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CHAPTER NINE

Now

We reach my house in silence. In the glare of the flashlight, the cottage seems innocuous and undisturbed.

I’m holding my breath as I open the door, and the first thing I do is go to the stairs.

Under my searching light, the stairs are dry, unmarked.

The wooden banisters are unadorned. There is no pouring water, no strands of kelp.

Camille and Alastair follow me to the second floor.

The bathroom is empty, the tub wiped clean.

In my bedroom, everything is as it was before.

The unmade bed, the piles of books, my dresser with its clutter of ribbons and cosmetics.

I shove Eline under my pillow before either of the Felimath siblings can notice that I still sleep with a knitted toy.

I turn on the salt lantern beside my bed, one of the few left in the house: Most have been sold along with the rest of the furniture.

Brightness spills into the hall, where Alastair and Camille are waiting.

The Caedmon book Alastair gave me is on my table, the cover illuminated from the glow of the lantern.

I see him looking at it and come quickly back out of my room, closing the door behind me.

Alastair points his flashlight down the landing, where the entrances to my brothers’ rooms lie in shadow. “Did you want me to look around? Camille, you can check downstairs.”

I can hear in the flatness of his voice that he doesn’t expect to see anything, that he thinks I’ve imagined it all. And I don’t want him searching through Henry’s or Oberon’s things. It feels like such an invasion of their privacy to let Alastair into their rooms.

“No,” I tell him. “I’ll look up here. You can both go downstairs.”

He retreats to the lower floor with a shrug, followed by Camille. Our cottage is so small in comparison to the labyrinthine rooms of Saltswan. I can hear the boards creaking under their shifting feet, Alastair talking to Camille before they split up to continue their search.

I make my way down to my brothers’ rooms. Oberon’s bed is hotel-neat.

His window is closed. The air smells of the aftershave he uses, vetiver and cardamom, like the woods in autumn.

I go inside and make sure the window is latched.

A pair of trousers is slung over the end of the bed frame; I take them with me.

In Henry’s room, I find a shirt in the wardrobe. Standing behind the screen of the open door, I shed my tattered gown and put on my brothers’ clothes. It’s a foolish, comfort-seeking gesture, but it makes me feel safer. I tuck the handkerchief Alastair gave me into my pocket.

Then I notice Henry’s window has been left open.

As I slide it closed, a flicker of movement outside catches my attention.

Alastair is in the garden below. He’s near the arbor, standing with his arms folded and one shoulder leaned against the wisteria-wrapped post. The flashlight hangs in his hand, pooling a circle of light at his feet as he gazes toward the breakwater.

And a few paces behind him, half-hidden in the shadow of the vines—is another figure. I can make out the scuffed toes of boots, the swaying hem of a long, dark overcoat. It isn’t Camille. My chest goes tight. There’s someone here, someone other than the three of us.

I swallow down the rise of bitter dread that floods across my tongue.

The phantom ache of a tugging hand pulls my hair, and I can smell smoke, hear the echo of an unfamiliar voice in the darkness.

I think again of Alastair in the library, telling me how the Salt Priests didn’t want Therion betrothed to someone like you .

What if the boy from the mine never left? This isn’t a hallucination.

Alastair moves away from the stranger, walking in the opposite direction. The glow of his flashlight ripples over the ground. He doesn’t know the stranger is behind him.

I’m moving on instinct, hurrying downstairs and toward the back of the house.

Everything is silent and shadowed. I go into the kitchen, where a single vase of flowers sits on the table, a scatter of fallen petals wilted onto the tabletop.

I can’t see anything from the window here; the angle is all wrong.

I creep up to the door, pressing my ear against it, but I can’t pick up any sounds.

Slowly, I ease the door open and tiptoe outside. The arbor is all in darkness as I edge closer. All I can hear is the sigh of the wind, the hush from the lapping sea. Then a sudden flash of light flares in front of my face. I stagger forward, disoriented by the brightness.

“Gods!” Alastair cries as I collide with him. He catches hold of my arm, steadying us both. “What are you playing at, sneaking up on me like that!”

“Shh!” I grab for the switch of his flashlight and shut it off. In the darkness, splotches of color dance before my eyes. Standing on tiptoe so I can whisper into his ear, I hiss, “I saw someone in the arbor. I think it was the Salt Priest.”

