Chapter 47

Mere hours before the sun rose, exhaustion vibrating bone deep, we crept back into the apartment. Orin held me against the wall, every kiss, every promise leaving his lips in a husband's creed. But when I managed to open the door, a tiny child and her loyal dog lay curled together in my bed.

Orin blocked the door when I tried to walk back out. "She wouldn't have come here if she wasn't waiting for you."

My heart sank. The last time she'd been taken, she'd begged me to lie with her and keep her safe. I couldn't imagine how scared she must have felt to have come to my room, even after… Hollis.

"I'll see you in the morning?" I whispered.

He nodded with an unmistakable look of longing, leaving me to crawl into the bed beside Quill as slowly as I could, though Boo still perked his little head up, ears long enough to remain on the blankets.

Quill peeked a sleepy eye open and said, "You weren't here."

"I wasn't far, Quilly. I promise."

"I'm sorry I got mad at you. I'm still sad, though."

Tucking a wild brown curl behind her ear, I whispered, "I'm sad, too."

"You had to do it?"

I lay for several minutes, tracing lazy circles into Boo's patch of white fur as I considered an age-appropriate response. I didn't think it would do Quill any favors to shelter her from this twisted world, but equally, she needed to be able to close her eyes at night.

"There was a choice. Either what happened, or I would have to do everything the Maestro says for the rest of my life. Anyone he got mad at or if he wanted to put on a show, I would have to kill them, just because he said so. He would have been able to give me any name tomorrow and I wouldn't have been able to stop it. And then your family would have remained under contract with him. And now they're free."

She cupped her little hand over my cheek, eyes falling heavy as she whispered, "Our family."

We stoodat the foot of the fresh grave, the damp earth beneath my boots sending a shiver up my spine. Orin remained at my side, one hand tightly gripping mine, the other holding Quill's, a silent pillar of strength in the midst of shared sorrow. Elowen held a bouquet of dark lilies, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

The chilly morning had cast a shroud of fog over the graveyard, and the city lay in slumber, as if mourning alongside us. With Althea and Paesha planted directly across from us, something here felt like peace, even if it was truly torture to speak our final goodbyes.

I'd perched on a rooftop near Tolliver's Pointe and watched the funerals of my victims more times than I could count. But I'd never truly understood the raw pain and heartbreak until this morning, when we'd walked away with absolutely nothing beyond the finality of Hollis's life and the simple pocket watch Orin had tucked into his own coat.

I'd thought maybe something in our private funeral would be soothing, a balm, but there was nothing there beyond the visceral pain etched into the faces of those crowded around.

Collectively, we'd decided to move back to the Syndicate house, come what may with Drexel Vanhoff. We needed to let our lives move forward. And maybe he'd owned the world, but they were free of him now, and the only way they would ever truly feel that was if they stopped hiding.

When we approached, I'd expected the door to be hanging off the hinges, the whole place to be ransacked by Drexel's henchmen, out to deepen the wound, but no one had come. Nothing lay in shambles, and the weapons in Thea's forge hadn't even been touched. But that had been its own statement. He'd come eventually. It would be on his time. Which was fine, because Chaos and Serenity would be waiting.

"It's weird," Paesha said as she pushed the door open. "Even before the Maestro, I'd lived on a schedule he'd crafted. When Ezra would have to report to shows, when I'd danced at Misery's End by choice, but now, I don't know what to do with myself."

Thea nodded. "The magic is gone, and the only thing I want to do is go to the forge and work. For myself. For us."

"A new routine will come," Elowen said, pushing the door open. "We just need some inspiration."

"And a hot bath," Paesha added, climbing her way up the stairs. "I'm going to sleep. No one wake me for at least a week."

"I'm going to bed, too," Quill said, pulling Boo behind her.

Orin waited until her door shut to say anything. "We need to do something for her, or I'm worried Hollis's death is going to be so damaging she will never fully recover."

"No one fully recovers from death, son. We just learn to breathe with it in the room."

"When do we get to breathe again?" Thea asked, leading us out of the entry hall and into the sitting room. "Because right now it feels like never."

Elowen patted her leg as she sat beside her. "It will come, Althea, I promise."

"What about the Life Maiden?" I asked from the door. "Why don't we all shift focus to finding her? Give Quill a new purpose."

"I was thinking more like a horse or something," Orin said.

"I think you might have to accept that the Life Maiden is truly not here, Deyanira. Maybe there was too much corruption in the world for her to be born."

I shook my head. "It just doesn't make sense. I am her counterpart. We are the cost for each other. How can I exist and not her?"

