Chapter 8

8

For all that the looming fae and brooding unicorn mystified and terrified her, respectively, Molly had little trouble learning to love a sentient house. Her first evening knowing the situation, she stayed up late into the night, testing out ideas of how to communicate.

She figured out it was the one who’d brought her water and changed the chamber pot. Through a few more halting conversations with Allarion, she learned the house laughed by rattling its shutters and pouted by creaking. There were all sorts of noises it made—Molly just had to listen.

Soon, she had a system—one drawer or door opening was yes, nothing was no. This way, she was able to at least have something of a conversation, odd as it was, with the house itself.

“Did you like your first family? The one who built you?” she asked, feeling brave and vulnerable as they sat talking in the deepest hours of the night, awash in soft candlelight.

The armoire drawer opened and closed many times. An emphatic yes!

Molly smiled. “You must miss them.”

It wasn’t a question, but the drawer again opened and closed, much more softly this time.

Her heart hurt for the house. Absolutely mad as it might be, she felt its sadness in that one action, could feel how the very walls mourned the loss of its former family.

“Do you like having people living with you, then?”

The drawer opened and closed in rapid succession.

“More than just the bats in the attic, anyway.”

The shutters rattled and the house groaned as if it too laughed along with her. She wasn’t sure the house actually minded the bats in the attic or the raccoon family in the east tower or even the bee hives in the rafters of the north wing. They were all little friends, little inhabitants for the house to take care of.

And that was what the house liked most, Molly came to find. Taking care of its inhabitants. It was always finding ways of being helpful—opening doors for her, turning off the spigot when she forgot, and even having the kettle already going by the time she got down to the kitchen to make tea. The house anticipated her needs before she even knew them herself.

Although, there was one thing that was a bit of a sore spot between them.

Every evening, the house opened the armoire and the large trunk at the foot of her massive canopied bed. Every night, Molly refrained from storing her things inside them. Her clothes were getting wrinkled and she’d made a bit of a mess on the far side of the bed laying out what she didn’t bother putting back in the bags.

The house would creak at her, drawers opening and closing to emphasize that her things belonged there.

But they didn’t.

Something about putting her things in those drawers would mean…they were now part of the house. She was part of it.

But she wasn’t.

No matter how the house rattled at her. No matter how its master looked longingly at her over the butcher block.

Molly didn’t intend to stay.

That didn’t mean, however, that she wasn’t amenable to making friends. She got on well with the house, and felt, within a few days, that although she couldn’t count on its loyalty to her over Allarion, she could at least trust that it would tell her the truth.

Strange as it was to think, Molly found the house guileless.

It was comforting to sit cross-legged on her bed and chat with the house. Knowing she could ask it questions and get a truthful answer.

“Is it strange being inhabited by a fae and unicorn?” Molly asked it. She tried to camouflage her curiosity by picking at her cuticles, but she didn’t know if the subterfuge worked—or was even necessary.

She waited a long time, but nothing happened. It took her a moment to remember that nothing meant no . The house hadn’t responded in the negative in a long while.

“Not strange…” she muttered to herself. “Do you like Allarion?”

The drawers opened and shut three times, and Molly couldn’t help her grin.

“That’s a yes. But…would you like him even if it meant you weren’t sentient?”

Without even the shortest pause, another series of opening and closing drawers.

Yes yes yes, it told her.

Molly’s heart lurched in her chest. The answer was so earnest, so forthright.

Wetting her lips, she forced out the question she’d been dreading. “Can I trust him?”

This time there was a pause. The house creaked, and Molly held her breath.

The room seemed to bend, as if the house held its own breath as it leaned in closer to her. Molly clutched the pillow in her lap, trying to stay still.

The drawer opened and closed twice.

Yes.

“Are you sure?”

Opened and closed.

“Does he mean me any harm?”

Nothing. No.

The breath hissed out of her.

Well, fates. That was a relief, except…could she trust the house?

Although talking with a sentient house was fascinating, Molly eventually grew bored of keeping to her bedchamber. Over the ensuing days, she dared more ventures beyond her door, careful now to mind the house’s warnings when something was unsafe.

Allarion seized the opportunity to give her the tour he’d been waiting to take her on. With obvious pride, he took her through the grand atrium that led to the ornate curving staircase; the ballroom with an inlaid parquet floor; the conservatory with its mullioned windows and humid air; the vast wine cellars where dozens of casks and hundreds of green-glass bottles still lay; and the cold box, pantries, and buttery where food was stored.

