Page 36 of Tales of a Deadly Devotion (Tales of a Monstrous Heart, #2)

Chapter Nineteen

Alma

They say the clever thief is one that is never caught. The thief that never existed at all. No stories to whisper on the wind, no names to chase.

That’s why you’re perfect, little rat. You never existed at all.

Sometimes I had memories, but they never felt like mine. As if I’d slipped inside someone else’s skull. The pain of trying to piece together what was lost was worse than the loneliness of never knowing. So, whoever I was, it didn’t matter. Who I wished to be was all I had.

And I never wished to be a fool.

He lied. The memory of those words from Kat’s lips, the raw pain laced into them. How deeply they lacerated inside me still.

Master Hale had lied. Just like all those who had come before. How easily I’d worn his leash. Believed this time it would be different. I looked down at my hands, how they still trembled. Rage was too potent in me, like over-steeped tea.

I couldn’t blame Kat for trusting too easily. She hadn’t seen the things I had. Didn’t know this awful world as I did. We shared Daunton, that cruelty was insignificant compared to all that had happened to me before.

I should have known better. I should have seen Hale’s trap. I’d been in enough of them.

I wrung the cloth a little tighter in my hands, letting the soapy water rush through my fingers. Still getting no relief, no matter how tightly I twisted the fabric. The washed cups stacked next to the sink gave a concerned rattle.

‘Shh,’ I hissed. Not in the mood to entertain the house and its mothering. Not in the mood to admit all my mistakes. Chafing too close to the bone. Too true.

And I knew just how venomously I despised the truth. Changed and morphed into anything else to avoid it. Why the beasts beneath my skin were so fucking unsettled.

He lied. An irritated pained growl slipped from my lips. How I’d performed. Smiled and cared for the old bastard. How I’d worried for him.

With an irritated snarl I tossed the cloth and retreated to slump down onto the bench by the kitchen table, pressing my face into my damp, clawed hands.

I hated stopping. Hated the stillness. Hated having to think. Yet, a putrid bitter smell still stung my nose. Like coal tar. Repugnant and stifling. A smell that remained from being that beast and I didn’t know why.

My beasts never lingered. Not like this. I raised my head to watch the black flames lick at the stone of the hearth. The sour smell from where I tossed the remains of that demonic clawed finger into the fire nearly turned my stomach. Needing to be rid of it.

I don’t know why I’d kept that finger, why I’d viciously wanted to, like some cursed trophy. Maybe I’d lost my mind.

Why I hadn’t given any protest as Kat demanded to go with Blackthorn and Gideon to the east. Despite how close it brought her to the Reavers.

Gideon looked like he wanted to carve his own eyeballs out with a kitchen spoon at the suggestion – but one glare from Emrys had silenced him. Thankfully.

I should have talked her out of it. Talked her out of going deeper into another deadly game none of us should be playing. Considering the state she’d come back in from the Council chambers.

Instead, I’d hidden once again in the kitchen.

Like the coward I was, only to be faced with The Crow’s Foot as the papers lay scattered across the table before me, the violence and riots that had already begun across Elysior.

The uprisings that had erupted against Montagor’s vicious new rule.

As his hunters sought any rebellion they could find.

They’d taken cursed venom again, turning them into vicious monsters who moved faster and could kill quicker. Just like in those wars as fey fled further north. As their villages were purged. How quickly their facade of peace had crumbled. How ready their cruelty was.

Unease clawed at my skin which still stung from the change or from the vicious scrubbing I’d done in the bath earlier. Not feeling clean. No matter how much soap I used.

I’d always remain like this. Dirty.

We were all made to be used, little rat. You’re a liar for telling yourself any different. The memory of the Keeper’s drunk slurred words only soured my mood further. How right that monster could still be, even after all this time. How true Master Hale had made those words.

A hand waved in my vision, making me jump. Seeing William’s worried frown as he stood before me, clearly speaking to me.

‘Sorry, William.’ I shook my head, rising from the table, but his kind brown eyes dropped to the back of my hand, where I’d scratched the skin red raw.

‘Does changing irritate you?’ He frowned at the mark.

‘Sometimes.’ I shrugged. Reluctant to admit how it felt like I lost something every time. How this power had been so tightly woven with my pain. How they’d twisted this gift into a curse. Made me remember everything I wished to forget.

Kat would have made me something, a tonic, maybe? She would have stayed if she’d known but I wasn’t her burden.

