Chapter 36

ChapterThirty-Six

“No, I’m absolutely not going to try that.” Thea shoved the plate back toward Nora. “You know how I feel about anything coming out of the sea.”

“You grew up next to the sea. You should be able to eat anything that comes out of it.” Nora pushed the plate back toward her. “It’s rice, salmon, and seaweed. You shouldn’t mind eating any of that!”

“It’s the seaweed.” Thea tried very hard not to gag at the thought. “It’s unnatural. We shouldn’t be eating something that smells like it’s rotten.”

“It doesn’t smell at all!” The way the housekeeper laughed should have been a warning that the other woman was teasing her. But Thea couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horrifying mixture of all the things she didn’t like.

Well, she didn’t mind rice. But she wanted nothing to do with the horrible seaweed that she was certain had been plucked out of a puddle and thrown into a basket.

Nora shook her head, still laughing. “Well, it’s what we’re having for dinner. It’s one of Alistair’s favorite dishes.”

She’d have to speak with him about that. He needed to stop eating rotten food if he wanted to live longer than a few more years. The damned man had no idea what danger he was putting himself in.

She opened her mouth to tell Nora exactly that, only for both of them to freeze as the temperature inside the house dropped. Thea blew out a warm breath and watched as it fogged in front of her face. Rolling fog tumbled down the stairwell and spilled into the kitchen.

“What’s all this?” she asked.

Though the housekeeper should have been able to respond, it appeared that even Nora didn’t know what to say. Her gaze was locked on the rolling vapor while she whispered, “This used to happen when the old master was angry. The whole house would frost over, inside and out. It would take us days to fix once it thawed. But it’s never done this while Alistair was master of the house.”

Was Alistair that angry? She couldn’t imagine what might have angered him but then remembered their last conversation when they were teenagers. She’d seen him angry then and decided maybe it was possible for him to be a little unreasonable.

Sighing, she leveraged herself away from the table and started toward the mist. “Someone has to go talk to him, then.”

“I’d leave him alone if the house is reacting like this, Thea. Give him time.”

She could. And maybe if he had aged like his father, then she would have let Alistair steep in his sadness and anger. But he wasn’t Balthazar, and he wasn’t like the rest of the Orbweavers either.

“I have been gone a very long time,” she mumbled, her eyes on the fog. “But I know the young man I met all those years ago is still very much inside of him. I know Alistair, as I know the young woman inside myself that has never really grown up. Not without him.”

The last bit slipped off her tongue unbidden. She hadn’t meant to reveal so much, especially to Nora. The housekeeper was kind, but she was loyal to Alistair first and foremost.

Nora sighed. “As I told him when we first realized who you were, people change, my dear. You don’t know the man upstairs, just like he doesn’t know you.”

She brought her brows down in determination and curled her hands into fists at her sides. “Then perhaps it’s time for us to have a conversation about how different the both of us have become.”

To start, she’d show him she wasn’t afraid of magic anymore. Well, she might be a little afraid. But Thea didn’t run. She would fight whatever dark magic had sunk its claws into him and this house because that was the right thing to do. Even if it terrified her.

The mist felt like frozen shards of ice against her ankles and knees as she stalked through it and up the stairs. The magic dug underneath her skirts, clawing at her legs as though it didn’t want her to find Alistair.

“Well, I’m going to,” she snapped at the mist. “Now, where is your master?”

Perhaps she was startled by the magic that lived in this house, or maybe she had given herself enough courage to walk through it, but it seemed as though the mist had flattened a bit. Thea stomped toward the stairs, ready to barge into his bedroom if need be. But when she paused at the base of them, she heard a noise from the library.

The faint rustling might have been anything, but then there was a thud that was a little too loud to be anyone other than the master of the house. A furious one, at the sounds of it.

Thea changed course, and she knew she’d gone in the right direction by a certain familiar waiting outside the door.

“Atlas,” she said with a soft smile. “How lovely to see you. And here I was, wondering if you had disappeared.”

The raven gave her a glare and then snapped at her fingers when she reached out to pet him.

“Well, it’s not my fault I’ve been gone.” She frowned at him. “Your master could have reached out just as easily.”

The raven puffed up, all his thorns on display.

She might have stayed to argue with him if she hadn’t heard another sound from inside the library. Let the bird argue if he wanted, but she refused to hesitate any longer.

