muscle spasm, and I take that sign, grasp it like a fool.
“Good.” That single word rings too loud in the bathroom. My phonepingsat the same time she mutters something too low for me to hear. “Hm?”
Another nervous swallow. “If I have to believe in the possibility that Edmund…” A single tear slips down her moist cheek, and it only worsens when she lifts a wet hand to paw at it. “That… that Edmund could want me likethat. Then you have to give me something back?—”
“Anything. Name it.” My mouth spits the words before what’s left of my dignity even has a chance to catch up.
There’s a second of stillness where I realise how fucking pathetic I sound.Prince of Overcompensation™strikes again. I convince myself it’s only guilt because I’m the one sitting here claiming her cousin wants to fuck her.
The light catches her eyes, and she does that confused little furrow with her brows. I wait for the nose scrunch and nearly smile when I’m granted it. She looks torn between laughing and crying, gratitude and disbelief.
“You have to believe in it. All of it. This house is alive, and its ghosts are real. I know how it sounds, and I don’t think any other heir had a companion they pulled into their mess, but—” The word cracks, and she gives a broken laugh. “I need you. I need you to believe me. I’m running out of ideas, and I’mscared.”
My phone hits the counter with a crude clatter, and soon I’m at her side, knees biting into the tile, right hand brushing against her cheek. Her hair is wet and heavy, and I gently ease it away from her face.
Told myself I wouldn’t kneel, but this feels like the only honest reaction, one she deserves. She smells of soap and a faint bitter undertone of the candle that refuses to completely surrender. Leaning into the touch, another tear falls from her cheek and onto my knuckle, passing over my pulse and seemingly stealing it.
“I’m the furthest thing from unwilling,” I murmur, my thumb ghosting across her cheekbone. “I’m here, but I need you to give me a foothold. You’ve told me this test happens every generation, you’re targeted by a chosen traitor, and you can’t seek help from family. That’s the claim, right? I’m not rejecting it, but…” I cut myself off and curse. “The space inside of me where faith should live is empty, and I can’t help it. So give me something I can test. A pattern. A trigger. I don’t need certainty, just a place to start. ”
So much for dignity…
I’m kneeling here practically begging for data points while she’s trembling with a bone-deep fear of something Icannotbelieve in. I want to believe her, yet faith has always been a sort of resultant of all the evidence I work through. It comes as a reward, and I can’t function in the chasm between certainty and uncertainty.
Does she see how badly I wish to help her? Or does she only see a man clawing at logic as though he’s drowning?
I expect her to turn away. To rip my hand from her face and ask for privacy. I’m already counting down the seconds until the chasm has grown, until I’m back to square one trying to understand what Kai meant with‘Feeling will get you closer to her than logic ever will’. Her silent appraisal makes my skin crawl and I’m back in my family’s dining hall, documenting each time my father whispered,‘Can you justnotdo that?’I’m seven again, sitting at the back of the classroom, clutching my brother’s sweater as I struggle not to blurt out the answer for the tenth time in a row.
Water runs down her right hand as she lifts it, palm landing over mine. Electricity zips from her cheek to my hand, then hers and then finally through all the years I learned to soften myself, to slow down. My throat goes so tight that I’m sure the candle is burning again. I’m aching with the effort of not looking away becauseIam supposed to be offering an anchor, and yet it’shertouch keeping me afloat.
Being the one rescued, even if only for a few seconds, is almost unbearable.
“Okay,” she whispers. “It’s not fair to just ask you to believe. I’m not offended, and I want you to have whatever it is that you need. If you want certainty, I’ll give you as much as I have. Is that fine with you?”
I feel her words before I hear them, and the subtle heat of her tongue against my thumb is what yanks me from the trance.Only then do I realise that her hand has dropped back to the water, and I’ve been touching her lower lip, tracing the curve of it.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Please.”
The sound of my plea disgusts me a little, so many thoughts stuffed into that one syllable. Six simple letters, heavy with…With what?The need for answers? Proof? Or maybe it’s for permission to stay this close a little longer, just allowing me to exist without needing to earn it.
Francesca’s lip trembles beneath my touch. “Tenebris nostris, adesto.”?1 The overhead chandelier hisses once, and then darkness swallows the room. I don’t move, just count her breaths against mine. “Veni, flamma.”?2
Nothing happens on the ceiling, but every candle answers. About twenty wicks lining the windows click into orange flames, without a spark I can logically source. The water becomes bronze, and she’s something that crawled out of hell to torment me.
She speaks where I can’t. “Redford’salive. Adelina’s spirit never left; she listens—but onlywe, the direct daughters of Sheffolk can speak to her. We’re her… chosen vessels, I suppose.”
Alive. The word sits on my tongue until it burns right through. “So, you’re telling me this entire estate is an organism. With lungs, eyes that watch, and… and you’re its pulse? The nervous system runs through the women here?” I can hear how feral I sound; something old and pagan within me straightens when her lashes flutter.
The moist heat of her tongue brushes my skin again when she says, “Different pulses, with different purposes. Gran can stitch curses into anything; Percy feeds on emotion.” She hesitates. “I can drink memory through touch. Take it into myself, my bones.But I’ve never tried it with you, not since the first time we shook hands. You were a locked door, essentially.”
My mind feeds me the memory, forcing me to relive that odd moment when her dainty hand slipped into mine. The dull banging at the back of my skull as though something had knocked.Gloves…She’s always wearing gloves when out in public. I keep my stare on her mouth, hating the faint twitch it gives as though she awaits ridicule.
Before I can sheath it, the sharp question escapes. “Why didn’t you try again?”
“I wanted to,” she admits. “But then I realised I didn’t want to know you like that. And then there were the signs, the way the house and its ghosts went quiet around you.Intriguedinstead of hateful. Your very presence seems to scarehim. I thought if I pressed my palm to your skin again and drank, I’d break whatever hesitant pact Adelina appears to have made with you. The nail in the coffin was Tommy, if I’m being honest. I want you to meet her.”
