Chapter 6

Sunday marked the fifth morning in a row Brix had woken to find Calum already up and outside with the chickens.

"You're going to turn Bongo into a lap hen."

"That a bad thing?" Calum didn't look up from the chicken dozing in his arms. "She butted my leg until I picked her up."

Brix's chest warmed, and the early-morning breeze faded away. "I've had a few like that. Mary Killigrew was my last one."

"Mary what?"

"Killigrew. Long story. Starts with ancient pirates and ends with my aunt Peg."

Calum shook his head a little. "I feel like I just met you."

The comment seemed out of context, but Brix got it. He'd spent far too much of the past few days searching for the cheerful dude he'd used to know, but the change in Calum was as dark and moody as his beard.

His hot as fuck beard.

"I had a chat with Lena last night," Brix said.

"Yeah?" Calum set Bongo down as his shoulders tightened. "She tell you I'm a fly-by-night tea leaf or some shit?"

"No, she said leopard man from the other day was one of your clients from London. Didn't say much else, but I knew your place had closed down because she told me when the client booked in."

Brix left out the blanks the client had filled—the boarded-up doors and trashed interior. He couldn't work out what Calum's old studio had meant to him, but he didn't fancy telling him that anything he'd left in the place had been swiped or destroyed.

Unless he already knows.

Lena hadn't seemed to think he did. "He looked shocked, Brix, and freaked out. That bloke's gotta story, I'm telling you."

Brix couldn't disagree, but most folk who worked at Blood Rush had a past they didn't want to talk about. Why would Calum be any different?

"What do you want me to say?" Calum folded tense arms across his chest. "I already told you—and Lena—that the shop wasn't mine."

Brix didn't like Calum's defensive stance. It didn't suit him. "I don't want you to say anything. I'm just letting you know you can, if you want to. I ain't gonna judge you if you're in trouble. Lord knows, I've had my fair share of shit-storms coming from my clan."

"Clan?" Calum tilted his head to one side. "I heard on the street yesterday that you come from a family of gangsters."

Brix snorted. "On the street? In Porth Ewan? Yeah, okay."

Calum looked as convinced as Brix felt every time Calum deflected his questions. "I haven't seen much of the place except ink and chickens."

"Easily fixed. Lena and Kim are coming over later, but I can show you around a bit this morning if you like?"

"You mean the beach?"

"And the rest. Get that shitty new coat of yours and I'll show you the magic."

"Shitty?"

"Yeah, shitty. That bundle you picked up at the charity shop looks good on you, but it ain't gonna keep you warm if you're still around come winter. The wind is vicious here. My ma used to say it carried the demons ashore."

"Even yours?"

Brix zipped up his own coat. "Especially mine."

* * *

Brix hauled himself up the rocks, climbing a path he knew like the back of his hand. The sea had eroded some of the ancient formations he remembered from childhood, but this route to the highest cliff in Porth Ewan Bay never seemed to change.

He reached the halfway ledge and glanced over his shoulder. Calum was a heartbeat behind him, dark gaze more alive than Brix had seen so far, leading Brix to wonder why he hadn't brought him out sooner. "All right down there?"

"Fuck yeah. Keep going. I want to see what it's like from the top."

"Just a sec." Brix veered off the steep path and rounded a crumbly verge. The opening to the small cave couldn't be seen, but he knew where it was. Had done since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.

He crawled inside, feeling around for any sign that Peg had moved the counterfeit DVDs here after they'd disappeared from his garden. His hand hit a thick plastic sheeting. The type Peg's crew used to protect their goods when contrary bastards like Brix forced them to stash their shit in the vast Lusmoore cave network hidden amongst the cliffs. What lay beneath the sheeting felt like DVDs, though the few packages he felt could only hold half the amount Peg had dumped in his backyard.

Good. They're moving them on.Brix never knew what drove him to check up on the family business he'd worked so hard to distance himself from, but it was something he found himself doing time and time again. Reassurance, maybe? The DVDs pissed him off, but he'd found far worse over the years.

"Brix? You in there?"

Brix withdrew his hands from the contraband. He'd forgotten Calum waiting outside on the windy cliffs. He backed away from the loot and shuffled out of the cave, barging straight into Calum, who wasn't where he'd left him.

Calum steadied Brix with gentle hands. His light touch burned, quickening Brix's pulse. Or maybe it was the sea air going to his head. It had been a few weeks since he'd made this climb. Yeah. That was it. It had to be, because there was no way the surprise in Calum's eyes was mirroring the shock in Brix's heart.

After a protracted moment, Brix regained his footing. Calum released him and shot him a quizzical frown. "What were you doing in there?"

"Just checking something."

"Something?"

"Plenty of shit I don't want to talk about either. Fair's fair, ain't it?"

Calum scowled, though there was no anger in his gaze. "You got me there. I'll keep my gob shut. I'm assuming you don't want anyone to know you go crawling around the caves up here?"