Thea opened the door in time to see Alistair with his hands braced against his desk. He’d rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his shirt at least three buttons. His back moved with deep breaths as though he were trying to get a hold of himself.

Then he let out a sound that she could only describe as a roar, picked up a weight from the table, and launched it at the windows. The desk ornament was rather heavy, and the glass shattered as it struck the window. Tiny shards rained down on the bushes outside, and some splintered back into the house. She’d have to take care of that, considering there were no other maids.

“Well, that was quite dramatic,” she said.

Thea didn’t know what else to say. Alistair spun on her, and she’d never seen him quite so angry. Rage had turned his cheeks red, and his slicked-back hair had been tousled. Now, the locks were all over the place in every direction, as though he’d been struck by lightning.

Still breathing hard, he shook his head at her. “Not now, Thea.”

“If not now, then when?”

“When I’m not quite so angry and less likely to say something I’ll regret.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and turned away from her. “Time, Thea. That’s all I’m asking for.”

“More time to throw things?”

“More time to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do.” He spat out the words as though he were shooting arrows at her. “This is not something you can help with.”

Wasn’t it, though? He thought she couldn’t help, and maybe the situation was so dire that throwing paperweights through windows was the only sensible thing to do. Thea simply refused to believe that. She could leave and let him deal with this on his own, but she could see how tired he was in the curve of his shoulders.

Alistair had been alone long enough, she decided.

She took the risk that he didn’t want her to take. Thea crossed the room and grabbed onto his hand.

Alistair tried to pull it away, but he paused when he looked into her eyes and saw her holding onto him with a white-knuckled grip. He had to see what was in her eyes. Surely he knew it tore her apart to see him so angry and not know how to help.

“Sit down,” she said. “Let me make you a pot of tea. Nothing is so broken that it cannot be fixed with peppermint tea and a healthy spoonful of honey.”

He opened his mouth, clearly preparing to yell at her, but then she saw the anger filter out of him in one slow exhale. He nodded. With a quiet acceptance that she was here with him, Alistair leaned against his desk and waved an imperious hand in the air. “Go on, then.”

“You will not leave or throw more things while I get tea?”

“No.”

She rushed out of the room for a steaming pot. Nora usually had one at the ready, just in case anyone wanted a sip. She gathered all that up without a word on a tray with two teacups, plenty of sugar, and a small box of tea that had been left on the counter.

By the time she made it back to the library and makeshift office, she was startled to find Browning sitting on the table beside Alistair. The two appeared deep in conversation, one-sided as it might be, but both looked over at her as she walked in.

Thea kicked the door shut behind her and set the tray on the desk. “I grabbed whatever tea was on the table, to be honest. And I couldn’t find the honey.”

She hadn’t even tried to look. However, Browning opened up his mouth, tilted his head all the way back, and froze in that position while the two of them looked at him.

“What’s he doing?” Alistair asked.

“Tea,” she answered honestly.

“Ah. Right, he did this to me once before.” Alistair grimaced but still reached into the toad’s mouth and pulled out a small can of peppermint tea with bright lilies painted on the sides, followed by a honey pot in the shape of an egg. “Perfect, Browning. Thank you.”

Her familiar looked all too impressed with himself. He hopped off the table and made his way to the broken window, which he then leapt out of with all the grace of a swan. Why? She had absolutely no idea.

“Where’s he off to, I wonder,” she muttered before turning back to the steaming teapot and cups.

She made quick work of cleaning the slime away from their newly acquired tea and honey while Alistair moved behind the desk and started lighting a fire in the now clean fireplace. His hands moved as though he’d done it a thousand times before. They both finished at about the same time, then turned to look at each other with more awkwardness than she deemed appropriate.

Thea had to fix it, and quickly. The only way she knew how to do that was by making everything feel a little ridiculous.

She lifted the tray, set it down on the floor in front of the fire, and sat down with a flop. Then she pointed at the desk chair and said, “Bring that over for yourself. You seem like you’ve had a trying day and should be more comfortable than you would be seated on the floor.”

“I can sit with you.”

“I insist.”

He gave her a look but dragged the chair screeching over the mahogany floors to a halt in front of her. Then he sat and lifted his brows.

“That’ll do.” She handed him over the teacup and blew on her own. “So, what was it that upset you?”

