Chapter 18

I've often theorized that dreams are favored by Fate as a means of directing the lost back onto the correct path.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Rorick

I stood near the banister on the second floor of Eckert Castle, awareness tickling the back of my brain. Elsewhere the sun was up, and I was dreaming again. Hecate was there in her crone form staring up at a large mirror that hung on the wall. Her cloak draped her back. The fabric pooled like ink around her feet. In one hand she balanced a rounded painter's palette, a variety of oil paints decorating it in dollops.

"You're keeping things from me," I accused her. "It's obvious you don't wish to discuss it, but I need to understand why we always lose our constant. I know it can't be chance, or there would be greater variety in our outcomes. This cycle we're trapped in, it almost feels deliberate ."

Hecate didn't answer immediately, mixing two colors together to create a deep shade of red. "It is deliberate," she confessed, sounding tired.

This was more than a dream, I realized. It was a memory too—or parts of it were. I'd had this conversation before.

"Tell me," I insisted, hovering over her. She was shorter in her crone form, slightly hunched at the spine. I could see the top of her silver head.

The time witch painted a few swatches of red across the mirror, then stepped back to examine her work, keeping her gray eyes averted from mine. "Ages ago, in a world not so different from this one, my partner discovered the existence of gods. Powerful immortal beings blessed by a greater god to serve them and—"

"I already know this part. You're stalling."

Hecate's gaze flittered toward me, then returned to her work. She swiped more paint onto the mirror, covering the reflective glass. "It's a curse," she confessed. "Death himself cursed my soul, the one I share with your constant. It wasn't enough just to punish me for my poor behavior. He punished all of me."

"What did you do?" I demanded, but as the words left my lips, I suspected I already knew the answer based on the research she'd shared with me over the years. I'd developed an equation regarding the sacrifice used to appease an eternal consequence, earning her favor. She'd then shown me how to set a trap involving a special candle secured in a magical device.

"My talented partner made me an alchemical candle. Together we used it to lay a trap for a traveler so that we might learn how to become gods ourselves. Immortality wasn't enough. We wanted to understand the secrets of the worlds."

"Trapping a god never ends well in mythos," I said, reflecting on how her story mirrored that of my nephew. Alex and Penance had sought the mysteries of immortality—whatever the cost—with an ambition that knew no bounds.

They were both dead now, but at least they were together. I found it unfair that because of the actions of one person, I was doomed to be separated from Quiet.

"It doesn't end well," she said solemnly. "I tried to bargain with the traveler for more knowledge. He gave me his cloak for his freedom. The cloak was a gift the god had earned from serving Death himself. When I put out the candle, he took the one person most precious to me to the Nothing."

"He took your constant," I rumbled.

She added more color to the painting in broad strokes. "I tried to retrieve him, but Death wouldn't let me. He cursed me that day for finding a way around earning my wings properly. For not serving him as one must. He felt cheated, and he cursed my soul to never be with my love again. Not even in death."

My jaw set. "Because of your ambition, the gods are after me and my constant now."

"It's only because of me your constant is alive at all," she added briskly. "The cloak he granted gave me the knowledge we'd sought with our work. It gave me wings. I learned how to travel to other worlds." Her eyes met mine then, glassy and pleading. "But I lost you in the bargain."

"Not me . Not exactly."

Pain etched itself into her lined face. She shook her head as though she were clearing it. "You're right, of course."

Hecate dropped her palate of paints. In the strange way of dreams, her picture was suddenly finished. The mirror glass was covered by a portrait: a younger version of me with a stern face, wearing riding gear.

She pulled out her pocket watch and examined it. Three hands spun in opposing directions. "Almost out of time."

I awoke from my dream with a gasp. I was cold and alone in bed. Without windows, the room was dark, nearly too dark even for my keen eyes. The fire had burned out long ago.

"Quiet?" I called, climbing out of bed. I listened for her response as I crossed to the fireplace to poke more life into the embers.

Sparks flew and a small flame rose up amongst the coals. If Quiet was here, she wasn't answering me. At her silence, my dead heart squeezed so hard it hurt.

Above the desk behind me, an army of ants crawled across the wall. Beneath them, one of the charmed wards sat waiting for me. A matching set hung around the doorknob. The ants spelled out a message to me with their tiny bodies.

