Moonless (26 page)

72

Traces

The cloak rustled, hooded and ambiguous, face obscured by shadows. She waited for terrible red eyes to appear, waited for the world to stop moving, waited for the end to come.

Her trance broke.

Alexia leapt away. Wind tore through her lungs as she sprinted for the trees, away from the estate, drawing the creature further from her friends. It followed, deathly silent. Weights pulled at her hands, a bottle and a candlestick. She launched one backwards. Tin bounced off the ground.

Solid fingers curled over her arm, pulling her around, heating her flesh. She screamed. Another hand wound over her mouth.

“Shhh!”

She swung the bottle at his head. He caught it.

“Ouch!” The melodious baritone penetrated her panic. “Of all the crazed, goat-loving, goose-laying—!”

“Miles?” Relief flooded over her.

The hood fell back to reveal clenched jowls and tired looking eyes. “Gah! Moronic bottle-wielding pygmy!”

“I am so sorry! I thought—”

“What are you doing out here?” He shoved her toward the house. “Move!”

“I-I—”

“Hush. Go!”

She hurried away from the dark woods with him at her side, face gaunt as he peered from side to side.

“Is it them?” she whispered.

His mouth tightened.

He tossed the door open, pushed her into the kitchen, and followed quickly, latching the barrier behind them. His cloak fell away and he slunk into a chair near the exit, trembling.

“Were they out there?” she asked. “Are they still?” Distant candlelight reflected the beads of perspiration dotting his forehead. “Miles?” She moved closer.

“Go away!” He growled covering his face, pointing to the far corner.

She backed away obediently. He bent over his perch, extremely pale—almost chalky, gripping his knees with white knuckles.

“Miles!” Nelly emerged from the dining hall, Edward and Ethel in her wake. Nelly whitened. Her hands shook as she retrieved a rag, wet it, threw a crushed concoction in the folds, and rushed to his side.

“There, dear.” She placed the cloth over his nose.

Alexia looked to the others. Edward shook his head and placed a hand on her shoulder. Ethel motioned for them to exit.

“I ran.” Miles’s whisper barely met her ears. “And she attacked
me
!”

“It’ll be all right, dear.” Nelly promised quietly as Alexia’s escorts dragged her away. “Relax now. Let it go.”

“What happened to him?”

Ethel took her arm in the darkness of the hall, the second bleak sentinel towering over her. “He is not well.” They entered the dining room and conducted her to a seat. “Please eat, Christy. We do not want to waste this excellent meal.”

More whispering could be heard at her back—indecipherable as Nelly led Miles down the passage.

Edward cleared his throat. “Are you well, Christy?”

She nodded.

He glanced to Ethel who studied her fine long fingers. She caught his look and turned Alexia’s direction. “Did you see anyone out there?”

“Just Miles.”

“Did he touch you?”

She nodded again.

Ethel’s eyes grew. Edward stiffened. The woman landed at Alexia’s side. “Show me where.”

She pointed to her arm where his toasty fingers had squeezed. Ethel lifted the limb into the light, slid back the sleeve and scrutinized the skin. She sighed. Her grin turned to Edward, head shaking. He let out a pent up breath. A new calm permeated the room, a melancholy sort.

Alexia swallowed. “What is wrong with him? What are you looking for?”

“We thought he moved past this,” Edward muttered. “He has a, a sickness that occasionally renders him . . . vulnerable. It hasn’t happened in four years, three months, sixteen days . . .” A quick head shake from Ethel hushed him.

Alexia hugged herself. “Why did you need to examine my arm?”

Ethel’s smile relaxed her. “Are you hungry, Christy?”

She shook her head.

“Then let us retire. You have had enough excitement for one evening. Good night, Mister Hampton.”

He rose with them.

In the hall, Alexia pressed, “What were you looking for?”

Ethel sighed, taking her arm. “When he is like this, I would not advise spending time with him.”

“Why? Is it fatal? This sickness?”

“We hope not.”

“Contagious?”

She shrugged. “Possibly. We do not know.”

Alexia shuddered.

“I do not think he can scar you, but it is best you remain cautious. We love Miles, Christy. We really do, but he is different from the rest of us in many ways.”

***

Alexia lay wide awake, Ethel’s back to hers on the mattress. She’d become accustomed to this arrangement in the cottage, necessity of warmth dictating they occupy the same bed, but this was not for warmth. If Alexia moved—even in the slightest, Ethel would feel it. Perhaps her benefactress feared she’d look in on Miles and agitate his condition, or threaten her own.