The long sigh that wheezed out of him was enough dramatics for her. She thought he’d try to brush it away, and yet, Alistair didn’t.

He sighed and relented. “There is a man at the Academy, another professor, and he made some threats today. Not just against myself, but against you. I am trying to figure out the best way to address those threats.”

“Oh.” Well, that was surprising. “I’m just a maid.”

“He knows that, but he also knows that you are a direct way of harming me. If he made any threat toward you, that is not something I can or will ignore.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. “I don’t know why he’d think that. You and I haven’t seen each other in ten years, and no one knew that we ever talked. To him, I must be nothing more than a new staff member. And to you, I am an unfortunate employee whose resume you did not read.”

At least, that’s what they had both told each other she was.

Alistair let out a little noise that came from the back of his throat, not quite a grunt, but something similar. He sipped his tea and muttered into the cup, “That’s the story we cling to, yes.”

Oh, he couldn’t change it now. He couldn’t give her that hope when she had only begun to let it go. She curled her fingers around the teacup in her hands. “Alistair, why would he think otherwise?”

He didn’t answer that question. Instead, he only gave her more questions. “You have every reason to hate me, Thea. Every reason. My family was the one who started the fires. The ones who came up with the spell that destroyed your city. My father was the villain behind all of this and more. So much more.”

“I don’t hate you.” She had said so in a moment of passion, but Thea had never been able to force herself to feel that hate. He was part of her. Hating him would be like hating herself. “I never did.”

Something drained out of him like she’d drilled a hole into the bucket that held all his anger. Alistair drained the tea that must have been boiling hot and curved forward over his knees. He let the cup hang from his fingertips by the handle, dangling over the floor as the remaining drops dripped out.

He looked like a man defeated. But she knew in her heart that he didn’t feel that way. Not when her own chest pounded with hope.

Finally, he looked up at her through the floppy locks of his hair. “I thought of you,” he said. “Every day.”

Breath caught in her chest, and tears pricked her eyes. Thea hadn’t realized how badly she wanted to hear him say that. He hadn’t forgotten her. Yes, this job had been a mistake to hire her, but... He hadn’t forgotten.

She set her teacup on the floor, set his beside hers, and reached for his hands again. Thea held onto him with a strength she hoped belayed her emotions even as she met his gaze. “I never forgot you, Alistair Orbweaver. But that doesn’t mean I should be your weakness. Not to this man or any other.”

He didn’t respond. Alistair looked down at their hands and freed one of his. He then flipped her left hand over and gently traced the shadow of a ring on her finger. Every feather light stroke warmed her chest. His touch spread through her belly until she swore a fire waited to consume her.

Carefully he traced the lines of her palm, each symbol there that marked a long life, good health, and a love that remained fractured for many years.

“I told myself if I ever saw you again, that I would show you everything. I would face my fears, my father, the family that dragged me down. And that if you would step foot in this home again, that I would never let you go.” He smoothed his thumb over their ring, their promise, one more time. “In the long years since seeing you, in losing them all, I thought I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy. Now, I catch myself smiling and I realize it’s because I’m thinking of you again. I cannot deny you anymore, Thea, not when you are so entangled in what I believe is happiness.”

She leaned forward with every word until she could feel his breath on her lips. The heat from his body flooded into hers, and oh, how she’d longed for this moment. A moment when they could both let go of the weight of old chains. Again, after all these years, a moment like this made the world fall away.

It was just Thea.

Just Alistair.

No families, no threats, no world other than the two of them and the feeling of her heart thudding in her chest.

He swallowed hard. “I have to show you something, Thea. Something I myself have been frightened to look at while knowing that it might mean I am not worthy of you.”

“What could possibly make you unworthy of me?” A shiver trailed down her spine, however.

Alistair stood, drawing her up to her feet as well, while he still held onto her hands. “My father trapped a spirit in the basement, and I fear it could very well be a god. He certainly thought it was. That is where all the dark magic comes from. The mist. The shadow spiders. All of it. He trapped a god in the basement and tortured it for more power. And I have been too afraid to face it since the house was turned over to me.”

Thea’s heart stuttered again for a very different reason. But she would not allow fear to stop them for one more moment. Not even a second.

She squeezed his hands, then drew herself up straight and tall. “Shall we meet the god of this house then, Alistair? I believe a few apologies are in order.”