Page 21 of A Honeymoon of Grave Consequence (The Unexpected Adventures of Lady and Lord Riven #2)

She had always found her husband handsome, even before she had welcomed their marriage. But now...

As her breath caught, he spoke in a low, deep murmur that felt like a caress. “You know you can always tell me anything.”

It was true. He’d proven that so many times already—and she knew , without a single doubt, that if she really had woken him with the news of either one of those outrageous plans he’d asked about, he would have heaved a single sigh in response—and then gone along with it for her sake and done his best to make it comfortable for her along the way.

He would probably even have found a way to miraculously supply her with good tea as they did it.

“I don’t only care for you,” she blurted. “I love you to an unreasonable—no, to an embarrassing, irrational extent. I am wildly, hopelessly in love with you!”

“Oh, really?” Amber sheened his hazel eyes and made them blaze. “That, madam wife, is excellent news,” said Lord Riven, “because—as you may have noticed by this point—I happen to adore you.”

This time, their embrace lasted considerably longer.

..but the pressure of the coffin’s hard edge against her stomach eventually forced Margaret to draw back.

Tears streaked her cheeks, although she couldn’t remember shedding them; she said, with a hiccup that held one final sob, “You can never doubt how much I love you from now on. For your sake, today, I voluntarily made small talk—and it lasted for over ten minutes !”

“My darling!” He let out a crack of laughter as he reached out to dry her closest damp cheek. “I always knew you could manage it.”

“I don’t plan to ever put myself through that torture again,” she warned him.

“I would never ask it of you.” Rising to finally step free from the coffin, he took another skeptical look around the shadowy room. “May I ask where we happen to be at the moment—and how exactly I came here?”

“I’ll tell you everything,” she promised, “but first, let’s leave all of this behind and go home to join the others.”

They all gathered in the same large dining room where they had met the night before, but this time, the tables weren’t empty.

Apparently, Konrad must have spent all of his own anxious hours that day assembling a feast full of every different kind of sustenance that the inn’s various residents might require—and Margaret was deeply relieved to find a steaming pot of her favorite tea waiting on one round table, beside a tall glass of white wine, a bowl of soup full of potatoes, sausages, melted cheese, and a fragrant assortment of herbs, and a plate covered with half a dozen thick slices of dark, crusty bread.

She’d barely noticed her own simmering hunger across the day, but at that mouthwatering sight, the demands of her neglected stomach came immediately roaring to the fore.

She nearly dragged her husband in her rush, unable yet to let him go—but he only laughed and lengthened his stride with ease to match her speed.

When they arrived, he scooped up the second tall glass from the table—this one full of a thick red liquid that was not wine—and sprawled comfortably into a chair beside her.

“ Now may I please hear everything?” he enquired.

By the time that Margaret, Leonie, and Herr von Krallemann—once more in his human form and impeccably attired—had related the story, with stammered interjections from Herr Fischer and a lively musical accompaniment from Herr Schneider, Olga had slipped into the room with her usual sinuous grace and taken her own place at a table piled high with meat so pink, it looked very nearly raw.

She asked no questions as she watched it all with her slitted, regal gaze; she only smiled faintly from her shadowy seat, as if in possession of her own deep secrets.

“So, the nixen and their territory are now safe, as is our home,” Herr von Krallemann finished with quiet satisfaction. “Thank you, Lady Riven, for bringing much-needed light to our former neighbor’s cruel schemes and working with us to enact a solution.”

“What about the infamous Reflection’s Heart?” It was the first time that Olga had spoken, and she drawled the words like a challenge. “Let’s all see it for ourselves, shall we?”

Margaret looked to Herr Fischer; swallowing, he bobbed his head and went to retrieve it from the safe spot in the roof where he had left it.

As soon as he returned to the room, everyone left their own tables behind to gather around it. Even Margaret’s still-demanding stomach could hardly compete with the fascination of that shimmering, unearthly surface as eerie mist passed over it again and again.

“So, we just...ask it what we want to know?” Leonie frowned.

“There’s a particular formula,” Margaret said, and felt her stomach clench tight with anticipation. She’d been waiting so long for this moment of truth...

