Chapter 7

Death's fascination with blood is reflected profoundly in lore not only favored in this world but in the worlds beyond.

-Hecate's Guide to Arcane Philosophy

Quiet

I trudged through icy water that came up to my hips. My sisters and I shared a small meal from the stores we kept inside our voids. Thankfully, Goose's supplies consisted largely of delicious pastries that lifted our spirits.

My spelled clothing did its best to keep me dry, constantly expelling the wet in ripples and then absorbing it again, but little could be done to protect my skin against full submersion. The wool and linen went heavy, then light, then heavy again.

Beside me, Goose's teeth chattered. "Can't feel my toes," she muttered. "My fingers are ruined little prunes."

"My whole body is one big prune," Astor said, swamped by shy lightning beetles.

"How long have we been walking?" I asked.

Goose stole a peek at her wand, the timepiece on a chain dangling from her skirt pocket. "You don't want to know. It'll just depress us all," she said, snapping the watch shut and tucking it away.

I sent more lightning beetles to hover close to my sisters, trying to warm them with their natural heat as best I could.

"It's the smell that's getting to me," I said. The stink of mold and death was ripe down here. It had gotten worse in the wider spaces after navigating the narrower tunnels.

Astrid wrinkled her freckled nose. "It's putrid. Smells like the inside of an elephant's ass."

Goose guffawed.

"I owe you both a debt," I said slowly, sloshing the water around me. I'd never been very good at making apologies, but this one was heartfelt. I hope they sensed that. I wasn't particularly demonstrative. That was Prim's skill, not mine.

"You do owe us," Goose said, "or perhaps this finally makes up for the time I tried to cure your old tom cat of his tumors. You know, the one we fed scraps in the alley behind the foundling house?"

I smiled at the memory of the poor gray tom. Goose had come into her powers at a young age, a rare thing for a witch to do because it often required years of advanced study. It was magic that kept her from looking like an adolescent now. She'd cast her first spell and found her immortality at sixteen. Witches were often foundlings first. We didn't know why with certainty, but we theorized that overcoming strife increased the likelihood of developing magical skills.

"Technically, you did cure the tom of its tumors," Astor said, her tone less dreary. She hugged her middle for warmth.

"I did," Goose said with a laugh, "but then I also made it so old it only lived two more days."

"Two days more than it would have had with a belly full of worms and so many tumors," I told her gently.

The sound of my voice was drowned out by a low hum in the distance. A harsh wind whipped sharply through the narrow passages behind us. The rush of water was louder here as well. It lapped and rippled, crashing in small waves against the stone walls.

I covered my ears to dull the noise.

"Everything all right?" Goose asked, her voice muffled.

"The noise is getting to me, is all," I said.

Goose sent me a concerned look. "But I don't hear anything. Do you, Astor?"

Astor kicked up waves as she drew closer. She shook her head. "A few drips and splashes here and there. Nothing I'd call loud."

Goose put a hand on my shoulder and brought me to a stop. "What is it you hear exactly? Be more specific."

"The wind," I said, raising my voice over the gale.

"There's no wind, Quiet," Goose said, concern lining her face. "If you can hear something we can't, then that means—"

"Specters," I groaned, dropping my hands to my sides because holding my ears wasn't doing me any good anyway. I glared behind me. The eerie wind hissed at my back. Cold touched my neck, then went cascading down my spine. I shivered.

"We should hurry." Astor linked her arm with mine and ushered me forward.

The mouth of the tunnel opened into a cistern I recognized.

"We've made it!" I shouted over the noise ringing in my ears.

The water pooling in the cistern was thicker and darker. It rose farther up my body, nearly to my chest. Goose stretched to keep her chin out of the water.

"This is where the great coffin-dweller died," I said, recognizing the growing smell that clogged my sinuses.