"With Hecate in historic district," I read aloud. Then the ants changed their marching formation, creating new letters. "Stay. In. The. Room." I read slowly, squinting at the squiggly letters. "Be. Back. Soon."

This confirmed it. Quiet had left me.

My partner had gone somewhere I wasn't despite what we'd promised each other. Cold coursed through my veins, and my fingers made fists. I hissed at the message, then tore out of there like my feet were on fire.

* * *

I landed hard in front of the tiny pub just after nightfall. Cracks in the pavers webbed out under my feet. I'd flown there at a speed that had my dead heart in my throat, but I recuperated the moment I spotted Hecate and Quiet through the pub's small window, seated at the table together.

I shoved open the door with such violent force the gargoyle behind the bar grumbled at me, but I paid him no mind. I only had eyes for Quiet. She was slumped over the rounded table like she was about to fall asleep. I closed in, casting a formidable shadow over the elderly time witch.

Hecate sipped her tea, undeterred. "You're not supposed to be here."

Across from her, Quiet murmured and groaned. Her head rested on her arm like it was too heavy to lift.

"What'd you do to her?" I rumbled.

"I did as she demanded." Hecate shrugged her shoulders, and her inky cloak rustled like feathers against the fabric of her day dress. "I simply answered all of her questions."

"Hell's bite," I barked. Bending low, I helped Quiet sit up, pulling her arm over my shoulders. She wobbled there, eyelids fluttering. Her nose was bleeding. I pressed my sleeve to it until it trickled to a stop, turning the linen crimson. The scent of herbs and wildflowers and oranges was strong between the two women.

"The psychopomp is n-not after you," Quiet stammered, head bobbing in her attempts to peer up at me. "The consequences are c-coming for me. It's m-my fault. I had the audacity to go and live when I wasn't supposed to, you see. H-how dare I."

"Get up. We're leaving," I told her, anger burning me up inside, turning my voice to gravel.

I cooled several degrees when she tried to rise and her knees buckled. It destroyed me that she'd left me against my wishes, but Quiet was in no fit state to be shouted at.

She hooked her arms around my neck and buried her sweet face in my throat. "Hecate s-saved my life," she said, sounding as though she'd had too much to drink, "but it's all her fault it needed saving in the first place, so she can f-fuck right off."

I scooped her up roughly into my arms, turning to aim my abundant ire at Hecate instead. "Whatever game you're playing at, we'll have no part in it. Grant was right about you. I should have listened to him long ago."

Her lips firmed, an expression I'd seen on Quiet's face countless times. "I'm not playing a game. I'm trying to appease a god. Same as you—same as it's always been. It's hardly my fault you went and forgot our purpose. I warned you about Alexander Harker!"

"We're done," I spat. "No more investigation. No more specters. No. More. Gods."

"Rorick, if you think you can protect her from—"

"I will protect her!" I shouted.

The gargoyle at the bar raised his voice at me, threatening to throw me out if I didn't calm down, but I paid him no mind. He could try his worst. I'd toss him into the street like I owned the place.

"I don't feel well," Quiet murmured.

I cupped the back of her head, encouraging her to rest against my shoulder. "I've got you, love."

Hecate took a deeper swallow of her tea, studying me through her spectacles. "I was nothing but honest with her, Rorick. She's angry with me now, but I think she'll get over it quickly, once she's had a chance to think more logically about it all. She'll realize she'd have done exactly the same as me."

"You could have killed her, dumping all that on her now!" I'd lowered my voice, but the inherent threat carried through.

"She'll forgive me. If you were as honest with her as I've now been," Hecate said, expression cold and remorseless, "could she ever forgive you for all you've done, I wonder? That's the question you should be asking yourself instead of shouting at me."

My lips curled back, revealing my fangs. Her words speared through me, planting painful roots in my gut. My abdomen hardened.

I swallowed my original reproof. "We're going. Stay away from her."

"All you gods can fuck right off," Quiet added in a raspy whisper. "Big gods. Little gods. The lot of you."

"Rorick, I gave you that investigation for a reason. If you can't even solve it, then you have no business—"

"I've already solved it," I groused at her.

She blinked up at me, eyes magnified behind the lenses of her spectacles. "How? Who?"

"You," I spat. "You pushed me off that balcony."

"What a bitch," Quiet murmured, half-asleep.

Hecate scooted aside her tea, folding her arms on the table. It took her a moment, but her fallen expression recovered, hardening once more. "You finally remembered."

