Page 38 of Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Thirty-Eight

S ome of the guests had trickled back into the ballroom to seek out their missing dhampir loved ones from the carnage. Most had fled into the night after having their eardrums shattered, including the High Council who had allied themselves with Sonia’s burgeoning court. Morrigan spoke quietly to the few remaining councilors—who stared aghast at the red staining her skin and the utter wreckage around them—and assured that the former Lady Tremaine wouldn’t be resurrecting Dreadmist’s throne, as she now painted the throne room floor.

But the High Council’s trust had been broken irrevocably in the eyes of the harbor. It would take months to rebuild another administration and find a proper punishment for Sonia’s conspirators. There was already talk of sealing up the ruins, condemning them so even a curious wanderer wouldn’t trespass.

The High Council had already promised to oversee the care of the dhampir and the injured. Dazed with bloodstained earlobes, several healers made their way through the ballroom to tend to the casualties. Some of the night watchmen had come to their aid, shuffling through a layer of glass shards by candlelight. Part of me was burdened with guilt that I wasn’t helping to clean the mess.

Morrigan’s fingers tightened around mine, her warmth lapping against my skin once more. I caught her staring up at the clock above us for what must have been the tenth time in as many minutes.

“I never thought I would see another night through my own eyes,” she said, feeling my gaze upon her. “We’ve been cursed so long it’s hard to remember what it’s like.”

I leaned my head against her shoulder and felt her lips graze my hair. “We have all of eternity to figure it out again.”

Gwen’s voice, carrying high across the ceilings, made both of us turn around sharply. I had grown used to the sudden noise of emotion bursting forth as the dhampir were reunited with their families, and as most had diminished hearing, the volume couldn’t be helped. But I’d know Gwen’s excited giggling anywhere. Morrigan laughed gently while Gwen picked Estella off the floor—Estella only managed a gleeful shout of Gwen’s name. She twirled around with Estella in her arms, their hair flyaway, Gwen’s gown a shadowy blur in the low, sparse candlelight.

“Gwen—”

But Gwen did not give Estella a moment to speak another word other than her name. She kissed her deeply, and Estella relaxed, her body easing into Gwen’s protective hold, her arms curled around Gwen’s neck, content to stay put. When they parted, Gwen began kissing Estella’s face all over—her chin, her nose, her closed eyelids, her soot-stained forehead.

“I love you,” she laughed through a sob. “Have I told you that? I love you .”

Gwen met us in the doorway with Estella still in her arms, wearing a beaming grin in spite of the tears that dampened her face. The candles were no match for the glow that brightened her eyes .

“Glad to see you returned to yourself, Estella,” Morrigan said. Estella managed an exhausted nod, her brown eyes watery and glittering. “I’m sure Gwen won’t be letting you out of her sight until you’re on the mend again.”

Gwen kissed Estella’s temple. “How do you feel about expanding our coven?”

Morrigan’s thumb brushed over mine. “I suppose it’s finally the right time.”

Josephine burst through the splintered threshold looking as though she’d just run several miles. Her overskirt had torn away to reveal the pearly silk of the skirt beneath.

“I’ll run all the way if I have to, but I’m not waiting another minute. Our stars-damned coach disappeared somewhere. I had to bribe a different coachman to get us back home. What’re you standing around for?” She pushed off the broken doorframe and vanished down the hall.

“I thought you’d already left.” Morrigan hooked her arm through mine as we followed behind Josephine. Straggling guests congregated in the halls, still unsure, healers attending to some of them. A few nodded to us instead of averting their gaze. The whispers had taken on a different tone.

“Forget us, Bella’s more important.”

“We’re coven,” Josephine shouted from up ahead. “The whole coven should be there when she wakes. Hope we haven’t kept her waiting—where’s that coach gone?”

She was already down the steps before we had reached the front doors, where we were held up by the crowd that had formed in the foyer. Perhaps we weren’t the only ones who had lost their conveyance in the confusion. Morrigan’s steps weakened a little while we attempted to push past wide skirts drenched in guttering candlelight. I wrapped my arm around her middle instead, and she leaned on me heavily. Gwen worked her way past us to the front, clearing a path.

The first touch of the cool air seemed to cleanse me of the night’s bloodshed and violence. Morrigan and I stood at the top of the stairs for a lingering moment, appreciating the breath that came easily into our lungs, the crisp scent of wet autumn leaves and bonfire smoke somewhere below. Leaves scraped across the steps, rustling and wind-swept. Morrigan curled her arm around my waist.

Gwen had stopped a couple steps from the bottom, her fingers still twined with Estella’s. “Jo, you’ve lost a shoe.”

“Who cares about a bloody shoe ?” Josephine’s inquiry dissolved into laughter. It seemed she had found the carriage she’d coaxed into her employ, but she was pacing circles outside the door. “I have to get home to my wife! That lumbering thing’s not quick enough. I’ll meet you all there.”

