Page 20 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)

H e’d spoken of death in such a nonchalant manner. Before explaining himself, he turned and walked into the forest.

“You did warn me not to wander. Aside from Charon, what dangers does the Ether hold?” I demanded as I ran after him.

He turned with a smirk.

“Unfortunately, many things, but if you stay with me you should be safe enough.”

“Is that confidence speaking, or cockiness?”

Orion pulled the neckline of his shirt to the side, revealing his shoulder and the top of his chest. A raised scar bisected his collarbone.

“Experience.”

I reached a hand up, but he slid the shirt back in place before I could be so foolish as to touch the scar.

“That looks like it was deep. Something here caused that?”

“I’ve been in the Ether for a hundred years.

I’ve had more than one thing go wrong and leave me with a scar.

Not that I didn’t have a few before I arrived here.

You said you weren’t the ‘ ideal’ lady, and I guess I’m not much of an ideal nobleman.

I was more interested in collecting experiences than tailored suits.

And those experiences occasionally resulted in some mishaps. ”

I snorted with laughter.

“Be grateful you were up against suits and not corsets.”

“Ah, yes, fearsome and constricting devices, so I’ve heard. They’re still using those, then?”

“To my undying resentment, they are indeed. If you’d met me on any day other than New Year’s Eve, I’d have been wearing both a corset and a vibrantly pink dress.”

He looked into my eyes.

“You don’t like pink, then?”

I started to shake my head, then stopped, chewing my lip.

“It’s complicated. My father has pink eyes. Many Hipnosis do. But sometimes it would be nice to just be myself and not a well-behaved Hipnosi.”

It felt a little bit like a betrayal of my family, but it was how I’d felt.

Searching for my father, sneaking into the library and reading Holmes’s journal.

All for a purpose, but also the greatest adventure I was ever likely to have.

A substitute for the traveling and exploring I wanted to do, but couldn’t, unless I wanted to devastate my relatives and their reputation.

“I understand ‘complicated,’” Orion said.

His expression fell back into a frown. He scanned the trees around us. The lights that danced in the sky were still vibrantly orange and purple.

We made our way in silence for a while. When the trees grew sparser in the distance, I guessed we had to be nearing the Meadow.

Orion turned to me.

“Who are we looking for? Your husband? He’s fortunate, having someone dedicated enough to follow him here. ”

I shook my head, and for some reason felt my cheeks heating at his assumption. I realized that while I’d mentioned my family, I’d never said who I was searching for.

“Not a husband. My father. He disappeared during the Unseen Hour when I was twenty-one. There was no body, but I knew he’d been Taken.

He never would have left us otherwise. Then I started snooping.

I found out he wasn’t the first to disappear without leaving a body behind. One of the Holmes brothers …”

“Go on,” he urged as I gave a sheepish smile.

“And some others over the years had gone missing during the hour. The king was lost at sea during an Unseen Hour, and the queen believes he might still be out here. At least I think so, given some things my father was working on for her. Either way, I thought it was possible. I just had to find a way to follow my father, and I did it using y— … some writings.”

I felt it best not to mention that I’d dug through his dead brother’s private possessions. There was no way that would endear me to him. It made me sound like a silly, lovesick girl at best, and a ghoul at worst.

We’d hit the treeline, but Orion wasn’t looking out at the Meadow. He was watching me.

“Your father is lucky to have a daughter this dedicated to him. My brothers and I were that close as well.”

“I’m sure they were wonderful. Did you have a lot in common? Did they also get involved in a lot of experiences and mishaps , as you put it?”

He laughed.

“Not the same as me. I was the heir, and later the duke. I had to be a little more composed, earlier than my younger brothers. They had more opportunities to travel just for the joy of it, but somehow they managed to do a better job avoiding trouble. Or at least avoiding the consequences. I stepped in to help with that.”

“You were protective of them,” I observed.

“Very. When I ended up here and realized they weren’t also … that they’d died …”

“They were very lucky to have a brother who cared about them so much.”

Definitely the right call not to ruin things by blathering that I had fallen half in love with his dead brother’s words on a page, while reminding him of the fact that a bunch of papers stuffed in a rarely used section of a library were all that remained of the people he loved.

Orion cleared his throat, adjusting the neckline of his shirt.