"No," I said. "I didn't see you do it. I haven't remembered all of it, but now you've confirmed my suspicions. All the people we've talked to, the records we've searched—no one has any idea I was even murdered. No one but you. We call that ‘guilty knowledge' in my line of work. I'd ask you why you put me on this case in the first place, but you already told me, didn't you? You need us in all the right places. We're like marionettes to you. You're just recklessly pulling at our strings."

"You need to let me explain," she said earnestly, plucking her pocket watch out from her skirts. She opened it with a click. Two hands remained, and they spun swiftly. "There isn't much time left to make this right."

"I don't care why you did it," I told her. "You're a lying shrew. You made me think our purposes perfectly aligned, but they don't. They never did. Whatever the nature of souls, there's only one person we truly care about, and it isn't each other."

"The law of sacrifice. Your brilliant research in calculating the cost of a soul brought me to you," she said hurriedly. "I thought Death would accept a replacement for my constant, but he rejected my offering. Apparently, you don't mean enough to me, so he spat you right back out again, but I've learned since then how to fix all of that. The circus is the key. The ringleader has the final piece we need. We can make right what I made wrong in this world. You must—"

"This is all your fault," I said with such menace in my tone Hecate paled and her gray gaze dropped. "The curse, the cycle. You did this to all of us."

"My fault or not, you can't stop this curse without me," she said solemnly. "You need me to appease Death! Quiet needs me. You both do. All by yourself, you're just a vampire with a bit of useless alchemy experience you can't even remember."

"N-no," Quiet slurred. Her body tremored, but with great effort she lifted her head off my shoulder to glare down at the time witch. "He's not just a vampire. He's the vampire!"

With that vote of confidence warming through my chest, I carried her out of there.

* * *

For hours, I flew us in long languid circles high above the city. Quiet awoke from her doze, shivering in my arms.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Freezing," she said. Bathed in moonlight, her skin glowed brilliantly. "But better. My head no longer feels like it might implode. How long have we been up here?"

"It's nearly midnight now." I pulled her cloak up higher around her as clouds brushed past us. My wings beat softly at the air. The crippling fear I'd once felt at this height no longer bothered me at all.

How could I be bothered by heights when there was something more devastating at risk? I feared losing the woman in my arms far more than falling. Way up above it all, far from the reach of everything, seemed the only safe place.

Quiet hugged me around the neck, nuzzling her cold nose against my throat the way I liked. "We have to go back."

"We don't, though."

"The sun will rise eventually."

I glanced down below us. Everything looked so small and insignificant from up here. "I think I'd rather battle the sun than what's waiting for us down there. We'll put it out forever. I like our chances at that better."

She brushed her hand along my jaw, her smile sad. "You want me to battle the sun with you?" She shrugged her shoulders. "All right, then. I'll do it."

Turning my head, I kissed her fingers. "There is no one I would rather battle the sun with."

"Your home or mine?" she asked, her breath escaping in a white fog that reminded me again how cold she was.

I sighed. "Mine might still have a nosy ichor sniffing around it. Unless he's finally given up and headed back to the circus."

"Mine, then."

* * *

I brought Quiet to her refurbished firehouse. In the sitting room, we gathered on the floor in front of a roaring blue fire, warming ourselves. The sound of the Hobs' sweet frog-like song echoed into the room from the gardens. Quiet collected a throw from the sofa and pulled it over us both. She told me about what had happened to Sheridan in detail.

Her story further cemented me in worry. I tried not to let Hecate's harsh words continue to root in my gut, but there was nothing for it.

"Are you still feeling better?" I asked.

She rubbed at her forehead. "My mind hasn't cracked, at least." Then she reached over, brushing dark strands off my brow. "It's yours I'm more worried about."

I took in a slow breath, filling my lungs with the scent of her. It nourished me, but it wasn't enough to calm me completely.

"The bread Grant gave me, can I have it?" I asked.

She removed her hat and pulled it out from her void. The brown paper it was wrapped in crinkled as she handed it to me.

I held it between my hands. There was still so much of it left, so much I didn't actually have any desire to remember. Hecate was right. I was starting to recall things I knew Quiet wouldn't like one bit.

Reaching through the blanket, she touched my wrist. It was a whisper of a touch, barely there and full of an affection I didn't feel I deserved.