What remained of the dreaded creature that had swallowed me whole now floated about in ashen pieces and parts. The lightning beetles drew in nearer to me, casting a collective blue glow at the wet, moldy flagstones that formed barriers. We trudged on, and the waterline began to lower down my abdomen. It dropped to my hips. We reached pillars of stone and the patch of wall with the broken black mirrors.

"There's a set of stairs around here," I said, squinting into the dark.

Gilbert showed us the way, swooping in a low circle to catch our attention.

Finally, we'd made it to dry land. Water drained from my dress in heavy rivulets. I wrang my braid out as we climbed the stairs. We found the trapped door beneath the ballroom of Eckert Castle, and I pushed against it.

It wouldn't budge. I tried again. Astor and Goose assisted me.

"Put your back into it, ladies," I grunted as we heaved together. My muscles creaked, and I felt a pinch in my neck from the awkward angle.

We fell back panting moments later.

"Is it warded?" Astor grimaced up at the boundary that stubbornly thwarted us. "I don't sense any magic."

"No," I said. "We were in such a hurry to leave the place we didn't ward anything. Rorick's hired a crew to patch up the castle. Maybe they've got something heavy sitting on it." Gritting my teeth, I pushed upward, ignoring the throb growing in my back and neck. Wood groaned, but the floor didn't lift.

Goose hummed, thinking over the problem. "Maybe try—"

"Speak up," I begged, the ethereal wind a storm in my ears again.

"Try turning it into something," Goose shouted. "Curse the boards into a gnat or . . . I don't know. Whatever you're in the mood for."

"It's much easier to turn living tissue into an insect than floorboards . . . I'm not even certain where to start with a stuck door. If it were locked, that would be one thing, but it's just heavy! Lightening the load is also tricky because I can't see what's up there to spell it."

Another hiss of angry wind sounded, and the eerie ethereal hum died off, replaced by a chittering sound that was so familiar I stopped in my tracks. Goose and Astor kept pushing. I shushed them to hear better.

"Listen!" I demanded.

I strained to hear the noises, head cocked. Astor and Goose held their silence.

Goose swallowed hard. "You said the corpse-eaters would leave us be so long as we didn't get too close to their nests."

"That's right," I said, lowering my voice to match her concerned volume. Thanks to Prim, I knew a great deal about magical creatures.

"Is there any reason why a corpse-eater would make a nest right here?" she whispered.

" Oy . . ." I could think of numerous recently dead reasons why a corpse-eater would do just that. An entire staff of geds had died down here.

"Push hard!" I said, clamoring to shove at the trapdoor again.

The chittering and clacking grew louder. Another creature called back to the first, then another and another. There were several beings down in the dark cistern with us, and by the sound of them, they were drawing closer.

"I refuse to be murdered and eaten!" Goose said through gritted teeth. "You hear that, you lot? I refuse!"

"Step aside," Astor shouted. "I'll blast the boards full of holes!"

A scrape of heavy wood sounded overhead. The trapdoor came surging open. Rorick's face appeared, backlit by gaslights.

"Please don't put any holes through my floor," Rorick drawled. "This bloody castle needs enough repairs as it is."

"Oh, thank the goddess!" Goose said, rushing out through the opening.

Astor reluctantly took Rorick's offered hand, and he helped her out into the ballroom. Prim appeared, leaning beside him. She squawked like a happy mother bird, hauling Goose into a hug, pressing the younger witch's face into her shoulder. Goose left a growing damp stain on the bodice of Prim's blue dress, but the witch didn't seem to mind.

Rorick took my hand. His palm was surprisingly neutral rather than his usual cold—which said a lot about how close to freezing I was. He yanked me out of the stone stairwell, into the ballroom. I blinked rapidly, adjusting to the lights.

Gilbert and a swarm of beetles joined us.

I helped Rorick seal the door when my assistants were free, stomping on the hatch of flooring until it sealed, shutting out the sound of curious corpse-eaters. Anita climbed out of my pocket while I worked. She leapt onto Rorick's back, climbing his silver waistcoat to perch by his collar as he moved a heaping pile of thick boards back over the trapdoor, the weight that had thwarted us earlier.

