Page 39 of Once Upon a Dark October
One Year Later
M orrigan painted the last brushstroke over my thumbnail, the ocean blue polish adding a glossy, opaque sheen.
“There you are, my darling. Careful not to smudge them.”
She put the stopper back into the bottle but didn’t move from her spot on the chaise at the end of the bed. Stretching out instead, I heard the rustling of silk as she pulled on her dressing gown.
I felt the heat of her admiring gaze on me while I laid on my stomach across our bed wearing nothing, blowing warm air over my wet lacquered nails. It seemed that neither of us wanted to join our own Blood Moon celebration. We were both too comfortable in our current state to even think about the exhausting task of getting dressed. I could still feel the weight of her body between my legs, my skin still flushed, the love bites she’d left on me healing.
The diversion, although enjoyable, had made us more than fashionably late.
But a year was nothing to a vampire, I’d learned. Last autumn’s Blood Moon may as well have been yesterday.
Morrigan hadn’t said a word about it, which was quite fine, because the nightmares had returned last night and I hadn’t wanted to burden her with them. She’d had her own in the months following the ball, and she had tried to hide them from me. Sleep eluded her for at least half the past year despite the curse of midnight being broken.
Her sorcerer’s wounds, at least, had healed with the regeneration of her heart. Blood magic no longer pained her or bled her from the inside.
For a long while, I thought she had been angry with me for feeding her Sonia’s heart; Morrigan herself had made a point not to seize power by such gory means.
Seeing my distress, she assured me—after I found her wandering the estate one night like a troubled spirit—that she would have made the same decision if our places had been reversed. She had been the one to tell me to devour her heart, after all. Her restlessness and unease weren’t my doing, though I worried for her, on this night especially.
Morrigan explained that she had her own mourning to do. Lost years, lost relationships, lost hearts. Grief took many forms.
I knew well enough. Every time my eyes closed, that horrible affair played out in my mind, over and over. Her chest ripped open, still alive, her blood reaching across the ballroom’s glass-strewn marble. My fangs tearing into that precious muscle. The perverse taste of her I never wanted again. The last fragile beat of Morrigan’s heart.
Her bloody sacrifice.
“We’re terrible hosts,” Morrigan mused after some time. “Everyone started arriving at least half an hour ago.”
“An hour.” I touched my nails lightly with the pad of my thumb and found them dry. “Gwen’s out there with Estella—I’m doubtful anyone will notice our absence as long as there’s plenty to drink.”
I kicked away the sheets tangled around my ankles as I crawled over the edge of the bed to straddle Morrigan’s lap. Once the curses were broken and the nights returned to the coven, we hadn’t spent a lot of time in our clothes. Though I’d admitted to Morrigan that I missed her great wings and her long bat’s tongue. Which then made her confess to experimenting with temporary shape-shifting. Now that she had Sonia’s power drenching her veins—without its own curse of ichor—she’d been curious about the fallen sorcerer’s ability to shift at will.
And she did miss the flying.
“Your relatives will be wondering where you are.”
I pushed aside Morrigan’s dressing gown so I could lay my head against her chest, skin to skin. There wasn’t a need to be so close to hear it, but it had calmed me during the past year to listen to her heart beating like this. If I awoke crying out Morrigan’s name in the dark, she didn’t say anything. She’d just pull me on top of her—perhaps my weight soothed her, too—and with my ear flush to her breast, I counted each unwavering beat.
“They can wait a little while longer.”
Morrigan’s lips skimmed the top of my head. “I suppose we should get dressed.”
I turned just enough to place a kiss between her breasts, then let my mouth linger a little bit longer. “And where have Jo and Bella run off to?”
“Last I checked…they were—darling Ella, if you keep on like this, we’ll end up right back where we started, and before either of us know it, another hour will have passed.” Morrigan sucked in a sharp breath that turned into a moan when my fangs sunk down. “As I was saying before you interrupted with your mischievous tongue , last I checked, the two of them were getting up to the same kind of trouble in the library tower. ”
“Time can certainly wait for us now.”