The south wing was almost entirely servants’ quarters, and Molly marveled at the number of people who must have once lived here—to support one noble family. It didn’t rival the staff of Dundúran Castle, but it still would’ve been a force unto itself. With so many people moving about…it was no wonder the house enjoyed having inhabitants again, even if it was only a human, a fae, and a unicorn.

Allarion took her through his many projects, detailing how he was fixing the roof shingles now but would then move onto the floor of the second-level study—or rather, would create a floor to the study.

“I can’t have any more beautiful women falling through the floor. It’s just not in good taste,” he said with what she took for good humor. He even smiled through a chuckle. While it did warm the cool pallor of his skin and severe contours of his face, a smile could only do so much—especially when it flashed those wicked fangs.

Molly couldn’t help staring at them before remembering her manners. She offered a lukewarm grin in return, her stomach still knotted with anxiety as he led her here, there, and everywhere.

It wasn’t that he felt threatening or that she entirely disliked the way he insisted they walk arm-in-arm—it was more that she half-expected that every door he opened would reveal some new horror. The corpses of the former family. A dungeon of other barmaids he’d bought. Even a bevy of more crimson-eyed unicorns.

Despite the kindliness of the house, it couldn’t help that the areas he’d yet to fix or renovate still bore the scars of abandonment and general air of doom and dread. The air was dank and stale in places he hadn’t gotten to yet, and he didn’t have to tell her to avoid them—she’d no desire to linger in such forgotten places.

Still, as he took her through the house, she made sure to remember all the routes and where each door led to. She’d every intention of running far away from this place someday soon, and she’d like to take something for her troubles. Yet, other than her bedchamber and the kitchen, none of the rooms had much if any furniture. While her room was sumptuously furnished, it wasn’t decorated. Not even a pretty vase to filch.

Not that she really thought he was storing all his valuables in some kind of hoard. He was a fae, not a dragon.

As the days began to pass, though, Molly came to understand that the house not being decorated was something Allarion fully intended to rectify. He just…wanted her opinion first.

It started out simply, asking if she’d like flowers in the kitchen.

“Of course,” she said as she stirred that day’s stew, “flowers brighten up any room.”

He left immediately, as if she’d asked him to go slay some great beast for her favor, and returned a while later with a literal armload of larkspurs. He arranged the blue and purple spears in deliberate, artful bunches, filling pewter pitchers and ceramic cups.

Molly silently watched him work as she ate her luncheon, deeply curious. He approached flower arranging with the same focus as he did repairing the roof or practicing his sword forms or any other task. Gaze unflinching, mind totally consumed, it was as if placing each flower perfectly was his only concern.

Just think what a focus like that could do.

Molly hooked one knee over the other and squeezed her thighs together.

Fates, she couldn’t start having thoughts like those.

Still, she couldn’t help noticing the strong column of his throat, bared to the air for once in his downright casual attire of the day. Although his trou were still stiff and tight, his boots still high and shiny, and his jerkin still laced and form-fitting, the top three buttons of his black shirt had been left undone, revealing the long, pale line of his throat and winging arches of his collarbones.

He’d tied the top half of his silvery fall of hair back into a tail with a strip of leather, ensuring the inhumanly sharp cut of his cheeks, nose, and jaw were on full display as he filled the kitchen with flowers. She’d never seen a man arrange flowers before, but when the fae did it, it was beautiful, almost…sensual.

Molly nearly choked on a piece of carrot.

She waved him away when he would have come to her aid—she doubted she’d survive a powerful fae smacking her back to clear her airway.

He still hovered with concern for a while before returning to his task.

Thereafter, she always found flowers adorning the kitchen. And after another few days, she opened her bedchamber door each morning to find a new bouquet awaiting her. Her room slowly filled with flowers, none of which were in bloom but somehow he’d found, and fine porcelain and glass vases.

After the flowers came colors. Without much else to do, Molly would sometimes follow Allarion along on his projects. In the big solar on the second level, he asked her more than once what color she thought would be best.

Molly blinked in bafflement for a long while, not understanding why he asked. Uncle Brom certainly never let her change the tavern—even for the better—and hadn’t even let her repaint her own bedchamber. The most she’d ever been allowed was a few of her own baubles and some garlands for festivals.

Allarion wasn’t satisfied with It’s your house, nor I don’t know, white?

“The library I did to my own tastes,” he said, as if having one room to his own taste was enough. And she could definitely see him in the room—all the rich fabrics and dark colors were exactly what the fae seemed to favor. But…it was his house.

Molly shrugged and avoided his question and gaze by wandering through the empty room. When she came to the large set of windows that looked out onto the forest, she turned.

Soaked in light, Molly truly looked at the room.