"When you didn't turn up to volunteer, I was so worried!" Prim said, pulling me into a warm embrace. She patted my back, and that was lovely actually, even if it lasted a bit longer than I preferred. "I sent Sophie to the historic district to look for you all, but she couldn't spot a thing and you know how good she is at finding people! Thank Fate Rorick turned up when he did! I was about to go to the police."

"Dry floor! Lamps, warmth ," Goose panted. "I could tongue-kiss that lantern over there, I'm so happy to see it! It was so bloody dark down there. And ice cold to boot." More water slicked down her enchanted clothing to pool at her feet.

Prim helped her shake her hair dry, wringing the strands out between her sable hands.

I felt Rorick's eyes on me, and I turned reluctantly toward him. The worry on his face had transformed into anger, narrowing his violet gaze. "There's blood in your hair," he grumbled.

From his shoulder, Anita glared at me with all of her beady eyes. She still did not approve of my insistence that she was not permitted to crawl under my skin to repair me.

I touched the injury at my hairline tentatively. It stung. "I fell," I told him flatly.

His nostrils flared. "I know. The ichor who came to my brownstone said as much after he failed miserably at impersonating you and assassinating me."

"Assassinating?" I blinked at him. "An ichor impersonated me? When? Why?"

"We should be getting back," Astor said. She removed her fedora and dug inside, working out the long handle of her traveling artifact. "I know it's safe now, but I don't wish to linger long in this particular castle. And it sounds like the two of you have a lot to discuss. It's not that I'm convinced the castle will try to turn into anything again, but . . ." She cast a nervous look around. "I'm not unconvinced it won't either."

"And I've got research to do," Goose added. "I'll miss my shift tomorrow at the Home for Foundlings. We need to learn more about the circus, and I have a hunch a few long stints in the coven archives will be of use."

"Thank you, Goose. Go on without me." I glanced at Rorick. Both he and Anita continued to glower at me. He reached up without blinking and ran a finger over the spider's back—two peas in an aggravated pod. "I need a word with my partner."

"Before we're off, would you like me to patch you up, Quiet?" Prim offered. Her wand—goggles with polished lenses—sat atop her black braids. She still had lines under her eyes from using them recently.

"I'll tend to her," Rorick said briskly. His jaw set.

Goose linked her arm around Prim's elbow. "Come on. I'll never forgive you if your worry gets me caught in the middle of a lover's quarrel."

Prim hesitated, ignoring how Goose pulled at her. "Do you have everything you need?" she asked Rorick.

He nodded, violet eyes still trained on the open wound at my hairline. "I have what I need. Thank you for your help."

"Very well then," she said, with an uncertain sigh.

By the time my sisters reached the doors of the ballroom, their gowns were clean and dry. The front doors had been replaced by Rorick's workers. They opened and closed again with a loud clatter of wood against metal.

"Well?" I asked Rorick as the silence between us dragged on. "Do you want to start the shouting or shall I?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped. "You're not supposed to go to the circus. We agreed."

My stomach churned, irritation battling against a pinch of guilt inside me. "I agreed not to go inside the circus. And I didn't. I was outside of it when we got dropped into the aqueducts by a big clown."

"A technicality. I can't believe you," he groused, voice full of menace. Anita bobbed on his shoulder in agreement. "You're ignoring my explicit concerns with syntax? Your bullheadedness knows no bounds."

Heat warmed my face, and my hands made fists. "I was very clear about my intention to continue our investigation with or without you. This wasn't a secret. You're the one who called a truce last night and told me you didn't want to discuss it further. Stop acting like I've tricked you!"

"We aren't investigating that bloody death circus," he said, grinding his teeth. "I was clear on that!"

"Well, you're not the boss of us!" I said, voice rising.

"You could have died!" Rorick roared.