“And I’m quite sure they’d agree. At least Jo and Bella were dressed,” Morrigan said. “Mostly.” She grabbed my chin with a teasing smirk and kissed the smear of her blood that had painted a rouge on my lips. “Still a fledgling even with those eyes. Come on, my dearest Elspeth, we have Blood Moon revelry to attend. We have all night to continue this, I promise you. Let’s not keep them waiting.”
“Wait, Morrigan,” I beckoned, pulling her aside in the ballroom’s cozy wing. I’d spent a month and a half getting it spotless, soot and dust and all banished from the stone and the floors. It’d been so dark that I hadn’t discovered until my repetitive scrubbing removed the century of grime that there were mirrored panels on the walls, etchings of bats in flight hidden among the stones. “One moment more. I have something to give you. Hold out your hand.”
The light from Gwen’s candles—skulls and hearts leaking wax on the sentry gargoyles—burnished the side of Morrigan’s face when she turned to me. I placed a velvet box in her awaiting palm that I had been keeping in the pocket disguised between the folds of my skirt. Searching my face with a bewildered glance, Morrigan opened it to reveal a white-gold ring. Inside the band, a piece of sea glass had been shaped into a stone. The color was a rare beauty, a striking, deep translucent blue.
“Oh, Elspeth…”
“I scoured the beaches for weeks looking for a piece large enough with a color that suited you,” I explained. Morrigan tucked her old ring into the box and secreted it away into her trouser pocket. “And, of course, I asked to transmute my blood for the metal. Bella chose it.”
“It’s perfect, my darling.” Morrigan let me slide the ring upon her finger. Held up to the light, it almost glowed. “Thank you.”
She drew me into a kiss, more chaste than she perhaps might’ve liked with guests filtering in and out of the ballroom, congregating to drink and gossip in the corridor.
I was pleased that the ring did suit her, and it matched her evening clothes. The two of us were fond of blue in nearly every shade, so we’d chosen to break tradition at our own Blood Moon ball. We wore colors more reflective of the approaching winter than the warmth of mid-autumn. My wide, endless skirts—perfect for twirling and dancing—shimmered metallic, the silk a dusty blue. A glittering overlay of fabric finer and more transparent than lace made it look as though the night sky had been sewn into its fibers.
Morrigan had chosen a darker shade, rich as the deepest ocean far beyond the shores of our coast. The embroidery on her high-collared coat and its matching waistcoat was so intricate that it had taken a few months to prepare, the threads a glimmer of metallic blue to mirror my gown.
She had notched her arm through mine again, but I’d stayed another minute more to steal one last look at my reflection. I was still left startled by the sight. It had changed so drastically since the last time I’d looked upon myself with mortal eyes. Taking Morrigan’s heart had left me altered in more visible ways than I imagined. The pomegranate-red took some getting used to. It felt like only yesterday they were the somber grey of undeath.
Morrigan had told me that my actions last autumn had been enough to make me a sorcerer in my own right, but stealing her heart hadn’t made it feel that way. I needed to earn it for myself. I would—I’d made that silent vow. No matter how long it took, with each strand of hair that would inevitably become moonlight-pale, I’d dedicate years, decades, centuries to sorcery .
I’d keep watch over Dreadmist at Morrigan’s side. And Morrigan had made a vow of her own, resolving to give up the discipline if either one of us began to succumb to its ambitions of bloodlust.
She ran her fingers through locks of burnished gold hair that had begun to turn silver. “You’ve a couple decades before that yet, Ella,” she promised. “It won’t go silver all at once.”
I was most relieved to hear that.
Morrigan reassured me with an easy smile. “Shall we?”
The harbor had given us a clear night. I never grew tired of the sparkling vista above our heads, stardust swirling between the constellations, the nighttime dark an ethereal blood-red.