White is too plain. Gray too dour. Red would overwhelm the room, and gold would wash it out.

“Green,” she whispered more than said.

A slow smile spread across Allarion’s face, and Molly swore those dark eyes watched her with an avaricious sort of…pride.

“Sage?” he asked. “Seafoam?”

Molly shook her head. “No, a dark green. Like the forest outside.”

The shutters rattled, widening Allarion’s smile.

Without so much as a blink, all that fae focus directed at her, and as though she had passed some sort of test, he said softly, “Perfect.”

Why he cared so much about her opinion, Molly couldn’t quite figure out. If she let herself think about it, she supposed it might be good that he was asking for the opinion of the person he wanted to share the house with. It was another point to his being serious about the handfasting, making it permanent.

He was trying to make the house to both of their tastes.

The revelation was a terrifying one, which was why Molly didn’t let herself think of these things much. That way lay danger, and she’d had far too much danger in her life already.

She just had to wait for the right vase.

Molly wanted to take something with her when she left—ideally something to sell in the next town for some pocket money to get her where she wanted to go. Wherever that was. There just hadn’t been the right vase yet. All of them were either too large or too heavy—porcelain, colored glass, smooth marble, they’d all fetch a pretty price, but they’d all slow her escape down. She needed just the right one, not too big, not too delicate, not too heavy. Something nice but not too nice—nothing that would make a shopkeeper think she’d stolen it. Even if she had.

Until then, she supposed she just had to content herself with watching Allarion in his strange renovation of his sentient house.

Yet, when she unlocked and opened her bedchamber door on that seventh morning, she found no flowers nor vase. The corridor was empty save the shafts of light filtering in from the wall of windows.

The house itself was quieter than Molly had ever heard it.

Strange.

Molly crept from her room, wondering if something had happened. Nothing looked amiss, but it felt…different.

The kitchen yielded no clues, nor did the library or study, with its newly finished floor. After a quiet breakfast, Molly ventured outside, skirting the house to see if she could spot him on the roof.

Peering up, she tried multiple angles but couldn’t see him. She didn’t always when he was up there replacing shingles, but she certainly heard him, and today, the estate was quiet. Quiet but not exactly peaceful. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but even outside, the wrongness of something lingered in the crisp autumn air.

A shiver skated up Molly’s spine, leaving an eruption of gooseflesh in its wake.

A threatening nicker echoed behind her.

Turning slowly, carefully, Molly came face to face with the unicorn. Bellarand.

He stood not five paces away, his great head lowered so those crimson eyes were level with her own. The wicked point of his long horn bobbed in the air, only a single lunge away from piercing her vulnerable throat.

Molly swallowed hard and held up her hands.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen the master of the house.”

A low rumble emanated from the unicorn’s thick neck, and he flicked his black tail.

She didn’t know why she felt defensive all of a sudden, nor why she felt the need to insist, “I wasn’t running away, I was looking for Allarion.”

The unicorn shook his mane, waving that horn at her menacingly, and began to paw the earth. He flicked his head at the house.

“Fine, fine,” she grumbled, “I’m going back in.”

Scowling at the overgrown guard pony, Molly retreated into the kitchen, careful to keep the unicorn in her sight until she was back inside. Although she liked the fresh air and view of the estate, she shut and locked the split door, just for good measure.

Rubbing a hand on her chest, over where her heart wanted to race right out of her ribs, Molly paced around the kitchen. When that didn’t settle her nervous energy, she threw herself into making a meal with the last of the food in the larder. She kept back crusts and peels and rinds, her uncertainty over when Allarion would return making nervous knots out of her guts.

Molly knew what it was to go hungry, and she’d promised herself never to be in that situation again.

As the day passed without hide nor hair of the fae, that anxiety and fear in her grew into anger. The fire in her belly was a relief—she’d much rather be angry. And fed.

Before she lost the sunlight altogether, she went looking for him again. All throughout the house, up to all the levels and back down again.

Nowhere.

She called his name, told him to call out and tell her where he was, if he was hurt.

Nothing.

Fuming and tired from her hike through the house, Molly stomped back toward her bedchamber.

She could make what food there was stretch another two days, three if she took only one meal. The thought of having to do so only brought painful memories, of scraping moldering bowls and gnawing rotten apple cores during the long days of plague that took her parents. Sequestered in their house by the town council for fear of spread, they weren’t allowed out until the fever had passed or everyone inside was dead.

Molly spent nearly a month raiding her family’s meager stores, eating the weeds growing in the flowerboxes and boiling leather strips from their shoes. Sometimes she didn’t have an appetite from the smells emanating out of her parents’ room, where she’d left them prone in their bed weeks before. But most of the time, her hunger ate at her, and she spent her days finding things to put in her belly.