‘It’s hard to feel …’ The words seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth. Claggy. ‘To feel clean afterwards.’

Something that seemed like understanding crossed his expression before he moved to one of the kitchen shelves, coming back with a small metal tin in his outstretched palm.

‘Here. Mirtle wood. That’ll soothe it.’ His offering was so simple and yet it made a brutal mark across my heart. That he’d care enough to even think of it. To help something as wrong and strange as me.

‘Thank you, William.’ I squeezed his hand. His warm smile like a reward. Then I saw the strange markings scratched on his fingers.

‘What happened?’ I frowned, wondering if he’d got carried away with his thorn tonics again.

His cheeks flushed as a small line furrowed his brow. ‘It was that bloody gobrite. Horrid little bastard. I only tried to put it back.’

‘Why would Emrys keep it?’ I unscrewed the lid and rubbed the balm on my raw flesh. Feeling the irritation ease instantly.

William shrugged. ‘Who knows. But I wondered if you wanted to go over the compendium records.’

The offer was gentle, coaxing. Perhaps afraid I’d withdraw further. I tried not to be unsettled by that. By someone caring so much. Too used to hiding in kitchens, store cupboards or shadowed stairways. Hiding from all the things I couldn’t change.

‘Where does Emrys keep the compendiums?’ I asked, something within me seeming to raise its scaled head at the question. My curse’s interest never usually led to good things.

‘In the cellar,’ he answered with a shudder. ‘It’s … strange down there.’

‘Strange?’ I frowned.

‘Magic doesn’t like to be contained, and it likes to misbehave when Emrys is out of the house.’ The boy shrugged, pulling at his curls.

Of course. Emrys was Verr. The mere presence of his magic would be enough to tame more feral manifestations.

Why he didn’t seem to have an issue hunting dark fiends.

They probably came to heel easily enough.

Why the lord had unsettled me upon first meeting, despite doing nothing to warrant my suspicion.

Something in me must have sensed that threat. Even if I didn’t know what it was.

‘There was … a strange scent. When I changed, I could smell something. Kat said dark beings can track dark magic.’ I wondered if that was why it still stung my nose. As if trying to catch my attention, the darker side of my nature trying to help for once.

‘They can.’ He nodded, weighing my words.

‘I wonder if I could sense if there was anything similar in the other compendiums. Something created at the same time.’ That if I even went near them, would the creatures in my blood be able to sense it.

‘We …’ he began, but before he could answer, the storeroom door opened, revealing a stone set of stairs leading down. The house clearly making the decision for us.

‘It’s rude to listen to people’s conversations,’ William grumbled at the wooden-beamed ceiling as if the house’s presence was no more than a bat hanging there. The only response was the door rattling in annoyance.

‘All right, we’re coming.’ William crossed to the door and I followed. Slapping irritably at my skirts. Not used to being in a light simple dress rather than the confining heavy fabric of my maid’s attire, but relieved the house and William had given me a distraction.

I was desperate for a distraction.

Even if that distraction was at the bottom of a drafty and twisting stone stairwell. Steps so narrow I had to watch my feet, fingers dragging over the cold, damp walls. All warmth seeping from the air, as if the house’s comforting magic couldn’t reach down here.

William paused in the gloom at the bottom of the stairs which was no more than an archway leading to endless darkness. My nose twitched, rough scales forming on my palms as if in anticipation of touching something.

‘Sorry. It has to be the old-fashioned methods,’ he sighed, pulling down a torch from the wall that was strung with cobwebs and dust, as he rummaged in his apron and pulled out a small box of matches, handing them to me. ‘Magical flames don’t do well down here.’

Thank fuck Kat hadn’t found this place then.

I quickly lit the torch, stuffing the matches back in his apron as the cavernous space was illuminated. Large stone arches greeted us, solid wooden doors spaced evenly all the way down the hallway. The remains of a red carpet clung to the stone floor as gargoyles peered down from perches above.

As if we’d wandered into ancient ruins from one of Kat’s history texts.

‘What would you two be up to?’ came a sly, smooth voice from the shadows.

‘Bloody fuck!’ William hissed, almost jumping out of his skin as he struggled to keep hold of the torch.

‘Language, dear William,’ Thean drawled, only there was no amusement on the voyav’s face. Just that sharp annoyance where they stood at the base of the stairs, one arm braced on the wall, peering down at us in striking female form.