Josephine didn’t stop to retrieve it. Ignoring the protests of the coachman—who stood in his seat so fast he sent a lantern swinging—she untethered one of his horses and leapt astride it. Gwen broke into a whooping cheer, which set the rest of us into raucous hollering as we watched Josephine kick off her remaining shoe and urge the horse into the early morning fog.

“I suppose he’ll need more bribery to get us home after that,” I said.

Gwen picked up Josephine’s heeled shoe with a shake of her head. “Wings would be faster right about now, wouldn’t they?” The four of us piled into the coach after Morrigan talked down the irate driver with a promise of gold coin. Estella laid across the bench with her head in Gwen’s lap, Gwen’s fingers threaded into Estella’s wild curls. “Though I might take to the skies without them. My heart hasn’t felt this light in so long.”

We followed Josephine for nearly half the journey, keeping sight of her through the windows. For all his grousing, the driver took a swift pace, but Josephine’s riding was faster. Sitting on Morrigan’s lap, I watched the fog and swath of gaslamp light fall like a veil in her wake. She vanished down narrower roads, a shortcut unreachable in this lumbering carriage. With the streets still mostly empty, she had a clearer path—though I enjoyed seeing each head turn at the galloping hoofbeats of her horse, Josephine commanding her steed onward.

No one with sense would dare to get in the way of a woman riding home to her beloved wife.

We found her horse tied to the black iron railing of the front walkway when our coach came to a halt. The driver puffed up with rage once we’d all flounced out of his carriage without stopping to grant him the promised coin—Morrigan shouted at him to wait—and left him there. The horse was grazing on one of Gwen’s carved pumpkins, its leering face smashed in. Gwen gave the horse’s flank a friendly pat as she passed.

The front door was still thrown open wide, an inviting slant of firelight illuminating the portico.

“Josephine!”

“Clarabella!”

We gathered inside, past the darkened front parlor to the staircase’s grand spiral. The circular beam of moonlight was thin and diffused now as it filtered down to us, a wan shade of red.

“Bella?” Gwen tried again, as Morrigan and I shouted for Josephine.

No answer drifted downward to greet us, but Gwen stood on the second-last stair, her fingers wound between Estella’s, their arms reaching. “I hear her,” Gwen said, and after a second’s hesitation, I heard Josephine’s faint call above us. “She’s already in the tower.”

It sounded as though we had brought the horse with us, our harried steps ungainly and loud, urgently clambering up the first spiral to the tighter, winding staircase where the laboratory tower waited. The light had changed ever since Clarabella’s banshee shriek shattered all of the windows. Morrigan and Gwen had covered them with whatever wood they found in the storeroom. Wind still screamed through the cracks, but the tower was cast in the purple glow of alchemical flames .

Josephine moved about the room, frantic, shoving aside vials and bottles of alchemy ingredients, pushing loose papers and journals onto the floor. A few pumpkin seeds dropped, and Morrigan and Gwen flinched backward. A relieved sigh escaped me when they didn’t explode.

“Where is that key?” Josephine lifted one of her opened journals, and an inkwell was pitched to the rug, pouring its dark contents onto the haggard thing. “Bella’s usually the one to keep track of it.”

Gwen stepped around the ink gushing onto the rug. “Here, let us help you. It’s around here somewhere, we’ll—”

“What’s it look like?” Estella croaked, as Gwen eased her into an armchair.

“I think this room needs the touch of a trained charwoman,” I added, trying for some levity to calm Josephine’s rising stress. “I’ve recently lost employment, you know.”

Beside me, Morrigan made a face, her laughter soft against the curve of my ear. She pulled me into the adjoining sitting room, where Josephine had trampled some of the mums to drape herself over the top of Clarabella’s coffin. Below the fragile pane of glass, Clarabella slept, still as Death. The flames made violet pool in the folds of her wedding gown. But the ghostly chill of her presence no longer hovered, no longer haunted.

Josephine splayed her fingers on the glass. “Forget the key,” she decided. Her fingers made a tight fist. “Step aside. Watch yourselves.” A taut, drawn breath, then a freeing exhale. “Sorry, my love.”

Her fist slammed into the center of the coffin’s lid. Josephine turned her head for only a moment, her eyes shut tight, letting the spray of glass fall like a spring rain pinging against wind chimes. A weepy breath pulled from her chest. Moving quickly, she brushed away the jeweled glass fragments before they cut Clarabella’s serene face. When she didn’t yet stir, Josephine slipped her hands under Clarabella, cradling the nape of her neck, bringing her closer. The scent of fresh dahlias blossomed suddenly in the air.

