Page 115 of His Wicked Charm

“Hush!” Vesta jerked her out the door. “Stop it. There’s no one to hear you. I’ve sent them all away. I’m not the silly, fluttery fool you think. My plan worked. Those fools botched the job, but my plan worked anyway. It brought you back here. I was so surprised when I saw you, I nearly fainted. I thought they had you, and then there you were on the doorstep. What a stroke of luck, I thought, but then I realized it wasn’t luck. My plan had worked, just in a different way than I envisioned. Everything had happened as it should. As the Goddess wanted.”

Vesta propelled Lilah across the courtyard. Lilah hurt all over—her battered head, the ankle she’d sprained when she fell down the stairs, the rope digging into her wrists. Worse, her brain felt swaddled in cotton batting. She knew she must do something, but she had trouble even taking in what was happening, let alone thinking of a way out.

They were headed for the tunnel. Vesta thrust her through the tower door. She dug the barrel of the gun in harder. “Pick up a lantern and light it.”

Several lanterns sat on the floor where Con and Alex had left them, along with matches. Lilah’s movements were slow and clumsy; she felt so benumbed it took little pretense to move at a snail’s pace. At Vesta’s direction, she opened the door concealed in the wall, and they started down the stairs, Lilah carrying the lantern before her.

She could use the lantern, she thought. No chance of it here in the tight confines of the staircase, but when they reached the tunnel, she could whirl around and swing the lantern at Vesta. Would she be able to do so before her aunt squeezed the trigger? It seemed unlikely. A day ago she would have said her aunt wouldn’t shoot her if it came down to that. Now, with Vesta in the fevered grip of her delusions, Lilah wasn’t so sure.

“What is your plan?” she asked her aunt as they stepped into the tunnel.

“What you are too scared to do. I’m setting the Goddess free.” To Lilah’s surprise, Vesta released her arm and grabbed the lantern, taking a long step back. She held the gun pointed at Lilah’s chest. “You cannot escape. I’m standing between you and the only way out. I won’t hesitate to shoot you, and at this distance I can’t miss. Go forward. Now!”

“But why?” Lilah did as she was told, starting down the tunnel at a slow pace. Where was Con? How long would it take him to find her? She wished she could sense him the way Sabrina could Alex. “You have all the keys now. You don’t need me.”

“Ah, but I do. It takes more than unlocking the door. She punished me for leaving her. She gave what was mine to you. I knew it as soon as you took my hand, and I felt her power.”

“You can have it back! Believe me, I don’t want it. Take it.”

“I intend to, you ungrateful girl. You cannot throw away the gift the Goddess has given you. But I can seize it. I was in despair when you said you would close the Sanctuary—do you think I didn’t hear the four of you plotting against me? But then I saw the Way. I found the Sacred Path, as every supplicant to the Otherworld must.”

They reached the heavy door to the Sanctuary. Lilah could feel the power humming from beyond it—oozing around the door, vibrating in the stone. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose; her fingertips tingled; the soles of her feet were rooted to the floor. Lilah suddenly ached to feel that power, to open the door and let it wash over her. To have it.

A yearning for freedom whispered through her veins, hungry and insistent. Lilah braced her hands against the stone beside the door, pushing back against the urge. She would not do this. She would not.

Vaguely she noted her aunt set the lantern down and reach into her pocket. Lilah couldn’t move. She watched as Vesta, her face alight, fingers trembling with excitement, drew the keys from her pocket. One by one she thrust each key into its slot. Then she turned them, the yellow citrine sun first, then the sapphire sea and lastly the obsidian. Reverently chanting the creed of the Brotherhood beneath her breath, Vesta turned the keys in order, each tumbler falling with a click that echoed in the stone chamber.

There was a clatter behind her. Con! Lilah’s heart leaped, and she started to turn. Vesta rotated the final key, and with a snap the door unlatched. The hinges shrieked. Vesta shoved Lilah through the doorway into the dark.

* * *

“CON! CON!” HIS brother’s voice was loud. Insistent.

Con turned over, trying to escape Alex’s voice. Let me sleep. Suddenly, water was in his mouth, up his nose.

“Con, get up. Get out.”

Con thrashed around, pulling himself from the deep black cave of unconsciousness. The wedding. He was late. How could he have—

“Alex?” He opened his eyes. The world was white and soft around him, and he was being swept along, pulled down. Once again water swamped him.

He came up, coughing and spluttering, struggling against the inexorable tug of the water. He was soaked, the weight of the water in his clothes and boots pulling him down. Con realized he was about to drown.

Instinctively he struck out to the side, floundering, tumbling, not fighting the current but cutting across it as it carried him along. He’d heard that somewhere. Undertow. But this couldn’t be the ocean, could it? Where the devil was he?

The water beneath him was dark, and the air above him white. Lilah! The thought of her speared through his head. He could see the dark earth of the bank now, and he swam toward it in a more coordinated way. He grabbed at the bank, scrabbling for purchase, clawing upward.

He was out. Con collapsed against the dirt, coughing, as the water lapped around his boots.

“Alex?” He’d heard his brother; he knew he had. Con crawled the rest of the way out and stood up shakily. The whiteness all around him was fog. It was night; it must be dark, but all he could see around him was mist, dense and white.

Dizzy, he sat down with a thump, sweeping his hands across his wet face and back through his hair, squeezing away the water. He winced as his fingertips touched the side of his head. He felt it gingerly. He’d been hit on the head.

Lilah. He was looking for Lilah. He remembered now—he had been walking beside the water, calling her name. He’d heard a noise and started to turn. He’d seen...something. Then his head had exploded, and the next thing he knew he was being swept down the rhyne.

Alex’s voice had been in his head. He had no doubt that Alex knew Con was in trouble; just as certainly, Alex would start searching for him. But Con couldn’t wait. Lilah was in danger. The face he had glimpsed before his head exploded was Aunt Vesta’s.

Of course. Why the devil had he never once thought of her? This woman who had known about the Brotherhood, who had grown up with the men, whose father had started the whole bloody thing. It was so obvious now. Vesta had long felt the power of the force beneath the tor. She had realized she had no power away from Barrow House, and she had returned, wanting to find the Source, to rekindle her abilities.