Three days they’d kept her in the house, acting like nothing had happened, but Alexia couldn’t relax. She hadn’t seen Miles in all that time. She appreciated Ethel’s warning and warmed under the notion her benefactress cared enough to protect her, but Alexia had promised she and Miles would talk. He had delivered her letter. He had saved her. He would not endanger her now.

Later in the day, she slipped from under Ethel’s watch—out the back door while the woman folded laundry.

The barn welcomed her, dim, and musty.

“Miles?”

He appeared from the shadows, no straw in his hair this time. His face screwed up at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?”

She froze. His skin shone golden—as she remembered it, pale eyes nearly translucent in the daylight. She took a seat on a bale of hay, too timid to address his onset. “Did you deliver my letter?”

He nodded, frowning heavily.

“Did you see Sarah? Did you place it in her hand?”

“No.”

She bit her lip.

He crossed his arms, watching her.

She swallowed. “Were you running from th-the
 things that chased Sarah and I?”

His brow wrinkled, giving him away.

Guilt washed over her. “I should not have asked you to go!”

“I knew the risk.” He sat, exhaling.

She couldn’t help the building self-reproach, or the suspicion that he’d taken this
risk
because death already loomed insurmountably in his future. “Miles, how do you know about them?”

His gaze turned down. “I don’t know anything, Christy.”

She closed her eyes. If he was somehow connected to the Passionate—one of them even—she must know. “What do you want? I will do most anything, but I need to know.”

He picked up a bolt sitting on his table, and squinted at it. “You tell them who you are, and I—” He swallowed. “I will tell you.”

She sucked in a shaky breath. Confess the truth? Surely they would not turn her out, not after these many months—she hoped.

“I will.” Though she was not certain how soon.

Miles sighed. A long silence stretched, light glinting off the peg in his hand. “I remember the butterfly, golden wings, black spots. That’s how I know it was summer in Wilhamshire.” He stilled, focusing on the bauble turning over in his fingers. “We were passing through, not staying, just passing, traveling late on foot.” The bolt twisted back and forth in his grasp, gaining momentum. “Dark overtook us. They cornered us on the outskirts, moments away from safety. We ran, but in the end . . .” He released the fastener and it twirled to a halt. “My parents didn’t make it. They fended them off while I escaped.”

She hugged herself.

“But they left a scar.” He scowled. “And I’ve been running ever since.”

She blinked at him. “Can you show me?”

He hesitated.

“Please?”

He lifted the back of his shirt. A burn mark glared red against his bony flesh in the shape of a hand. She recalled the tree in her father’s courtyard with four singe marks, the pressure and intense burn that writhed up her back when she lay trapped in the woods.

“I was four.” He masked the mark. “The Master took me in. He’s been as good as a father to me. No, better.”

She smiled sadly.

“And Nelly,” his cheek dimpled, “she adopted me.”

“She is a good soul.” Alexia slipped closer. “Does it hurt?”

He measured her up, finally nodding. “Sometimes.”

“How deeply does it affect you?”

“It’s nothing.” He rose. “I have to go find my horse.”

“Of course.” She stood and hesitated, ready to bring him into her confidence. “There is a means to defeat them.”

“I don’t need to defeat them.” He directed her to the exit, holding it open for her, but she halted on the threshold.

“You do not want justice for your parents?”

His head hung, voice low. “Sometimes things happen for a reason.”

“And sometimes they just happen.”

His vague smile harbored a mixture of puzzlement and comedy. “Get out of here.”

She slipped away, a chill shaking through her—grateful he’d recovered and reassured that she had not tempted her fate by visiting.

73

The Den

Kiren landed tiredly onto a bench outside the Wilhamshire pub. Six months. He may as well admit it to himself: she was gone. There was only one possibility left, and he could hardly bear the idea.

Somewhere the Soulless were hiding during the day. Somewhere they stowed the Passionate they’d taken, but whether to feast on them or hold them hostage, he couldn’t know. It was the only explanation that made sense. He’d failed her.

He dropped his head into both hands. He had only one choice now—to infiltrate the Soulless stronghold, wherever it may be. But would he be risking his own life in the process?