After we’d gotten the marble to shine again and fixed the broken tiles and furnishings, Gwen and Clarabella had stepped in to work their own magic. Since the domed ceiling had no chandeliers, Josephine and Clarabella had spent considerable hours in the laboratory tower. Now that they transmuted blood easily into sunlight, they’d begun experimenting. Glowing miniature suns floated across the ceiling, diffused, softened daylight cutting through the Blood Moon’s eerie illumination. They dashed gold upon the walls, the ballroom filled with a warm, cheerful haze.
Gwen had arranged the flowers around its perimeter—vibrant mums and dahlias in their most rich autumn colors. I didn’t know how she had done it, exactly, but she’d set a grove of red-leafed trees against the windows of the furthest wall, shaped candles around their skinny trunks. Paper garlands wove between their boughs, handmade by Gwen and Estella. And there were plenty of carved pumpkins. Gwen had recruited our help until the entire coven had been stinking of pumpkin guts, seeds and stringy bits flung across the entire dining room table.
That had been a perfect night like this one.
The ballroom was near-bursting with guests from every corner of Dreadmist Harbor and further down the coast. I hadn’t yet spotted my relatives, but moving about in this crowd was difficult. The cornucopia of autumnal colors drew my eyes around the vast ballroom. And it appeared that we had drawn our own attention yet again with our bold, unusual palette.
Of course it could have been our tardiness as the expected hosts. But part of me knew that the blood-red of our eyes—like the moonlit sky watching over our celebration—would always have a certain allure that made others curious.
I didn’t mind sharing the burden with Morrigan.
“It looks like nearly everyone accepted our invitation,” I said.
“Yes, well.” Morrigan tugged at her collar. “I think I’ll be needing a drink before I make any speeches.”
I giggled. “The fearsome blood sorcerer is nervous ?”
She growled, but it had a playful edge, a teasing threat of her fangs. “Let’s find out where they’re keeping the blood-wine—”
I reeled her in with my arm threaded over her elbow. “Oh no you don’t,” I scolded lightly. “I want a dance first. You promised.”
Morrigan’s pale eyebrow lifted. “Did I?”
“Thank the stars,” Gwen said in greeting through a teasing whine. “We’ve wanted to sneak off for the past half hour. Hope you’ve had your fun.”
Estella had an arm about Gwen’s waist, and while both of them looked beautiful, there were clear signs that they had been kissing fervently in a shadow-draped corner. The stain on Gwen’s lips had smeared, and Estella’s neck bore the evidence.
A rosy blush on her cheeks, Gwen fixed the form-fitting bodice of her evening gown where her cleavage threatened to slip out. The shade of moss-green satin she’d chosen made a perfect contrast to her hair. Estella wore an iridescent purple that shone with sunset colors underneath a skirt of bright purple lace. She was busy rearranging the feathers in her hair, her blood-teeth worrying over her bottom lip.
Morrigan offered a salacious, crooked grin. “We did.” She motioned somewhere beyond her shoulder. “Go on, the two of you. We’d hate to keep you for a second more. ”
That was all the invitation either of them needed. A peal of Gwen’s laughter rising in their wake, they hurried for the ballroom doors, their arms wrapped around each other. I glanced over my shoulder and caught Gwen stealing a kiss as they rounded the corner, their hands wandering. After Estella had recovered from her bout with demon’s blood in our coven-house, Gwen had taken her on a month-long trip down the coast, occasionally giving updates by letter. Estella had since become a natural fit to our growing coven.
“Morrigan,” someone called—a voice I wasn’t sure I’d hear again. It was rather strange not to flinch at its familiarity. “Elspeth, you look beautiful.”
The compliment took me so aback, I might have fainted.
