Chapter 9

Wearrivedatthe Ancestral Hall of Horrors without incident. Which you would think would be a given, but with the way my life was going lately, I took nothing for granted. I wouldn"t be even a little surprised if I found out the landing area in the ballroom was rigged to blow up after a certain number of uses or something fun like that.

Some weird part of me tensed up when we didn"t find Niamh waiting for us when we arrived. It was stupid to look forward to seeing her strange, beautiful fae face light up at the sight of me. I wasn"t under any illusion that our sexy times meant she was suddenly girlfriend material or something. Niamh, Elijah, even Aahil—any overtures they made toward me couldn"t be taken seriously. They were powerful creatures who had been locked away from the world for so long they craved physical experiences. That was all. I was more than happy to go along for the ride, as long as I got a few orgasms out of the transaction. But that was all it was. A passing thing. An itch that needed scratching before the weirdoes moved on and I returned to life as usual.

But somehow, I just knew I was going to do something stupid, like go and get myself attached to the damned horned woman then be all sad when she left.

I found her out in the scorched garden courtyard, wearing a pair of flannel pajama pants and a camisole she"d stolen, muttering to Bis while they both dug around in the ashes. I paused at the entry, watching the sunlight glint off her golden-brown hair, loving the way she moved around, crouching, then crawling on all fours, then back to crouch or kneel, all with this fluid, almost animalistic grace. She was at home in her element. I could feel her connecting with the earth and working her magic both in the plants and my rodent friend.

Niamh sat back on her haunches with a happy hum, one hand hovering before her as she used her fae magic to coax some deeply buried seed to life. Bis chattered happily, going up on his hind legs and clapping his front paws together in a too-human gesture of excitement. A tender new shoot emerged from the earth, pushing upward, turning a darker green as it went, leaves forming and unfurling. When it was about a foot tall, Niamh moved on to a nearby rosebush, pushing her power into it to repair what damage she could, leaving the previously blackened, shriveled leaves dark green and glistening. It was an impressive display of power. And seeing the deadly hunter focused on something so…soft and nurturing was just too sickeningly sweet for words.

I really was in trouble.

Aahil snorted behind me and made his way to the stairs. I hadn"t really given him a room, but he had gone ahead and taken over one of the abandoned bedrooms down the hall from mine anyway, in his typical arrogant fashion.

All the mooning over Niamh had me feeling all mushy and sentimental, so I squared my shoulders and trailed after the petulant jinn. He turned and gave me an unimpressed look when I followed him into his stolen bedroom.

"Oh," he said, his bitchy voice dropping a register, becoming dark temptation and sin. "Decided to take me up on my offer from earlier, witch?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, knock it off. I came to apologize."

He took off the fitted red leather jacket he"d probably stolen somewhere from the human world, and paced to a dusty old dresser. I think this had been a guest room once. Nothing really looked familiar to me in here, but the dresser was littered with junk, like someone had left in a hurry. Probably to avoid a beheading.

Huffing, Aahil waved a hand, setting everything on top of the dresser on fire. I watched tiredly, hoping I wasn"t going to have to invoke one of the new fire suppression wards I had hastily put together since his little garden stunt. But he showed a scary amount of control. When the fire died, the unwanted objects were gone, turned to dust that he brushed into a nearby trashcan with one graceful hand. The surface where everything had burned up was completely undamaged. Jumping juniper berries, he was even stronger than I guessed if he could control fire with that precision.

"And just what are you apologizing for, Lovell," he said. His voice was soft and calm, but full of daggers and bitter poison all the same.

I sighed. "I"m sorry you"re hurting. I"m sorry for whatever my ancestors did to mess you up so badly. I just…I"m not your enemy, you know? I just want to make things right and get on with my life."

I don"t know what I expected. I mean, it wasn"t like the slinky, sharp-edged demon fire elemental was going to just smile and tell me all was forgiven and "let"s just be the best of friends."

He ignored me completely, taking an old grimoire he"d found somewhere in this monstrosity of a house and going to flop on the nest he"d made out of cushions, pillows, silk sheets, and decadent velvet blankets. Clearly, he"d found the linen storage, which was warded against dust and decay. I had no idea when he had the time to explore so thoroughly, but then again, he could dematerialize and pop in and out of places. So I suppose it took him less time than most to poke around someone"s mansion and find all the hidden goodies.

He opened the book and started reading. I watched him for a few minutes, my arms crossed over my chest while I waited for a response.

Finally, he lifted those dark-lashed golden eyes up to look at me. "Are you still here? You"d better hurry up and get to work on your spell prep, little witch, before I start pulling your strings."

The binding marks on my skin warmed in warning and I huffed, slamming the door behind me as I left. Fine. He could just continue to be a complete dick. I"d done my part. I had apologized, and it wasn"t even like I had done anything wrong!

But as I made my way back downstairs, I forced myself to snuff out the anger. It was no use raging at that asshole. He would either take me at my word and get over it, or he wouldn"t. It was up to him now. And really, he wasn"t forcing me to do anything that I hadn"t already planned on doing anyway. I did need to get to work on the spell prep. The faster I got the remaining beings out of the bestiary, the sooner I could get back to my real life.