"You assume right, but I'm not worried about you running your mouth. You barely speak to anyone."

"I don't know anyone."

"You know me."

Calum's halfhearted glare mellowed to the crooked grin Brix had dreamed about in years gone by, the lopsided smile that made his eyes gleam. "I talk to you."

Brix grunted and pushed ahead of him on the cliff path. "Do you bollocks. You talk to Lee more than you do me."

"Jealous?"

"What do you think?"

Brix toasted a grin over his shoulder, but the spark in Calum's gaze faded. "I was just messing, man. Didn't mean nothing by it."

He looked down at the hiking boots Brix had lent him, apparently lost in the art of putting one foot in front of the other.

Brix frowned. Did I miss something? He had no idea, but if the past few days had taught him anything about this new, subdued version of Calum, it was that these loaded silences needed to be filled, or else hours could pass before Calum spoke again. Besides, was it really his business that Calum and Lee had hit it off like they were the long-lost mates?

Maybe you are jealous.And the masochist in Brix couldn't let it go. "Has Lee been showing you her tricks?"

"Hmm?"

"Lee."

Calum caught up. "She's shown me loads."

"Good." Brix pulled himself through a narrow gap in the rocks. "That's how we roll at Blood Rush. Share the love, you know? I want everyone to grow as an artist, not worry and bitch over who's making the most dosh."

Calum followed Brix through the rocks. "Where I came from, I couldn't leave a sketchbook lying around without someone ripping my designs and selling them on."

"That's cos you've been surrounded by cunts."

Brix regretted his crass bluntness as soon as the words were out, but Calum shrugged.

"You're probably right. In fact, you are right. Maybe that's why I've found it so hard to draw these last few years. Remember when we used to get a crate in, and some JD, and a bunch of us would draw all night, collaborating the fuck out of everything we did? I miss that."

"Then you've come to the best place. We have sketch nights all the time. Don't plan 'em, they just happen."

"Sounds good to me." Calum drew level with Brix and peered over the edge of the path. "That's a long way down."

"Give it a minute."

Brix grabbed Calum's arm and pulled him up the last few steps of the path and out onto the cliff that had been the top of the world for as long as he could remember. "My dad brought me up here when I was born and dangled me over the edge, presented me to the sea. Tradition for Lusmoore babies. And the Carters who have the caves across the bay, but they're land people really."

"Always knew there was legend in you somewhere." Calum kept his gaze on the view—the grey sky, the misty clouds. The crashing waves below, and the miles and miles of moody-blue ocean. It was like nothing else on earth, and Brix wondered if Calum could feel the Cornish magic Brix had been born with. The fabled histories that were still sung by the fishermen who hung around the Sea Bell in town, and the Joker in Porth Luck.

"Don't be daft, boy. Emmets aren't like us. You'll see when you go on chasing your dreams to that big city you're always blathering on about."

Brix caught up with Calum as he drifted to the edge of the cliff to study the deadly rocks below. "Ever told you why they call me Brix?"

"Nope." Calum didn't look away from the crashing waves. "It's always screwed with me, though. I know you did your apprenticeship in Brixton, but Jordan told me you were Brix way before that."

Brix found a grin, forcing back the bad taste in his mouth that just a mention of Jordan's name brought. "My dad called me Brix. He took me to London once, and Brixton was the only name on the Tube map I could read. I wanted to go there, but he dragged me to the dogs in Walthamstow instead, grumpy old git. Reckon he thought the name would wind me up, but I loved it, and now . . . it's who I am."

"Who were you before?"

"Benjamin. Did I never tell you that either?"

Calum shook his head. "It makes sense now, though. You could be a Benjamin."

"Not in this lifetime." Brix shuddered. "Learning to write was a whole lot easier once I'd lost a few letters."

"Eh? How old were you when you went to London with your dad?"

"Too old not to be able to read the whole map or write my own name. I was twelve before I had those down."

"It doesn't show."

Brix snorted. "Why do you think I went into business with Lena? I couldn't do what she does on my own. Can barely make sense of the booking system, let alone everything else."

"You're not stupid, Brix."

"Oh, I know that; least, I do these days. Just had a different start to most emmets. Different kind of education, I guess."

"What the hell is an emmet?"

Brix retrieved his hip flask from his inside pocket and took a swig before passing it Calum's way. "An outsider . . . a non-Cornish person. Some Porth Ewan folk believe none of you should be let over the border."

"What do you think?"

"I reckon the world would be a darker place without the souls that keep us warm."

Calum shivered and swigged from the flask. "You must need a lot of them to stay warm around here."

Brix let the turbulent sea reclaim his gaze. "You'd be surprised. You can come up here wanting to jump and go home a few hours later with a new skin. This place is magic, and it's in my blood. Without it . . . well, who knows where I'd be."