Page 47

“Blair, let’s stop for a second.” Venetia dusted the powdery snow off a large potato-shaped rock and sat down, motioning for Blair to join her. He did, twisting his hands together, wishing he had something to do to distract himself from his rapidly fraying nerves. “Talk to me,” she said.

Sunlight shone against the scars on the back of Blair’s bare hands. He hid them in his pockets, frowning.

When he’d made the decision to seek out Iris and Gabriel, he'd truly believed he was safe to be around, that he was strong enough to hold himself together. He’d spent years learning to harness his own emotions, to rein them in when things became too intense.

It was his awareness of Iris’ heartbeat that had screwed everything up.

He imagined it was some kind of preternatural reaction brought on by his inhuman genes, a way for a predator to recognize the emotional state of its prey.

It was a human-focused physiological response similar to his poison tears. Someone raised to use their abilities to their full advantage rather than to suppress them would likely be taught how to manipulate empathetic humans. A sympathetic person might reach out to help, only to be burned, and—if they were unfortunate enough to be tricked by someone born with the full strain of the condition—immobilized the moment they made contact with the stygian tears.

Thank God Blair’s own tears didn’t have the ability to stun humans, or he would turn into a living statue whenever he cried.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Blair said, his shoulders slightly hunched as he stared down at his secondhand boots.

“Honey, that ship sailed with the Titanic.”

Blair gave a small, tremulous smile. He twisted his hands in his pockets, biding for time. “I don’t know how to explain it, but…I can sort of hear Iris’ heartbeat. Not all the time,” he added quickly, his eyes flickering to Venetia’s for a brief moment before dipping back to his shoes. “At first it was only when she was upset or anxious, but now I notice it more often, like my brain is attuned to it or something.”

For a few moments, the only sound was the soft breeze catching its breath on the bare branches and the quiet melody of winter birdsong.

“You think it’s your brain that’s attuned to it?” said Venetia at last. “It couldn’t be your heart, could it?”

“It’s not like that.” Blair felt his cheeks flush and hated himself for it.

Venetia laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Why can’t it be?”

He shrugged as he watched a cardinal hop through a shrub of holly berries, reminding him of his hike with Iris weeks ago. “Because she could never feel that way for me.” His voice was hushed, as though he were afraid the trees might overhear and relay this shameful conversation up the hill to the house.

“Listen. I think I know a little more than you do when it comes to caring for mortals,” said Venetia. There was a gentle tease in her voice, but Blair—knowing the full history of his sister’s long and often tormented love life—could tell she was masking her pain to focus on the lesson she was trying to impart. “It isn’t easy.”

“I know that.” Blair found he couldn’t look at her, so he brought his attention back to the holly shrub, where two cardinals now perched. He glanced away from the ironic symbolism.

“It also isn’t forever.”

Blair’s chest ached as he thought about the magnitude of her losses. He swallowed. “I know that, too.”

Venetia’s gaze drifted over to the birds, who were now picking berries off the shrub. The bright red fruits might be poisonous to humans, but for birds, they were utterly innocuous. There was a metaphor in there somewhere, proving just how fragile the human condition was, but Blair was too preoccupied to pull it to the surface of his jumbled mind.

“Let’s head back to the house,” Venetia suggested, sounding closer to her cheerful self again. “I have something for you.”

As they trudged back up the hill, Blair walked alongside his sister, apologizing for making her hike with him and trying to clear her path. The wintry morning had waned into a warmer afternoon, the bright sun softening the snow so that it was like slush beneath their boots.

“Do you miss the ocean?” Venetia asked suddenly, stepping over the corpse of a large ash tree blocking their path.

Blair thought of the gray winter sky, waves crashing against the shore, the salty taste on his lips. “No,” he said, steadying himself against the rough bark of an oak tree. The ocean was beautiful, but it was also like a prison, a wall of water he couldn’t escape. Here, he could move in every direction without being reined back in like a fish on a reel. He could be free.

Truly, Blair loved his new life. The heartbeat issue was uncomfortable, but it in no way negated how he felt about his current circumstances. Or about Iris.

“I bet it will get better. The heartbeat situation,” Venetia said, grinning slyly at him. Sometimes, he could have sworn his sister was a clairvoyant. “Assuming you admit your feelings, that is. I imagine hearing her heartbeat is a little like a warning. You can’t ignore this forever.”

Her words made Blair pause, his left boot casting a ripple across an icy puddle as he halted just shy of it. They had nearly reached the edge of the woods. The back of Iris’ house was visible between branches now, snowbanks sparkling beneath the first story windows.

Wasn’t that the exact phrase Clement had said to Gabriel the morning after Thanksgiving: You can’t ignore this forever? It had been the only snippet of their conversation that Blair had overheard, and he’d found it immeasurably unsettling. He had a nasty feeling that the this Clement had been referring to was Blair himself.

Blair continued walking, hoping his sister hadn’t noticed his hesitation. If she had, she didn’t mention it.

The moment they re-entered the house, Venetia dropped onto the couch and dragged her oversized handbag onto her lap. She fished around for only a moment before handing two items to Blair.