74

Truth

Spring lulled into summer. Alexia loved drawing water for Ethel each morning, helping Nelly chop vegetables, and laughing with Edward over yet another of her losses in chess. They had become such a part of her, and she could not bear to deceive them further. Surely they would help her, if they could.

Edward sat in the study, scowling at a letter. She hesitated to knock and disturb him, but it was time. He turned to retrieve a quill and noticed her. “Ah, Christy. Have you come to keep me company?”

She hesitated.

He smiled kindly and patted a chair next to him. She slid onto the finely-crafted wood and he turned back to the desk. The scratch of his quill over paper was the only sound.

She sucked in a breath. “I am not Christianne.”

His pen halted. He turned those soft eyes on her.

She swallowed. “Forgive me for deceiving you, but I had my reasons.” She toyed with her skirt, unable to meet his gaze. “I am, in actuality, the missing nobleman’s daughter, Alexia Dumont.”

His cheek pulled up into a grin.

Now the hardest part. “Allow me to add further that my arrival here was no accident.”

His grip on the quill tightened.

“I came seeking a weapon I was told resides in your care, one that can subdue a foe who has cost incalculable suffering.”

His brows pulled together, smile fading. He would despise her now, and rightly so.

She bowed her head. “It is for this reason I risked my own person to obtain this location.”

He went to speak and stopped. He put his pen down.

She covered her face. “I can see clearly I was misled.” He did not have her answer. No magical fix would appear to end the conflict between Passionate and Soulless. Sarah’s happiness was as lost to her as she was to Father, to Arik.

She slid to her knees before him. “Please forgive me.” A tear skittered down her cheek. “Forgive me, but do not return me to my father.”

His warm hand landed on her shoulder.“Thank you for telling me.”

She smiled and withdrew.

An hour later as she sat alone in the trees, the boy sped by on his tawny horse. So news had come, and Edward would do what was right in true gentlemanly fashion. Her identity would be revealed with the outgoing mail. She sobbed for all she’d given up: the loss of this magnificent home, the loss of dear friendships, the loss of what felt—for the first time—like a true family.

***

Ethel sat calmly in the light of a candle, pulling away at baby blue material when Alexia returned. She snapped a thread with her teeth and tucked her needle aside. “Edward told me.”

Alexia hugged herself. “Forgive me, Ethel?”

The woman held up her latest project. A dress. The cut was elegant, beautiful little white flowers twirling down the front of the skirt and across the lining of the bodice. “What do you think? It’s nothing special—only what I could pull together in the time I have to myself, but I think it will look quite charming on you.”

Alexia gasped.

“Does that mean you like it?” The seamstress held her creation against the girl’s shoulders. “Mmm, might need to take the hem up an inch.”

“Ethel . . .”

“We shall have to see it on you first.”

“Ethel . . .” Surely she could not accept a gift so fine!

The woman waved dismissively. “You have been doing more than your share around here and wearing thin that awful scrap of a gown.”

Alexia bowed her head. So as payment, her benefactress had drudged up a dress in which to send her home. “Thank you.”

Ethel helped her into the gown. It fit perfectly. Alexia threw her arms around the woman. Tears burst forth and she could not stop them.

***

Alexia didn’t sleep that night. Edward had said nothing, but she knew what was coming. There would be a knock at the door, and then someone would escort her away, into a carriage and back to Father’s estate. She wasted the day about the cottage alone, chopping wood, gathering berries, grinding flour, sweeping, brushing her hair, straightening furniture, and kicking at the trees.

She’d just begun to clear dinner when Edward and Ethel appeared to ascertain she was decent.

The peal of hooves echoed loudly up the road. She blinked back the tears and pushed her emotions into the pit of her stomach. Tonight she would be every inch the noblewoman she’d been raised, and no matter her fate, she would face it bravely.

The thump of someone landing on the ground sent her heart thundering. Of course, she could always run.

Mister Hampton threw the door open, bowing to admit a gruff fellow with heavy white whiskers and youthful dark eyes.

She fell back a step.

He halted next to the door, scratched his stubbled chin, and began to laugh. “Hello there, Sparrow. I remember you.”

A cloaked fellow followed him in, stopping halfway through the door.

“Lester, or have you forgot?” The first arrival offered a hand.

Alexia froze.

“My dear! Come in, warm yourself!” Ethel hurried forward, closing the exit and aiding the second man with his cape.

Incredible blue eyes met hers.