“So, the Shades.”

“Right. With any luck, I’ll find my father today, and then we can discuss the trip home.”

For a moment Orion froze, then he tilted his head at me.

“Today? We’re not finding anyone today. Oh no, Starlight, we are merely observing, so I can show you what goes on in this realm.”

I wanted an answer regarding the nickname, but not more than I wanted answers about my father and the Shades.

“Why not today? Why drag me back to the Meadow if we couldn’t look?”

He sobered.

“I wanted you to see this realm, and the part housing the Shades is one of the most important. I doubted you had much of a chance to observe yesterday, still acclimating to the realm. The only area with more meaning than the Meadow is Charon’s home, and we aren’t even going to get close to that.

I’ll tell you which areas of the Ether are safe, and which to avoid.

For now, though, let’s focus on the Shades. ”

In the distance, I could see the crowd of Shades, swaying in the still air.

“Can we get closer?” I asked.

Orion shook his head, and for a brief moment I wondered whether Pellix might have been a better partner for this endeavor. Unlike humans, the stallion never argued. He’d have gone cantering into the field of Shades without a second thought.

Orion sighed.

“I’m not trying to frustrate you.”

“You’re very good at reading people, aren’t you?” Or I was very easy to read.

He shrugged.

“The Shades are my only neighbors, and they’re not exactly expressive. In comparison, you’re positively theatrical.”

His blue-flecked gaze lingered on me again; then he cleared his throat.

“This is the first day after the Unseen Hour. At some point, Charon will be patrolling, checking the count I provided of his newest recruits. He’s likely to summon me as well.”

“To ask you about the Shades?”

“And rant and rave about his issues with the other gods and his ultimate plan for his centennial hour.”

“What is his plan?”

Orion took a breath and started to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried a few more times before giving up.

“The thing about gods, or at least Charon, is they’re powerful. I’d wager he’s as lonely here as I’ve been, but he doesn’t want to risk me spilling his secrets. Even to the unresponsive Shades. If he orders me not to discuss something, then I have no choice but to remain silent.”

I drew back, eyes wide .

“That’s awful!”

A hundred years, and no one but the wilderness and a god for company, one who was sounding worse by the minute.

I gulped when something else occurred to me. I hated to ask, but …

“He noticed something wrong yesterday. If he asks about me, will you have to tell him?”

Orion shook his head vehemently.

“No. We may not know each other, but I promise I wouldn’t have whisked you into the forest if I wasn’t trying to help.

I’d have just handed you over first thing.

Charon does not appreciate secrets or delays.

He wouldn’t be pleased to find out I lied to him.

It’s a risk, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think I could pull it off. ”

Orion shuddered, and my anger for the god whose existence I’d only just learned of grew even more.

“Now then”—Orion pointed, and I looked back at the Shades—“let’s start with Shade basics. They’re exactly what they sound like—shadows of their former selves.”

“That’s exactly what I thought yesterday!” I blurted, shocked that he’d captured my own thoughts.

“The Ether holds their souls, but make no mistake, they are dead.”

The entire concept was still overwhelming. The churches always preached that when our lives ended, we went to a realm of Death or Day, but what happened there was only discussed in vague terms.

“If they still are, or have, or whatever the wording would be … if they still possess their souls, does that mean they remember themselves? Could I speak with one?”

They hadn’t been helpful yesterday, but they’d been new to the Ether, just as I had been. Maybe they were different once they were settled .

Orion shook his head, then paused.

“Well, yes, and no. Their emotions and thoughts are dampened in the Ether. Something about this realm suppresses it. You’ll have noticed when you arrived that emotional reactions were quickly squashed. They just float around the Meadow.”

“But?” I pressed, sensing there was more.

“You can talk to them. It can be frustrating, and it’s difficult to rouse them enough that one stays engaged long enough to respond, but it’s possible. I’ve attempted it quite a few times over the years. It never turned out as I’d hoped.”

His shoulders slumped, and I reached a hand out, placing it on one of his arms.

I had been on the verge of another question but bit my tongue. He’d been down here, virtually alone, for nearly a hundred years. What did that kind of isolation do to someone? I sometimes felt alone and trapped in a house full of family.

Orion, though, had none of that.