Page 19 of The Witching Moon Manor (The Spellbound Sisters #2)
When his hand cut through the air, Anne caught the faint fragrance of cypress and myrrh and knew that his magic was pulsing just beneath the surface, waiting to be called upon if needed.
Her own power sparked then, infusing the hallway with notes of black tea and peppermint that should have overpowered the subtle aroma that already lingered there but ended up complementing it somehow.
“My name is Anne Quigley,” she said, her tone firm and unwavering as she took back the step that she’d relinquished earlier. “Who, may I ask, are you?”
Anne expected the man’s eyes to widen in surprise when he learned who she was, but instead, those white brows settled into an even deeper scowl as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Vincent Crowley,” he answered. “The owner of this traitorous house. Excuse my manners, Miss Quigley, but I didn’t expect the city’s Diviner of all people to wander into my home without so much as knocking on the front door.”
The accusation in his voice told Anne that he wasn’t apologetic in the least, and it set her teeth on edge.
“As a member of the Council, I don’t need permission to step through someone’s threshold, as you well know, Mr. Crowley,” Anne replied. “Which is entirely beside the point, as your house invited me in. And encouraged me to open this door here, I might add.”
“The house should know better,” Vincent grumbled, glowering at the walls once more.
“What’s the purpose of this room?” Anne asked, her curiosity getting the best of her.
Vincent looked like he wanted to tell Anne that wasn’t any of her concern, but he bit his lip, obviously trying to hold back the harsh words that threatened to slip from his tongue, and drew in a breath before answering.
“It’s one of the rooms where we help our clients commune with the spirits,” Vincent explained reluctantly. “The ticking of the clocks helps us focus our magic and steadies the dead, who have trouble centering themselves long enough to break through the veil.”
“I heard voices,” Anne said before she could help herself.
“I’m not surprised,” Vincent replied, his tone losing its rough edge for a moment as his gaze turned toward the door. “There are many waiting for their chance to be heard, after all.”
He sounded so sincere then that Anne nearly forgot he’d looked as if he wanted to shove her out onto the street a moment earlier. In that instant, Vincent’s sharp features softened a fraction, and Anne realized with a start that he was rather handsome, if one cared about such a thing.
But before she could linger on that thought for long, the hard angles had settled back into his face, causing her spine to snap back so that she was as straight as a sewing needle.
“I assume that you’re a relation of Mr. Capricious Crowley, who passed away some months ago?
” Anne asked, though she already knew what the answer would be.
The Council kept track of the various networks that knit the magical community together, and as soon as Vincent told her his name, she knew what kind of ties linked him to her old friend.
“He was my uncle,” Vincent said, his tone lacking any flicker of warmth. Instead, the word seemed weighed down by a sense of unease, as if just saying it aloud promised trouble.
“And you keep the house?” Anne asked.
“I use it, just like everyone else in the family,” Vincent replied. “But ever since my uncle’s death, it’s not . . .”
Vincent grew silent then, the end of his sentence cut as abruptly as the tail of a satin ribbon.
“You were saying, Mr. Crowley?” Anne asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Nothing at all,” he replied defiantly.
A fresh wave of annoyance swept over Anne, making her more determined to get to the heart of the matter.
“Mr. Crowley,” Anne began, “I’m here because your uncle chose not to complete his Task, as I expect you well know.”
The way Vincent’s lips tightened confirmed that he was quite familiar with this fact.
“What you might not have realized, however, is that your uncle was more powerful than he led us to believe,” Anne continued. “And that in deciding not to complete his Task, Mr. Crowley has caused a rip in the fabric of destiny.”
Anne watched as Vincent’s eyes narrowed, but the movement seemed too deliberate to be natural.
When she whirled around to face him only a moment ago, she’d seen the way his features twisted in shock at finding a stranger lurking in the hallway, with one brow cocked just the barest touch higher than the other and his eyes so hard that they could have been cut from the marble facade of the house.
That flash of surprise was gone now, though, replaced by a sense of resolve.
His reaction wasn’t what Anne had expected in the least, and she had to stop herself from taking the barest step closer, where she could better decipher the firm lines of his face.
“I’m sure you’ve heard of a few odd happenings by now,” Anne continued, wanting to get a sense of just how many other secrets Vincent might already have tucked away. “They will only worsen unless the Council finds a way to complete Mr. Crowley’s Task for him.”
At that, she slipped her hand free of her woolen glove, shifting it back and forth so that the grains of the hourglass drifted from one side to the other.
“We must discover who this ring belongs to,” Anne said, her eyes fixed on Vincent’s face. “As soon as we possibly can, before things become so tangled that other witches cannot complete their own Tasks. To do that, I need your family’s help.”
Anne waited for Vincent to react, but she was met only with silence that seemed so charged she could feel it brush against her skin.
And then Vincent abruptly turned his back on her and began to march away, the candles flashing behind him as his footsteps echoed against the walls.
“I must ask you to leave, Miss Quigley,” Vincent announced once he reached the front door.
“I beg your pardon?” Anne said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the cavernous hallway.
“You won’t receive any help here,” Vincent replied, his words as still and unmoving as a pair of dates etched on a tombstone.
“But it’s in your best interest to see the Task brought to a close,” Anne insisted as she strode toward Vincent, anger seeping through the rapidly fracturing cracks of her composure.
The irritation that had been simmering just beneath the surface was so potent now that if she touched a metal doorknob with her bare hand, sparks would have snapped from her fingertips.
“If it remains unfinished, it will mean no end of trouble for you and your family.”
Vincent’s shoulders stiffened at that, as if he’d already been aware of the burden that the Crowleys would shoulder when the odd magical unravelings were linked back to them.
But the cutting glint in his eye only grew sharper as he opened the front door and let in the brutal whip of the wind. It grazed Anne’s cheek, but the bite of Vincent’s next words felt harsher than the unrelenting grasp of winter.
“You must leave,” he said, any promise of an explanation fading faster than an ember tossed into the snow.
Anne knew that she should beg him to reconsider, to apologize for her tone and ask that they sit down to start the whole conversation anew.
To somehow undo this disastrous first impression as one does when they’ve skipped a knot in their knitting and pull back the yarn so that they can replace the mess with neat, even rows.
But something about Vincent made Anne want to push herself to the limit, to say things that she’d never dared utter before.
“You will change your mind,” she said instead, so firmly that the picture frames started to rattle on the walls. “And when you do, you can find me at the Crescent Moon.”
If Anne had lingered for just a moment longer at the threshold, she might have noticed how her words brushed against the whispers that seeped out from the cracks of the door at the end of the hall, saturating the foyer with the sound of longing and unmet intentions waiting for a chance to finally be fulfilled.