I stopped back by the garden to find that Niamh had gotten dozens of little plants started. She was sitting on a wrought iron bench that had legs made to look like curling vines, while she chatted away with Bis. Hibiscus was standing on the top of a cracked fountain, front legs waving and head held high as if he was giving some sort of rousing speech.

I plopped down by Niamh and absolutely did not feel anything in my chest when she smiled at me, her sharp canines doing nothing to detract from the warmth in the expression. "He"s telling me about the book he wants to write about misuse of magic," she whispered. "I"m glad you"re back," she said, taking my hand in one of her dirt-and-ash-stained hands. "Were you able to get the supplies you need for the spell?"

I nodded, not letting myself dwell on the idea of my pet as some sort of nerdy magical studies teacher…or question of whether she was glad to see me or just glad I was back so I could free her next companion from the book. "I got everything. Had to quit my job. But I was able to pawn enough old junk to pay my rent."

She frowned. "I still don"t understand why you insist on living in the human realm, away from the magic." She waved a hand to encompass all the ambient magic that lingered in the air, and in the plants, and earth here in Mageia.

I shrugged. She wouldn"t get it, even if I tried to explain. To the fair folk, living away from this connection to the natural world would be even more torturous than it was for an earth witch. And she wouldn"t understand how much my family connections had fucked me up. Even I was surprised at the depth of that damage sometimes. "Did you know Elijah is an angel?" I asked, steering the conversation away from my issues and toward a more important topic.

Angels were rare. And they didn"t just wander the Planus or Mageia on a whim. Most dwelled in their own plane of existence, only visiting us lesser beings when they had wisdom and enlightenment to dole out. They were the self-proclaimed guardians of the realms, beings of truth and light and blah, blah, blah. I wasn"t sure what their end game was, but the story was that they existed to ensure all the realms kept functioning at some sort of baseline of virtue. And they were so powerful, no one dared contradict them.

Personally, I felt like if their story was true, they set the bar for that baseline of virtue really low. I mean, the Lovells were allowed to exist, for example. Which wouldn"t have happened if I was in charge of goodness and light, that"s for damned sure.

Niamh grimaced. "Yes. I knew."

I pulled my hand away, turning to glare at her. "And were you ever going to tell me? For fuck"s sake, a being that powerful could be more dangerous than you and the flaming ass-hat jinn combined!" If Elijah were alive, I"d be shitting myself. But even as a ghost, who knew what he was really capable of. Was he just pretending to be nothing more than a poltergeist? Why? What the hell did he want from me?

The ghost had been conspicuously absent since we got back, and I hadn"t called him out of the book to yell at him yet because quite frankly…I had no idea how to handle this situation. I had stupidly started to feel like I could trust him, like the ghost had no other motive than to free the creatures from the bestiary. And really…could I trust any of them?

I really was dumb sometimes. I knew how manipulative and untrustworthy people could be. Hell, I was the sole heir to the legacy of some of the worst manipulators ever to exist. And yet…here we were.

I stood. Niamh"s long fingers wrapped around my wrist, halting me. Her leaf green eyes were earnest and her face pleading. "We all know what he is. But he has his reasons for not sharing the information with you. There is no ill will involved, if that"s what you"re thinking, Andy." I tried to pull away, but she yanked, her greater strength keeping me in place. "Think, foolish witch!" she snapped. "Think. If you were any other Lovell and you stumbled upon the bestiary, what would you do? Even if you initially proposed to free us all, what if you were presented with a temptation so powerful it made you change your mind?"

She pulled on my arm again, and I sank back down to sit next to her on the edge of the fountain. Bis scampered up to perch on my shoulder and pat my cheek.

"Oleander," Niamh said softly, her thumb stroking the underside of my wrist. "I want to trust you. To believe you. I do. But you have to understand things from our side of this. Clearly, you"re not like the rest of your family. But if you were, if even a bit of that dark compulsion for inflicting pain and subjugation lurked in your veins…the moment you found out about Elijah, what would you do?"

I let out a slow breath, all the fight going out of me. She was right, of course. The blood in my veins was tainted with evil. I might not ever feel the impulses or give into them…but I could tell you without a doubt what anyone else with my blood would do. "I"d refuse to free him." Lovells were notorious for their cleverness and their inventive spellwork, all of which only got more and more devious with every generation. "I"d find a way to use him, probably invent some spell or ritual to get at his lost power, even though my ancestors weren"t able to manage it. I"d figure it out." And I"d then have the power of a motherfucking angel at my disposal.

I"d be pretty much unstoppable. I could do whatever—take whatever—I wanted, and no one could stop me.

Hell, it was probably what the original owner of the bestiary had hoped for when she imprisoned the dead angel. A ghost would be handy for spying and information gathering, sure. But there was no way that was the only thing they were keeping him for.

"I"m not them," I whispered, trying to find my strength again, when the weight of my family history tried to drag me down. "I"m not."

Niamh nodded, cupping my jaw and turning my head so she could press a soft kiss to my lips. "I know. Prove me right."

I pulled back and reached out for my connection to the earth, to growing things and life. To nature and balance, finding my center again.

"That"s what I was about to do," I told the fae with a shrug. Because, duh. Why else was I busting ass to free the next creature who would probably hate me and try to kill me.

I stood and went to get to work.