And now it was time, surrounded by all the inn’s residents. Even Erich, their spectral host, was no longer mumbling anxiously but letting out faint, excited whispers of, “Ooh...ooh...ooh...” as his eyeballs floated attentively above Reflection’s Heart.

“What will you ask it first?” Lord Riven asked.

Margaret gave him a tremulous smile. “What else?” It was the great question that had drawn her here in the first place.

“Image be bright, image be clear, show me this forest’s seed, hidden so close to here.”

Mist swept across the stone’s reflective surface one more time...

And then the deep, dusky green of the Black Forest in daytime filled the supernatural mirror, closing in from above like a bird diving down through the air. As they watched, the stone’s reflective surface showed tall pine trees, birches, spruce, and then...a small stream, in the midst of it all.

Wait. That was a familiar stream, fed by a small waterfall and rippling across rocks. Margaret didn’t need the sharp gasp that sounded from multiple inn guests nearby to identify it:

The Glass Bottle, Leonie’s stream, where the nachzehrer cleansed herself after every feed.

As Margaret watched in awe, the image expanded, coming closer and closer until one small pinecone, wedged between two rocks, filled up the whole of Reflection’s Heart.

“The Seed of the Forest,” she breathed.

Of course .

No wonder it had been given that name.

It looked just like any other pinecone at first; it was only as she stared at it closely that she finally began to pick up the tiny differences in coloration that marked it as made from some other material than the usual, natural kind. It must be some type of hard mineral, but what that could be...

“You’ll have a whole book to write at the end of this,” murmured her husband.

Margaret could already imagine it. There was so much that she could learn from the combination of Reflection’s Heart and the Seed! So much she could study, so many revelations to uncover—why, she could change the whole face of modern scholarship...

But only if, like the baroness, all she cared about was her own driving ambition.

“What’s wrong?” Leonie asked. “Why don’t you look pleased?”

Margaret shut her eyes for a long moment.

She had never before felt quite so painfully torn between conflicting impulses.

When she could finally bring herself to speak, her voice was low and pained.

“The baroness asked Reflection’s Heart to show her ‘the tool that could douse her enemies’ light’, and it showed her me .

She assumed I would play that part by poisoning the nixen’s lake on her command. ..but what if she was wrong?”

“What do you mean?” Lord Riven moved closer, setting a protective hand on her lower back.

“What if...” Margaret bit her lip, staring down at Reflection’s Heart and the miraculous display inside it.

“I keep thinking of how easily—how wickedly!—the baroness mis-used this stone. If I tell everyone all about it and the Seed... If the Seed is powerful enough to affect this whole forest, who knows how that power could be mis-used? And which villains would leap at the chance to use it, too?”

“Ahh.” Her husband let out a long sigh. “You’re thinking of the sorts of dangers we feared might arise from the Rose of Normandy, if any kings or generals took hold of it now?”

Margaret nodded unhappily. She’d tried to ignore the distraction of all those worrying political headlines and rumors, but if it ever came to a real war...

She drew a deep, ragged breath as she looked around at all the different faces watching her. She couldn’t possibly justify putting any of them in danger.

“Increased knowledge should always benefit the world,” she said softly.

“I still believe that to be true. And I want to spread better understanding of the supernatural across the human world, to ease ignorant fears and quash poisonous myths. I think that may be the best possible use for the reputation that I currently have, like it or not. But...”

She swallowed over the knot in her throat. “Perhaps not every piece of knowledge truly has to be made public. And I think...I think it would be safer not to incite any other greedy, selfish minds to see what cruelties they might inflict with these two artifacts.”

There was a long moment of silence in the fire- and candle-lit room.

Then Leonie broke it with an impatient huff of air.

“Well, I still want to know how it all works!” she said fiercely.

“Don’t we deserve to understand where we came from, no matter what any humans outside the community may think or do?

And I mean all of us, not just the seven who happen to live here! ”

“Of course you deserve that knowledge,” Margaret said. “Every supernatural does, no matter where they live. But if I publish what I learn in any scholarly journals...”

“What if you didn’t? What if...there could be a different means of dissemination?” Lord Riven asked slowly. “Or perhaps a safe space for such knowledge to be kept, one which only approved visitors could access?”

“I suppose that might work,” she said doubtfully. “But where?”