Anita shot webbing at me. The sticky silk struck me gently in the cheek. It was like being slapped by a slightly chewed marshmallow.

"Go home!" I snapped at her, wiping webbing from my face. The spider bobbed defensively, but she obeyed, leaping from his collar to my skirt and climbing back into my pocket.

Tension built further between Rorick and me. The less that was said out loud, the more I felt it brewing in the air, coiling in my muscles.

"I had no idea where you were or what you were up to when I awoke," he said coldly.

"The sun was up," I fired back. "What good would telling you my exact plans do either of us? You'd fret, and we'd fight more. Don't we do enough of that as is?"

"Well, tuck in because we're about to do a whole lot more of it!" His voice echoed around the arched ceilings. "This is just like the incident with the gargoyles! I told you not to go into that cave without me, but you—"

"Gargoyles are as much of a threat to me during the day as you are! They were all turned to stone! It was the perfect time to go looking around their lair for the evidence we—"

"—you deliberately ignored me then, and you're doing it again now! I told you that cave would have traps! I told you they'd have defenses up and ready for an intruder like you!"

"They did!" I fired back, puffing out my chest, standing toe to toe with him. "They tried to keep out intruders like me, but I thwarted them anyway! I found what we needed, and I stopped those thieves! Let that be a lesson to you, because you couldn't stop me then and you won't now!"

"You're going to get yourself killed, is what you're going to do! All your academic efforts will be for naught. Why does it feel like death is a waste for everyone else but yourself? Don't you have any respect at all for your own mortality? Cherish your life, Quiet! Please! Because I certainly do!"

"With or without you," I spat, shoving a finger into his chest, "I'm going to save those children and face those consequence that you insist on hiding from!"

His jaw went slack for a moment, my words finding their mark and sinking deeper than I'd meant for them to. "If you think this is about some sort of cowardice—"

"I don't think that," I said, softening. Instead of an accusing finger, I flattened my hand over the place where his heart should have beaten. "I know what you're after here. I know you're trying to protect me."

He peered down at my hand, and his nostrils flared. "Then stop making this so hard. Stop torturing me. Every sun slumber, I worry you're about to do the unthinkable all on your own! I'm terrified of what I'll find after I awake next!"

"Then come with me! It's not as though I want to do this all alone—but I know you won't! And it's no matter because I'm going to save them," I repeated, and my next breath hitched. "Because there's something different about this big clown—the sad one with the mallet and the frown. I'm going to give him what he wants, Rorick. I think that's the best chance I've got at stopping him from doing to you whatever it was he did to Inspector Sheridan."

"If he wanted to hurt me, he would have done it already," Rorick said, but his tone lacked conviction.

I shook my head slowly, my hand dropping from his chest. "He wants something from us, wants us to save the children—but all I want is to save you !"

Rorick pulled me into his arms then, grip tight. He breathed in my wet hair, exhaling long and slow.

"I need to fix you," he said, his nose tickling my scalp. "You've gone and hurt yourself like the stubborn-headed witch you are. Let me make it better."

"Go on then." I sunk against him. I hadn't realized how rigid my muscles had gotten until the moment my body loosened against the plane of his chest. Hadn't realized I'd dug little crescent moons into my palms with my nails until I unclenched my fists.

He licked the wound above my brow with a swift flick of his tongue, and warmth curled in my belly. His scent of apples filled my nose. The wound went hot, numbing my discomfort. Under his care, the skin turned tight and itchy.

"I've got your blood on my tongue," he rumbled. His nose dropped to my neck, nuzzling. He breathed deep. "And you smell . . ."

"Like a cistern?" I guessed. My clothes kept most of me dry and clean, but my hair was a swampy mess.

"You smell bitable," he crooned, and my knees went weak. He inhaled me again, and I let out an appreciative little hum.

"Then bite me already," I begged.

It had hurt when he'd denied me the night before. I understood why, or I thought I did. Rorick was very particular about such things, and our history with his meals was more than a little fraught. But hang it all, I loved the connection I felt when he took my blood. I craved the sweet release it brought us both.