Alastair tenses. He steps in front of me, peering into the shadows.

With a click, he turns the flashlight back on.

I gasp, my fingers reflexively tightening against his arm.

He glares at me, then sweeps the beam of his light across the garden.

Everything is undisturbed, except for some fallen wisteria flowers, scattered by the wind.

Slowly, he moves forward. I go with him, still holding his arm. We move as quietly as possible, listening intently for any sounds. With aching slowness, we make a circle around the entire cottage.

The clifftop fields are quiet, nothing but gently swaying grasses and the chirp of insects drawn out by the crisp air.

Past the breakwater, moonlight catches on the cresting waves and turns them to silver lace against the dark water.

The beach is empty, the sand unmarked by footprints. There’s no sign of anything amiss.

I let out a sigh, and Alastair turns toward me. We both realize how close we are to each other: I’m still holding his arm, pressed against his side. I snatch back my hand; he steps quickly away from me.

He scowls, running his light back over the arbor once more. “Lacrimosa, when was the last time you slept?”

“Are you going to tell me I’m sleep-deprived as well as concussed?”

“No. I was just—” He scrapes his foot across the path, scattering gravel. “Camille and I can stay here with you tonight, if you like.”

I look around the garden again, then down at the undisturbed beach. I’m certain that I saw someone. But everything else I was so sure of—the faces at my window, the veil on its hanger, the flood of water from the upper floor—hadn’t been real, either.

Frustrated, I rub my hand over my eyes. “I don’t need to sleep. What I need is to go back to the mine. Or Therion’s altar, in the caves. I have to try and speak with him, to tell him I didn’t mean to break my promise.”

Alastair gives me an unreadable look. “Come back inside. I have something to show you.”

I follow him into my cottage. He closes the door behind us and locks it. I watch, annoyed at the sight of his long-fingered hand turning our iron key. Camille appears from the front room, her flashlight scanning over the kitchen. She raises her brow in question; Alastair shakes his head.

He points to the kitchen table, motioning for us to sit down. I pull out a chair, too nervous to argue. “What did you have to show me?”

Camille sits opposite me, scrubbing at her cheek as she yawns.

Alastair turns on the kitchen lantern, and the room fills with softened light.

He reaches into the pocket of his overcoat and takes out my mirror, which he lays down on the table.

“You left this behind. I don’t want you to accuse me of being a thief again. ”

“Thanks,” I say flatly, not moving to pick it up.

From his other pocket, he takes out a book. It’s the same one he was reading at the beach, the ancient poem written in Tharnish.

Camille snorts when she sees it. “Do you really carry The Neriad with you everywhere?”

Ignoring his sister, Alastair leafs through the book until he finds the section he wants. “Read this,” he orders, handing the book to me.

He stands at my side as I look at the page, leaning down with his elbows on the table. Some of the phrases have been underlined, and there are tiny penciled sketches in the margins. An unfurled leaf, a cresting wave, a delicate feather. A peculiar emotion rises in my chest.

“Did you draw these?” I glance at Alastair.

We’ve shifted unintentionally close together again, just like in the garden.

I can make out a spray of freckles across his cheeks, patterned like a constellation.

I draw back, needing to widen the distance between us.

I hate that I’ve let him in like this, to my life, to my house. That I need his help.

He doesn’t answer my question. Tapping the page, he says again, “Read it.”

It’s discomforting, to be so close to him. I try to focus on the line he’s indicated, ignoring the way our arms are touching, the rising warmth from that small point of contact. “Sennvh devlient, fume devlient.”

Alastair laughs, but there’s no unkindness in his tone. He seems more amused than anything. “Your Tharnish is dreadful.”

I shoot him an irritated look. “We can’t all be experts in dead languages.”

“Go on, then,” Camille says to her brother. “Show us all how to pronounce it, I know you’re desperate to.”

“ Sennvh devlient, fume devlient ,” he says, and in his mouth, the Tharnish words are like music, beautiful as an incantation. I’m so caught up by it, the cadence of his voice and the way his face turns softer when he reads, that it takes a moment for me to realize.

This phrase—it’s the same as the strange boy’s chant from the night of my betrothal. “What…,” I ask slowly, turned cold with foreboding, “… does it mean?”

“As the smoke vanishes, so let him vanish away.”