Page 44 of Till Death

Frustration grew inside me, the swell of defiance growing. I balled my fist and turned away. “You people are insufferable.”

“Then go. Because no one is sleeping with you lurking around on the roof anyway. We all know who you are. We feel what you’re capable of in our own ways. But Hollis says there’s still a soul in your body and we should try. So, we are trying. For Orin.”

“Hollis has fond memories of a sister with a terrible history. Whatever he has built in his own mind to make her murders okay, he’s wrong.”

“He watched his mother die and his sister, Dahlia, turn into a monster. He never said she was a good person.” Althea stepped toward me, grabbing my hands, her calluses rough against my own. The human contact jolted through me. “He only said you still have a soul, and I don’t think he’s wrong, Deyanira.”

“Until your name shows on my palm.”

A twinkle lit her eyes. “You wouldn’t care about that if you were truly a monster.”

“I don’t,” I lied.

“Come inside, Deyanira. Sleep in a warm, dry bed. Find your own place tomorrow if you want, but don’t stand out here in the rain, circling your own misery. This world has enough of that.”

I let her pull me into the house. Let her guide me through a dimly lit hall and down a set of stairs. Not because I was weak and lonely, as I’d let her believe, but because this was exactly where I needed to be to start searching for answers.

She pointed, her voice barely a whisper. “That’s Orin’s room, remember.”

“I’m smarter than I look.”

“Perfect.” She gestured to a set of wooden stairs without reacting to my sarcasm. “Down there’s Paesha’s room, next to mine. You wake her before the sun comes up and she’ll eat you alive. And you can have this room. It’s nothing special, but it’s yours if you want it. At least until Orin comes and kicks you out.”

She smiled as she opened the door, and I forced one of my own. Maybe that was her sarcasm peeking through. A faint creak outside the room moments after she’d left was the only sign that Althea had crept away, leaving me to my own thoughts once more. I checked the brass knob twice to make sure she hadn’t locked me in. The air was heavy with the masculine scent of musk buried with age, as if the room had been sealed off from the world for far too long.

My fingers brushed against the cool, weathered wood of the bed frame. The texture was rough, yet there was a certain elegance to its design, hinting at its former grandeur. I imagined the man who once occupied this room had a taste for finer things. But they’d said this house was a place for people to come and go as they needed, so maybe it was the composition of many and not one man in particular.

I woke to shouting in the hall. To Paesha and Althea screaming at one another. But when I swung my door open and found Orin standing in the frame of his own, pants hung loose on his hips, a fresh bandage wrapped around his chest, tucked all the way to his armpits, everything in the world went silent.

“Ah,” he said as he grunted. “Now it makes sense. You might want to find a different room if you don’t want to wake up with a knife in your chest.”

“Since when do you care if I’m a pin cushion?” I asked, crossing my arms. “And how are you standing right now? You should be fighting for your life.”

His eyes scanned me, lingering on the bottom of my shirt before I remembered I wasn’t wearing pants. “I don’t care. And let’s call it residual adrenaline from being burned, which I’m told was your idea. Did you stay just to watch?”

“Yes,” I snapped, walking back into the borrowed bedroom. “Your screams sang me to sleep, asshole.”

He somehow managed a dark chuckle over the sound of the door slamming.

Chapter 20

Istared into the gold mirror hanging in the Syndicate house, wondering about Ro. Wondering if all mirrors would call to her or only special ones. I hadn't thought to ask, had never needed to know. Lifting a hand to test the magic, I was nearly there before I hesitated and drew my fingers away from the ornate filigree adorning the sides. I’d never gotten it right. How to have relationships with people. How to judge the sincerity of someone’s words. I understood the feelings, though. The way Ro’s attention had eased a broken part of my soul and how turning me away had wrecked other parts. Our friendship had always been on her terms. Only hers. Whether she would see me or speak to me depended on her mood. Maybe that’s how it was supposed to be, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was supposed to be something more like Althea and Paesha, who’d screamed at each other this morning for over an hour, but now sat together on the front porch of this patchwork house, laughing, and talking like true friends while Quill chased that white dog through the open field before the tree line.

There’d been a meeting of some type behind closed doors just after breakfast. A few people came, and, though I’d tried to eavesdrop, Elowen had kept me in the kitchen, as was likely her only job. Something was happening around here, and the secrets were only stacking.

I walked away from that mirror, disappointed. I’d seen my father’s eyes stare back at me in the reflection, and I could nearly hear his voice telling me to run. That these people, no matter how curious I was, would never really want me here, and I couldn’t trust them. I knew in my bones I couldn’t. I’d only be staying long enough to figure out why Orin had been able to kill a man. And if Paesha knew where the Life Maiden was, that was bonus information.

My reflection had been scary. Hair tangled, my face gaunt, I looked as if I’d aged twenty precious years in the last week. I stared at the dirt beneath my nails and wished for a bath more than anything. I was a mess. But I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to use a public bathhouse. Not because I was shy, but because I couldn’t be properly armed.

I crept down the stairs and into the kitchen, sneaking fruit from the counter. Elowen followed, her watchful eyes full of questions.

“I’m not taking your knife.”

“An apple isn’t going to sustain you for the day. I’ll have dinner on the table at sundown. Don’t be late.”

“Oh, I’m not…” I didn’t know what I was doing, actually. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoed.