42. Alaric

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ALARIC

“ I t’s perfect,” Winnie says as she watches Reginald set down his enormous cast-iron pot and fiddle with the knobs on the portable stove. Alaric sets down a cooler of ice, in case people want their chocolate iced instead of hot. “We’ll be the most popular booth of the Midsummer Festival.”

“As I fear.” I glare at Reginald, who is pointedly not looking in my direction. He’s been avoiding me ever since he agreed to Winnie’s crazy suggestion. I could not refuse either of them, especially not with my mother watching our every move.

She hasn’t spoken to me since she left the dining room, but I overheard her and Perdita while they were on their evening walk. Perdita is growing concerned that I am too soaked in perversion to be a good fit at court, and that the proposed marriage may have the opposite effect than she wished on her mother’s enemies. “I can’t risk the future of the Blood Chastain on Alaric’s unpredictable nature.”

“I thought the Midnight Queen sought to be more progressive?” My mother’s smile could shatter bone. “Improve our relations with humans?”

“Indeed. But I think this would be a step too far, even for her.” Perdita paused. “And for me. I think you are right, Callista. I renounce my claim on Alaric, and I shall attend the ball as a representative of the queen to observe our new allies at work.”

Winnie’s crazy plan is working. If only I could find it in me to feel pleased. But every hour closer to the ball is an hour closer to putting her in danger, and another hour closer to Winnie leaving Black Crag. I need to redouble my efforts to make her stay.

Callista and Perdita are here tonight, dressed in their finery with no heed for the heat the humans feel in the air. They wander slowly around the village green, chatting with Gideon and his friends and clients. I wonder if among the crowd who flutter around Gideon like carnivorous butterflies is Danny’s killer.

I wonder if they’re whispering about Lord Alaric Valerian out in public with an unThralled human. I wonder if they all know about contraception .

Seeing me and Winnie together, openly in love, will make them even more excited for the ball. More fodder drawing the husker into the light.

Winnie is, of course, oblivious to the bloodsucker politics swirling around her. She affixes her handmade sign to our booth and declares us officially open for business. A small crowd has already gathered on the green to peruse the stalls and put their orders in at the pub.

“Why is the iced hot chocolate so expensive?” a grey-haired man complains as he squints at Winnie’s handwritten sign. I wonder what he’d taste like drizzled over ice cream.

“Because you get a handmade ceramic mug with it, and you get to keep the mug,” Winnie smiles, undeterred by my future dessert’s rudeness.

“Oh, how fun! I’ll have mine hot.” A woman selects a mug with a speckled green glaze from the stack I’ve laid out on the table and hands it to Reginald. He fills it to the brim with hot chocolate, drops in two homemade marshmallows, and passes it back to her.

“I guess I’ll have one, too. Iced, thanks.” The man choses a dark blue glazed mug with two handles and reluctantly hands over his cash to Winnie. But when he takes a sip of Reginald’s chocolate, his whole face lights up.

“Pearl!” He waves at a lady over at the tea cosy stall. “You have to try this!”

Soon, we have a crowd of people around our table, exclaiming over the mugs as they choose their favourites. Reginald beams as they praise his chocolate, and Winnie is in the centre of it all, matching mugs to people’s outfits and using words like ‘bespoke’ and ‘artisanal.’ Two old ladies even come back for seconds.

“You must be Winnie, the latest member of the Nevermore Murder Club and Smutty Book Coven.” One of the old ladies with blue-rinsed hair and a large carpet bag slurps her chocolate happily. “I’m Mabel Ellis, honourary lifetime member of the coven. I haven’t been able to get to any meetings lately, thanks to this bung hip, but it won’t stop me enjoying the festival. Oh, I must go, there’s Mina and her lovely man, Heathcliff. I bet he’ll want to say hello to me.”

A line quickly forms at our booth. Reginald is pouring chocolate over ice as fast as his human arms can ladle and Winnie is so busy dealing with cash and dishing out marshmallows that people start asking me about the cups. Winnie promised me that I wouldn’t have to talk to humans if I didn’t want to, but I find myself picking up pots and showing off my favourite details.

I haven’t shown another soul my work apart from Reginald and Winnie since I left the Midnight Court. It’s quite intoxicating seeing humans enjoying my art without the promise of bloodthrall.

Not quite as intoxicating as Winnie’s strawberry scent swirling around me or the bright smile she flashes me every time she catches me looking at her. Even as sated as I am by that taste of her blood, I find myself always turning back to her, as if she is my true north.

“Hello, Winnie.” A startlingly beautiful man with a waterfall of black hair steps up to our table. Mina Wilde’s hand is threaded through his arm, and her guide dog stoically waits as they peruse my table. Two small human children pause behind them, transfixed I presume by Mina’s dog. “These pots are beautiful. Can Mina pick them up?”

“Hi Quoth, Mina. Of course you can touch them. They’re for using, not just for show. Alaric made them,” Winnie calls over her shoulder as she turns to serve another customer.

“You made these?” The little girl’s eyes bug out of her head. “All of them. Wow! You must just spend all of eternity making pots.”

“That’s true.”

“I want to make a pot. Could you teach me?” her little brother asks.

“Your hands are too small,” I say. “You could perhaps make a cup for a mouse.”

“I want to make a cup for a mouse!” he says, his face screwing up in determination.

Winnie beams at me. I dare to wonder if perhaps I’m doing okay at talking to humans.

“These are beautiful.” Mina runs her fingers over a textured pot. “I love the way they feel in my hands. We’ll take four. Quoth, help me choose mugs for Morrie and Heathcliff.”

“This one is perfect for Morrie,” Quoth says as he picks up a tall pot with an icy blue glaze. “And that red one in your hand for Heathcliff. You know, Lord Valerian?—”

“Call him Alaric,” Winnie says, turning away before I can correct her.

“—Alaric,” Quoth’s silken hair falls over his eyes. “I’m an artist too, although I mainly work with paint. I’ve been experimenting with sculpture, since it’s the medium Mina can still see, but I have a long time to go before I’m as competent as you.”

“A couple of centuries, at least,” Mina says with a laugh.

“ Anyway, ” Quoth continues. “I have a small gallery opposite Nevermore Bookshop. We display local artists and don’t charge a rip-off commission. If you have more of these mugs, I’d love to have them in the gallery.”

“I don’t think that would be?—”

“We still have mountains of pots, and you’re welcome to them,” Winnie cuts in. “That would be amazing, Quoth. I’ll have Reginald drop you off a carload tomorrow.”

As Quoth and Mina and the two kids wander away with their mugs of chocolate, a strange sensation settles in my chest. My work displayed in a gallery alongside human artists? That should be abhorrent to me, so why do I feel so warm?

Because I like the way it brightens Winnie’s smile when I make an effort to be in the world.

Because if I want her to love me, I have to make her friends at least tolerate me.

Because…maybe I want her friends to tolerate me.

From across the green, my mother glares at me. According to her, we don’t fraternise with our food.

I find myself smiling and waving at her, eliciting a deeper scowl. Tonight, not even the Lady of Agony can frighten me. I like talking to the villagers. They ask questions about the cups and how I made them. They praise Reginald’s iced hot chocolate recipe with increasingly poetic epithets, and I believe his face might be in danger of breaking from smiling so hard.

Reginald has dedicated his long life to looking after my every need. It pleases me to see him put himself first for once.

And Winnie…she is radiant beneath the flickering lights of the torches and fairy lights that illuminate the green. She’s wearing a floral blouse with a silk handkerchief tied around her neck, hiding the two pinpricks of my fang marks that haven’t yet completely healed. Every time I see that scarf I taste her on my tongue again, and my shaft stiffens. She has not said anything about my rash words begging her to stay, but she has not declined, either.

She waves to her friends in the Nevermore Murder Club, who are busy with their own stalls or, in the case of Komal Ahuja, rushing about yelling instructions into a megaphone and shooting a devilish glare at a man in the corner. Winnie promises to introduce me properly to everyone later. I cannot decide if I’m honoured to meet her friends or terrified.

I’m still not certain we should be involving these humans in a ball hosted by the Lady of Agony, no matter how much experience with supernatural sleuthing they claim to have. But Winnie is convinced they are essential to her plan.

And the more time she spends with them, the more she smiles and that faraway look in her eyes dims. She’s told me that she will not stay for me, but I dare to hope she might choose to stay for them?—

Beside me, Winnie stiffens. I glance up, alert for danger.

Is the killer in our midst?

Worse. Patrick and Claire are here. They’re eating cotton candy and laughing as if they have a right to laughter as they stride arm in arm up to our stall.

“Oh, look at these!” Claire picks up one of the taller mugs that I’d decorated with a bright pink glaze dribbled over the rim, as if a unicorn has thrown up inside. “These are adorable! And after I drink my chocolate, I can keep the cup? That’s so clever—Oh, hi, Winnie.”

Claire beams at Winnie as if she only just noticed her, but I am certain Claire saw Winnie across the green.

Winnie’s fingers seek mine beneath the table. I give her hand a squeeze. My fangs drop.

“Er, hi, Winnie.” Patrick takes a step back. His eyes flick to me, and he quickly looks away. “And Albert, was it?”

“Alaric,” I growl, lifting the corner of my lip to give him a glimpse of fang.

Patrick shudders.

“Darling, we have to get some mugs for our new place.” Claire sifts through the pink-hued ones. “I think a set of six, for when we have friends like Winnie and Alaric over for dinner?—”

I don’t miss the desperate look Patrick shoots Winnie over his fiancée’s shoulder. I may have been shut away from the world for centuries, but I know the meaning in that look. Patrick likes to win . He is a different type of collector than I am. I have a house filled with objects because they’re safer and more interesting than people. Patrick likes to collect things – and people – to say that he owns them. He likes to feel as though he has the best prize. He’s wondering if maybe he gave up Winnie too soon.

Winnie, thankfully, is blissfully unaware of her effect on Patrick. She stirs the hot chocolate, chatting away to the villagers lining up at our booth as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Beside her, I feel awkward, too tall, too dark, too undead.

I’d feel better with a sword in my hand.

And Patrick’s head on a spike.

I am more like my mother than I like to admit.

I thought that when I bared my fangs at him last time, that would be enough to keep him away from Winnie. But this human doesn’t know when to quit.

Patrick pays for two cups of hot chocolate and a set of six mugs. As he hands over his money, he leans in and whispers something to Winnie. He doesn’t realise that with my superior senses, I hear every word.

“Winnie, can I meet you by the bookshop when the bonfire starts? Everyone will be distracted.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you now, but it’s important. You need to come alone. I have something to tell you about your boyfriend and the murder that happened here a few weeks ago.”

Winnie fumbles the cup she’s holding. I catch it midair before it smashes on the ground, my eyes never leaving her face. She studies Patrick with a mixture of curiosity and…is that longing? Fear?

She nods, and returns to plonking marshmallows into people’s drinks. But I can’t return to my easy chatter with the humans. I glare at the back of Patrick’s head, imagining how great it would look mounted above my fireplace.