Page 46

“That’s Iris’ room. You probably shouldn’t go in.”

But Venetia had already lifted the lid off of Iris’ small jewelry chest and was looking through her necklaces, holding a few up against her chest and examining her reflection in the mirror. Most of Iris’ jewelry was far too dainty for Venetia’s bolder style. His sister’s clothes and accessories had always matched her personality: bright, loud, and cheerful. Her paisley sweater and sparkly white high-heeled boots were no exception. When you’d lived as long as Venetia had, she’d told him once, you eventually learned to not care what anyone else thought of you. Blair wasn’t much younger, but Venetia had been afforded life experiences he couldn’t have even dreamed of.

“Why are you here?” Blair asked, watching her through Iris’ mirror. He couldn’t quite believe she was really there, almost convinced he was conversing with her hologram.

Venetia paused with a pair of amethyst earrings held up to her ears, which were already adorned with her own ruby studs. She turned to face Blair, dropping the earrings back into their velvet-lined compartment. “Someone had to check up on you.” She grinned. “I doubt you would have let our mother stroll in here like this.”

Blair shoved his hands into his pockets, his jaw set. “Did she ask you to come?”

“She doesn’t even know I’m here. I just wanted to see you. I’ve missed you, Blair. I hate visiting the house now, it’s so stale and dull without you.”

A slow grin spread across Blair’s face. He couldn’t deny that seeing a familiar face was comforting, especially after what happened at the church. He felt a prickle of shame just thinking about it.

“What do you say we get out of here?” Venetia stood up, closing the jewelry chest. “Any good haunts in this minuscule town?”

Twenty minutes later, the cloying scents of popcorn and ale greeted them as Blair led the way inside the smoky pub where Iris had performed at the open mic all those weeks ago. The moment they were seated at the table beside the wood stove, Venetia rested her pointed chin on her clasped hands, a mischievous gleam in her eye.

“There’s a reason why Mother has always kept you away from alcohol, you know. I’m beginning to think these new friends of yours are a bad influence.”

Blair winced. How had she known?

He’d first discovered alcohol’s calming effects on his nervous system decades ago. But his tendency to drink one glass (or two) too many to try to disassociate from his problems had caused his family to limit his access to mind-altering substances. Now that he was on his own, he had to learn to regulate his alcohol consumption himself. Last night had been the first time he’d had a drink in several years. He had wanted an hour, just one hour of peace, where he could feel like a human for once.

“Your insistence on wearing sunglasses on the walk over was a bit of a tip off,” Venetia said, as though reading his mind. “That and your overall, er, rugged appearance this fine morning.”

He let out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a sigh as he glanced around the pub. It was fairly crowded for a Saturday morning, a steady hum of chatter and the sixty’s music piping through the stereo system drowning out their conversation to any would-be eavesdroppers.

“Well,” Blair said, frowning down at a jagged scratch in the table’s surface, “our mother kept me away from a lot of things, didn’t she?”

“You let her keep you away from things.”

“Maybe I didn’t think I had a choice.” Blair looked away, trying to quell the near constant resentment that bubbled inside him like a slow-simmering sauce, threatening to splash its scalding liquid on anyone foolish enough to disturb it.

“You chose to come here,” Venetia reminded him.

Blair nodded, still lost in thought as he gazed into the flickering flames.

“I’m proud of you, you know.” Venetia’s face softened as she reached across the table to place a hand on Blair’s arm. “After everything you’ve been through, venturing out on your own like this? That’s brave.”

Iris had said the exact same thing on Christmas Eve. But he didn’t feel brave. Mostly, he felt like an imposition. He waited for his sister to ask him why he had done it, why he had left home for such an uncertain future. After all, his mother’s visions were never absolute; they could always change.

A kindling of fear flared in his veins. What if he had misinterpreted the vision? What if this had all been a terrible mistake?

Venetia caught his eye, her brows lowering in concern. “Are you doing okay? You seem overwhelmed.”

He considered how much to tell her. Part of him wanted to hold onto his secret so tightly he risked bone fracture, but another part of him wanted to—no, needed to—confide in someone. That person couldn’t be Iris, and it couldn’t be Gabriel, either, though he'd asked Blair earlier that morning what was wrong when Blair had once again been thrown off balance by the heartbeat racketing through him like a constant war drum.

Then again, he didn’t want to be a burden, and he was also afraid of information getting back to his parents. If Venetia were to tell them about his episode with the poison tears or—infinitely worse—what had happened on Christmas Eve, they would have two more ticks on their mental checklist of reasons why he wasn’t fit to lead his own life.

“Everything’s fine,” he assured her, his smile tight.

“Are you sure?” Venetia persisted, tilting her head.

Blair leaned back in his chair, glancing at the door as another group entered the pub. “Can we talk somewhere else?”

They buttoned up their coats and stepped out into the wintry air, their boots sliding across the ice hidden beneath a fluffy layer of snow. Blair slipped on his sunglasses, which helped a little with his persistent headache. When they reached the house, he led the way into the woods, treading the path that had grown familiar to him in recent weeks.

He started down a somewhat steep embankment, while Venetia trailed behind him, struggling to keep her balance. A stab of guilt hit Blair squarely in the chest. He hadn’t considered that she wasn’t exactly dressed for a hike.