Rorick drew back, meeting my gaze. Uncertainty furrowed his brow.

"Not here," he said finally. Taking my hand in his, he led us out into the foyer. It had been weeks since I'd stepped inside the castle, and much had already changed. It was clean and sterile with evidence the craftsman had been hard at work everywhere: walls patched and bare, ready to be papered. Tools lying about. Furniture covered in cloth. Everything smelled like drying oil.

He guided me up the stairs and into our room, our haven on the second floor. Our good luck place, a room of peace in a castle of nightmares.

Out of habit and for reassurance, I dug out three charmed wards from my hat, placed one on my wrist, slipped another in the pocket of his waistcoat, and hung the third on the doorknob. The magic worked quickly. The air grew hotter and smelled of sunlight and earth. Then I folded up my hat and tucked it away in the void in my pocket.

A tub remained empty on the floor where we'd left it at the foot of the bed, but the sheets had been replaced and turned down. The room was as sterile and tidy as the rest of the castle. While I lit candles, Rorick sidestepped the tub and plopped into the plush armchair in the far corner. It was wide, with an old stain on the cushion and a tear in the nearby ottoman.

He spread his legs as I drew near. Hands on my waist, he sat me in front of him. I pulled my braid over my shoulder, trying to contain the strands that had escaped, winding them together, suddenly nervous. I should have been used to his touch by now, but the thrill of it always scrambled my thoughts and put me on edge. The promise of what was to come surged through my pulse, caught in my lungs, and made my heart hurry.

Rorick's lips found the exposed skin at my throat and trailed down to where the collar of my blouse flared. His nimble fingers loosened my buttons, opening it, exposing my shoulder and a sliver of my linen shift.

Hypnotized, I watched him slide open my clothing, felt the gentle tugs down my back as he loosened my corset. Heat pooled between my legs. Evidence of his desire for me pressed hotly against the crease of my ass.

Rorick rucked up my skirts, fingers dragging along the clasps of my garter. They traveled farther up my thigh to the split in my drawers.

"Oh." My head lolled back onto his shoulder. "Please bite me."

He rolled his hips, pressing his length against my ass, rocking me forward. "I need to touch you first."

"You need to torture me first," I accused, not at all bothered by the prospect. Torture from Rorick was exquisite.

He explored my heat, coaxing my thighs farther open, finding the sensitive parts of my flesh that were the most wet and needy, teasing them with a whisper of touch. He dragged his thumb across the furrow between my thighs in tight, tempting circles. I rocked against his fingers.

"That's it, love," he breathed in my ear, "ride my fingers for me like the good witch you are."

I did as he bid, understanding in that moment the draw of being bossed. Bracing my weight on the cushioned arms, I took him into my body, reveling in the decadent drag of his touch, the warm stretch of sensitive flesh as he added another digit.

"Just like that," he praised me as I rocked faster. He met the jerk of my hips, rubbing his length against my ass and lower back.

Then he worked open the fall front of his trousers and it was his flesh, hot and heavy, teasing the crease of my ass over the thin cotton of my drawers.

Our movements fell in and out of sync, but it didn't matter, I was so absorbed by his touch, his breath on my neck, his heat and pressure behind me. It sent me climbing.

"The sound of your moan is as delicious as your blood on my tongue," he grunted.

"Rorick," I pleaded. I was climbing, and I needed him to get me the rest of the way now. Immediately.

Yesterday!

He trailed his lips down the column of my neck, left a wet kiss at my pulse. His tongue swiped at my flesh, and then I felt the prick of his fangs, a teasing little nip.

"Please, Rorick!" I whimpered.

He bit me hard, fangs piercing the flesh at my throat. My pulse jumped, and our connection beat inside my heart. I tasted the copper of my blood on his tongue. Felt the building pressure in his pelvis as he rubbed his fist down his cock, felt tension building in his balls.