Unwrapping the bread slowly, I hung my head, letting the dark strands fall back over my brow. "I remembered a few things I'm not very proud of."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Her tone was gentle, not at all her usual bossy one.

"No," I said with a laugh that lacked humor. Then I swallowed. "But you deserve to know." I studied the brown paper wrinkling under my fingers instead of meeting her eyes. "You thought I murdered Penance and Alex because I'd solved the puzzle. You thought it was self-defense."

Words failed me. A lump grew in my throat. Shame doubled it in size until I nearly choked on it.

She waited there patiently. I felt the weight of her gaze on the side of my face but still lacked the courage to meet it. Quiet moved her fingers over the back of my hand, a gentle encouragement.

"I was investigating Alex before his murder," I reminded her. "I snuck into the castle to snoop, and I overhead a conversation between them. Something about a preternatural at the circus wanting more of my blood in trade, but Alex was scared of me. He doubted he could overpower me. Penance suggested I make it impossible for me not to cooperate."

I met her eyes then.

Her deep frown pulled at the strings of my heart. "What happened next?" she asked, her voice cracking. Penance had meant so much to her. I knew what a betrayal it was to hear that her mentor hadn't cared for her as much as she'd seemed to.

"They made a plan to use you against me like a ransom. And I . . . well, you know the rest."

The silence was heavy between us. Then Quiet scooted closer until our thighs touched. She tangled her arm with mine, resting her head on my shoulder. "You murdered them for me, is what you're saying."

"I did. I murdered them instead of intervening in any other way that you would approve of. I didn't even think very hard on it at all. I simply decided they needed to go," I confessed, watching the fire crackle and dance in the grate. It warmed my face. "I couldn't let them live knowing they'd hurt you to get at me. But that's not all I did in your name." I turned and pressed a kiss into her hair. I lingered there, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment and breathing her in.

"What else?"

"I can't remember all of the details," I said, the bread suddenly weighing heavier in my hands, "but I sense that Alex's malady of the blood was all my fault in the first place. What started as a theoretical interest in alchemy changed when I learned about constants. I began . . . experimenting . . . Though I don't recall exactly how, I know it wasn't good, Quiet. The bargains I made were unfair. It wasn't . . . But I had to learn more. I wanted desperately to appease Death, to stop the cycle, and I didn't care whom I hurt along the way as long as it fixed things. Even my own family wasn't safe from me. I'm absolutely no better than Hecate. I'm even more responsible for the darkness in that castle than I ever realized."

Words failed me again. I was trying to make excuses now. I knew it. Quiet—kind, morally sound Quiet—knew it too. She lifted her head off my shoulder, gaze boring into me.

I hoisted the bread up between us. "I could learn the rest. I probably should, I think."

"But you don't want to?" she asked, her tone steadier than I expected.

"I don't. It's a blessing that it's gone."

Her brows furrowed. "But you think I deserve to know all the sordid details? You think you deserve to suffer through them again?"

"Of course."

"Because you're worried that would change things between us?"

"How could it not? I—"

Quiet yanked the bread out of my hands, and she chucked it into the flames. The blue fire consumed it in an instant, roaring upward.

I stared after it, frozen there in shock, watching the brown paper melt to ash, the bread blacken. The acrid scent filled my nose.

Quiet dropped her cheek onto my shoulder, resting it there. "Problem solved."

My mind went blank. The sadness and worry that had pulled at me melted right out of me at her blind acceptance.

I pounced on her, filling my hands with her hair, tilting her head back so I could kiss her better. Our lips met, and hers parted for me. My tongue searched her mouth, brushing softly before growing bolder. I consumed the sweet sound of her moan, kissing her until we were both senseless.

When I yanked at the buttons of her blouse, she stayed my hand.

"It's not that I'm opposed," she said shyly. "I'm just not fully recovered yet."

"That's all right," I soothed, dragging her closer, encouraging her to lie across my lap. "I just need to feel your heart beating against me for a little while. It's not enough just to hear it. I want to feel it."

Cheeks stained pink, she nodded as I worked off her blouse. Her corset came next, then the straps of her shift. I slid them down, freeing her arms, letting the fabric gather around her waist, exposing her beautiful breasts. Then I pulled her on top of me on the floor until I could feel that strong beat I craved thumping steadily against my chest like it was my own. Like it belonged to me.

In every way that mattered, it did belong to me. Just as my dead heart belonged to her.

For all eternity and in every lifetime, we belonged to each other.