We turned to greet Drusilla, who’d traveled from hundreds miles down the coast, or so I’d gleaned from her letters. The first had arrived to the estate shortly following last autumn’s Blood Moon, where Drusilla had inquired about breaking her daylight curse. She looked well, though I still found traces of heartbreak in the uncertain smile she offered. She was unaccompanied tonight.
Morrigan pulled her into a quick embrace. “Drusilla. I’m glad to see you’ve made your return to the harbor at last—I wasn’t sure if our invitation had reached you.”
Drusilla’s welcoming embrace was a strange sort of comfort. “Your journey wasn’t treacherous, I hope? The sea can be fitful this time of year.”
“We made it ahead of yesterday’s storm,” she said. “I think I enjoy the sailing about more than I thought I would.” After an awkward hesitation, Drusilla pretended to right her skirts, a cascade of burnt orange ruffles. “Morrigan, I’d wondered if it’s not too much trouble for you all…if I might stay here a while. If there’s room, I mean. And…perhaps if your offer still stands and your alchemists find something that might break this curse. ”
“I don’t doubt that they’ll find some way to help you,” I said. “Right, Morrigan?”
Morrigan nodded. “You’re welcome to stay for as long as you need,” she answered. “And if you’d like to join us, more permanent arrangements can be made.”
Drusilla couldn’t give an answer right away, which Morrigan and I understood. Parting with a word of thanks, she melted into the ballroom’s light and color. It wasn’t difficult to become distracted by the array of finery crowding the floor, the glint of blood-wine in glasses, the upbeat melody of a fiddle working between the chatter.
“Oh, there they are.” I waved over Clarabella and Josephine. “They tarried more than we did.”
“I told Jo they didn’t have to come—they have a ship to catch early tomorrow,” Morrigan explained. “But you know Bella didn’t want to miss this for anything.”
Since Clarabella’s awakening, we barely saw the two of them in the halls of the cliffside estate. Clarabella set up picnics on the beach almost every afternoon until the weather raged into winter. She and Josephine took frequent trips into town, where they were now in negotiations with the newly-elected High Council to establish their own school of blood alchemy.
The two of them disappeared down the coast every weekend they could. Their scarce appearances in our coven-house were encouraged heartily by the rest of us, though I often teased them about making the library tower uninhabitable due to their amorous adventures.
I’d walked in on them on several occasions now.
“You think Dru will finally join us?” Josephine wondered aloud once they’d sidled in with a whisper of skirts.
She wore metallic gold silk with a sweeping train gathered at the bustle that had slim, countered silhouette. Beside her, Clarabella was clad in yellow, bright and warm, a shade that reminded me of a canary’s plumage. Her skirts were even wider than mine, the hem edged with matching lace.
Clarabella was still working to regain her strength. Her legs were steadier these days, but Josephine had helped to craft her a gorgeous walking stick, which moved with her even as Josephine was attached to her side. The sleek, lacquered wood had been inlaid with gold at the tip, shaped into delicate flowers.
The gold had once been Sonia’s blood.
“That’s my hope,” Morrigan said.
“It would be wonderful to see the rooms filled again,” Clarabella agreed.
“It would indeed.” Morrigan’s grin was bright, though I saw a glaze of unshed tears she’d held back. “Our coven is finally flourishing again at long last.”
“Come on.” I chased away her bittersweet melancholy with a kiss. “You promised me a dance.”
Morrigan shed her overcoat to spin me into the center of the ballroom floor, my dress glittering as the night sky. She closed the gap between us, pushing into my skirts while I draped my arms around her neck. Underneath the music’s rising tempo and the sea’s battering waves, in the safe embrace of her arms, I danced to the unfaltering beat of Morrigan’s heart. A melody like no other, a song unto eternity. Josephine and Clarabella joined soon after, a swirl of gold and sunshine between us.
Eventually our entire coven took to the floor, careless of all who watched, exchanging partners until we were sore with laughter and weightless from blood-wine. On and on we danced, past the stroke of midnight.