“Bella?” Her plea was no more than a whisper that could’ve been carried away on the wind. Josephine touched Clarabella’s dahlia-crowned curls, then spread her fingers across Clarabella’s rounded cheek. “She’s warming to the touch. Her heart—it’s awake.” She leaned closer to brush her nose against her wife’s. “Bella, love, wake up. Open your eyes. Y-You’re there, I know it. I can hear you.”

Josephine touched her lips to Clarabella’s in a soft, longing, desperate kiss. “Clarabella…”

Clarabella’s eyelashes fluttered, her lips parting, wordless but eager to return her wife’s love. Josephine gave a little sob, surprised when Clarabella captured her lips and roused in her arms. They melted into each other then, sunlight and starlight meeting at last.

A lifetime reclaimed in a kiss.

Josephine cried into their fervent kisses—her hands roamed over Clarabella’s back, grasping at her shoulders, her hair, her neck. Any part of her she could reach. Neither one of them wanted to break the contact. Clarabella sat up to pull Josephine deeper into their kiss, the purple light drenching them in profile, ethereal and dreamy. They became silhouettes in my blurring vision, silent tears raining from my chin. Clarabella’s words were whispered into Josephine’s ear as she ran her nose along the side of Josephine’s neck, drawing in a breath.

Gwen swiped at the tears glimmering on her face with the edge of her thumb.

“You’re making me all weepy again…”

“I didn’t realize you had brought the entire coven,” Clarabella said, a creaky whisper from disuse. She touched her fingers to her throat. “ Oh. There’s my voice, I suppose.” She nuzzled her cheek into Josephine’s neck, shying away from the sound. It must have been strange to speak again, to exist again, after so long outside a physical body.

“Don’t go straining yourself, love,” Josephine fussed. “It’ll come back with time. Let’s get you out of here first. Give me your hand—there you go, watch the glass, now. It’s gotten everywhere.”

“Romantic as ever, my dearest heart.”

Josephine smirked, holding tightly to her hand. “I always try.”

As Clarabella swung her legs over the side of the coffin, glass shards still tinkling from her gown, Morrigan hurried to grab her other hand. Gwen rescued the train of her dress, plucking stray glass from it while Josephine and Morrigan helped Clarabella to stand. When her legs couldn’t yet bear her weight, I stole the closest armchair so they could ease her onto it. Clarabella tried to get Gwen to stop fixing her gown, dragging her into a crushing embrace instead. She wouldn’t let go of her wife’s fingers even as Morrigan hugged her and kissed her cheeks and Gwen made introductions to Estella.

“Elspeth,” she breathed, “it is so good to finally meet you in this realm.”

I left Morrigan’s side to take her hand, tears still winding a slow path through the dried blood on my face. Clarabella’s eyes were so vibrant, so bright and kind that I ached with a certain grief I couldn’t quite name. She drew me gently into a hug, and I laughed despite the strange, knotted feeling in my stomach.

I hoped she and Josephine had a thousand lifetimes together to steal back the one that was taken from them.

“Jo will have you dancing in the ballroom soon enough,” I promised.

Clarabella glanced up at Josephine, beaming, and was rewarded with another eager kiss. “Of course I will,” she assured. “I owe you a lot of dancing.”

Gwen clapped her hands together. “Well, I know there’s still blood-wine in the cellar. And the night is still young. I say we get drunk as we can, and see if we’re steady enough to walk back to the ruins for whatever’s left of Sonia. And then we can all watch Jo turn her into a chamber pot.”

“ Gwen —” Morrigan started.

“Hush, Mor,” Gwen said with a wicked cackle. “I’m getting the wine. We need it.”

Morrigan shook her head and tugged me aside by our clasped fingers until I was standing in front of her. Her knuckles brushed my cheek before her fingertips wandered along my jawline. I watched her eyes narrow the longer she peered into mine. I hadn’t the courage to find my reflection yet, but I knew already that I’d changed.

“Do you miss the grey?” I asked, my hand trailing down to Morrigan’s waist by touch alone. “Are you regretful it’s gone? I hadn’t expected that so soon.”

“Only regretful that none of this has been easy for you,” she answered. “But you’ve never run from difficult choices. Not since you came to us. Your strength, that fight in you…it’s saved me in more ways than I’d ever know. And I meant what I said.” Her thumb swept back and forth across my bottom lip. “I meant every word. There’s no one else I’d rather trust with my heart.”

I pressed my lips to hers, hard, the salt of my tears mingling into our kiss. “I love you.” Morrigan took my bottom lip in her mouth, nipping between the soft stroke of our tongues. She still tasted faintly of blood, and I broke myself from her spellbinding scent before we got too carried away in front of the coven.

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a bath,” I sighed. “A very, very long bath.”

Morrigan’s laughter rumbled against my chest, pleasant and warm and beautifully alive. “I think I can arrange that. If you’ll allow me to clean up the mess this time.”

Time was all we had now.