When she’d finally emerged from that house, pockmarked, bony, orphaned, she’d vowed to never know hunger like that again.

Molly indulged in food whenever she could, the comfort of a full belly something she couldn’t resist. Her uncle may have scolded and berated her for it, Nora may have made snide comments about her figure because of it, but Molly didn’t care. A rumbling, empty stomach brought her to that house of death, a place she refused to go back to.

Planting her hands on her hips, she didn’t immediately go into her room. Instead, she scowled at the door he’d pointed out as his.

It was the one place she hadn’t checked yet.

As if it could sense her question, his door opened a crack.

He didn’t walk out to flash that sharp smile, even though Molly stood glaring at the door long enough to wait him out.

When he still didn’t appear, she stole down the corridor, easing her angry stomps to instead creep silently to the cracked open door. She grasped the handle but held still just outside, listening.

Nothing.

No moving, no breathing.

Utterly confused and more than a little frustrated, Molly opened the door and entered his bedchamber.

Inside was as rich and sumptuous as the library. Heavy curtains draped from the windows across the room, and an expansive rug shot through with red and gold thread covered the floor. The drapes had been pulled closed on two sides of the massive four-post, canopied bed, creating a cave of velvet and silk.

Within the darkness of the room, laying motionless on the bed, was Allarion.

He lay supine, hands folded neatly on his abdomen.

Molly crept closer, daring to whisper his name. “Allarion?”

Nothing.

The closer she drew, the more she could discern from the meager light of the corridor. His long hair spilled across his pillow, falling over the side of the bed. His sharp nose and proud chin jutted up at the canopy. He was clothed in a loose shirt and linen braies, leaving his lower legs and feet bare.

He had no body hair—not on his chest, not on his legs.

And she’d never seen his feet before. She didn’t know what she’d expected—hooves? Claws? That they were fairly ordinary in shape—perhaps a little large, with prominent bones like the rest of him—was more shocking than if he’d had taloned bird feet.

Her gaze skated up his body to his chest and—

He wasn’t breathing.

Molly lurched forward, just catching herself on the edge of the bed. Her fingers sank into a plush silk coverlet, the softest she’d ever touched. It was dark, but she thought it was perhaps an amethyst purple.

Like his eyes.

This close, she could tell for certain he didn’t breathe. His chest didn’t rise and fall. His eyes didn’t twitch behind their closed lids. He just…lay there.

Her guts knotted tighter.

Had he died in his sleep?

Did fae die?

Did they die in their sleep?

She didn’t know, and not knowing had frustrated tears pricking her eyes.

Hand trembling, she reached out to just barely touch his neck. When she felt nothing, she pressed a little harder to his skin.

Molly felt no pulse.

Yet, he was as warm as he usually was.

If he’d died, he’d only just done so.

Muttering a curse, Molly held her breath as she prodded his cheek and then his temple. His head rocked to the side and then straightened.

He didn’t move. Not even a twitch.

What in all the hells is this?

All this scheming and effort to get her here and he just goes and dies —

I’m watching you, vermin. You think you are safe up there, but I watch.

The bottom fell out of Molly’s stomach, and she gasped, rearing away from the dead fae.

That voice—it was in her head! And it wasn’t hers!

You can run run run, but I will chase.

It wasn’t Allarion’s voice, either.

A whimper fell from her lips.

The house creaked at her noise of distress.

With a yelp, Molly ran from the dark bedchamber, feet pounding on the floorboards.

That’s right, run run run—

The door of her room opened for her, and Molly careened inside.

I like it when you run, when you beg—

“Stop it!”

Tears streamed down Molly’s face as she turned in circles in the center of her room. The house creaked, the shingles rattling.

Molly grabbed for her nearest bag and began shoving clothes into it.

She had to get out. Whatever this was, whatever spoke to her, it was evil. Wrong. Something was wrong with this place, with everything, and she needed—

Molly skidded to a stop before the window.

In the haze of dusk, she watched a large form skirt the edge of the forest.

Bellarand.

The unicorn patrolled the estate, his red eyes casting a glow in the growing darkness.

Molly dropped to the ground when she thought his head swung toward her window. Clutching the bag to her chest, she crammed herself into a corner, putting her back to the wall.

Come out, come out, come play, the voice taunted.

Trapped. Molly was trapped, in a haunted house that spoke, with a dead fae and murderous unicorn. Without food.

Another whimper escaped her, and Molly buried her head in her hands. “No, no, no,” she groaned.

Oh, yes.