He bit me again at the juncture of my neck and shoulder. Sweet release flooded my body. My eyes rolled back, and light burst at the corners of my eyes.

Groaning, Rorick slowly pulled his fingers out of me, and then he came against my lower back. He rested his hand over his spend. I collapsed against him. He took one more drag of my blood into his mouth, then licked both bites clean.

I scratched at the healed spots. My limbs felt like rubber.

"Better now?" He produced a handkerchief from his waistcoat and cleaned his fingers, then wiped his spend off my back.

"It helps," I whispered.

"It does . . ." He'd left something unsaid, and my stomach lurched.

"It does, but what?" I turned in his arms and rested my head under his chin, tucking myself against his cold hard chest.

Remaining silent, he let his fingers make random geometric patterns down my back. "Being near you makes me sad," he admitted.

I sighed because I knew exactly what he meant. Lately his presence made me sad too.

"What are we going to do?" I asked the dark as if it might have an answer for us both.

"Normally, you're the one who decides," he said, his tone playful.

He was right, though. He found a case, I bossed him, we solved it. Rinse and repeat.

"Perhaps this time I could try letting you have the say." I felt so tired and comfortable in his arms I could just about have fallen asleep there with my cheek pillowed against his satin cravat. There was a chance I'd regret speaking those words later when I was more alert, but right then, giving this man whom I trusted with my whole heart all the say felt incredibly freeing.

"You asked me to always be honest with you. No more secrets, you said. But it feels like we're on two completely different paths, hiding things, avoiding each other. I don't want that."

I sighed against his chest. "I don't want that either."

"Partners?" he rumbled.

"Partners." And to prove I meant my words, I told him about canvasing the circus between shows, watching for more signs that the number of geds who entered didn't always match the number of geds who came out again. I told him about the trapdoor to the tunnels underground, about how it appeared corpse-eaters and possibly coffin-dwellers had been feasting down there, snagging circus-goers. I was worried about what it might mean for us if the circus was somehow feeding those creatures.

I told him about scanning news articles for evidence of missing children. Prim knew to always advise me every time she caught word that a child had been lost in the province. But looking into those when they came always felt like a dead end. I could never connect them to the circus.

I told him about traveling through the aqueducts, the trial, and the new candle I carried around in my pocket.

When it was his turn to unload, I felt his chest fill under my cheek. His exhale made the air smell like an orchard. "I'm starting to remember things. Things about before, when I was Jonathan and not a detective. I had a meeting with Hecate in the historic district at midnight last night," he explained, and I frowned but didn't interrupt him as he described further the exact location. "It wasn't the first time. We've had meetings before—long before. When I needed her guidance, that's where I'd find her, at this tiny pub in the middle of nowhere. This time she hired me to work a case, and she cautioned me about consequences and constants."

I sat up in his lap. "Every witch knows about constants and consequences. Did she tell you something about yours . . . ?"

His face fell. "She cautioned me that I had to be very careful what I said specifically to you on the matter."

Heat flared in my belly. Years of repressed frustration with my mother reared its ugly head, then immediately left me feeling deflated. "There's nothing I dislike more than agreeing with Hecate," I said reluctantly, "but my mother isn't of our world. If she told you not to share something with me, then . . . you probably shouldn't. There are risks involved in changing the fate of others. Information is a dangerous thing between worlds."

"But I thought we agreed not to have secrets? How are we to work together successfully if we don't share everything?"

"Can you tell me what case she's hired you to work at least?" I asked.

"Yes, she said we're to work on the case together. She's hired me to investigate my first death. Apparently, I was murdered."

My eyes widened at that. I'd assumed his fall was an accident like everyone else had. "I don't like the secrets either, but I'll like it even less if the knowledge sends an eternal consequence after me. I don't want to be in Inspector Sheridan's shoes."

"Or mine," he said solemnly.

On that point I wanted to disagree with him but couldn't.