Orin wrapped an arm around me. "I know how much this means to you, Dey. Maybe we take a few days to make sure Drexel isn't sitting around waiting, and then we head to the library in Perth. See if we can find some answers. Probably not where the Life Maiden is, but we could try to follow history back to the end of the wars and see what we can learn about the first one."

"That's something, I guess."

We sat in silence for several moments before Thea jumped up and ran out of the room, calling over her shoulder. "I know what we need."

"Was that a complete thought?" I called after her.

She came back, holding one of Elowen's pans.

"Thea," the older woman warned, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. "Thea, don't you dare."

She smiled excitedly, her freckles distorting as she scrunched her nose. "I'll turn it back, I promise."

"Last time you said that, I ended up with three knives instead of the four you started with."

Thea looked at me, but I threw my hands up defensively. "I haven't stolen a knife in forever."

"You're supposed to back me up here, Dey. This is important."

"Fine. I stole the knife for overnight snacking in my room."

"Real convincing." Orin smirked. "Great team player, this one."

"Can we please get back to the brilliant idea?" I asked, jutting my chin toward the pan in Althea's hand.

"Yes," she said as she rubbed a palm over the flat side of the skillet, then spun it until it changed into a building before our eyes.

"It'll take me a little while to work out the logistics, but we could let Quill help with the artwork, and we'd need to figure out the water, but…"

"A bathhouse," I breathed, peeking through the large arched windows to the sunken craters in her imagined floor. "Could you really manage it?"

"That's a big project, Althea."

But Orin plucked the metal box from her hands, spinning it to take in the details. "We could pump water from the river if we dig a trench at an angle, and if we used the forge and the right piping, the fire could double as a heating element for the water."

"I can handle design and all the pipework. We'd just need glass for windows and stone for the floor. Everything else can be metal." Thea bounced on her toes, so excited it was contagious.

"Imagine," Elowen said. "Our own bathhouse."

"We could even run a pipe to the kitchen for hot water," Orin added. "You'd have to pump a lever to get it here, though, but I bet Thea could figure it out."

Orin's mother sighed. "Keep the pan, Thea. It'll be a worthy loss."

Althea was a genius.At breakfast the next day, she'd introduced the idea to Quill and convinced her she was going to need a lot of help with the design. The kid took it very seriously, stealing all the paper she could find in the house to jot down her ideas until they'd settled on a plan together. Paesha joined the plan-making, and by the time Orin and I slipped away a few days later, they were already thoroughly distracted from the loss of Hollis. Quill had cried a few times before bed, but I'd diligently climbed in with her and Boo, staying well beyond the rhythmic snoring. Lying beneath the silver moon shining into Quill's bedroom, for the first time in a long time, I felt like we were all going to be okay. And somehow, life was going to become simpler, though the lingering threat of Drexel still sat upon our minds.

"Look at this one."Orin slid a book across the long wooden desk at the library, leaving a streak in the dust. "It talks about the final battle."

Upon entering the library for the first time, he'd stumbled backward, out the door, and all the way to the street to stare up at the old building again, just to make sure it was in fact the library and not an abandoned temple. We figured it had been at least a decade since anyone had been here. And while it smelled of old wax and leather binding, the decay had started creeping in, eating at the wooden floors, vines breaking through the windows to creep up the walls. Thea decided once they finished the bathhouse, this would be her next adventure. And there was a promise in that. A way to help the world we could all be a part of, even if we never found the Life Maiden. But still, we tried to make sense of it all.

I thumbed through the ancient pages, relying on the dim light of several candles as I turned each page tenderly, reading of bloodshed and loss while Orin stared at me intently. His heated gaze was more distracting than he'd likely planned for it to be.

"It's weird because the way this is written, it seems like the gods were still involved in these battles. And the world, so much larger than just Perth and Silbath."

"I thought so, too," Orin said, shoving another book at me. "But look at this."

"I've seen this before." I ran my fingers over the map. "It's the same one from Drexel's office."

"Right. Two cities."

"But the temples are all named here. As if the gods were still around." Closing the book, I set it in the pile of things we'd found useful. "My father always told me when we were at war, the gods had abandoned us, and Death came and gifted everyone a hundred years of immortality in order to save us from each other."

"According to these books, the gods hadn't abandoned us at the end of the war. That happened later."

"But why?"

Orin sighed, stretching, leaning so far back in the chair that the hem of his shirt lifted, showing a glimpse of his muscled body and dark veins. "I guess that's a question for another day. Let's go see how the others are doing. I'm exhausted."

Rubbing my eyes, I nodded. "Me, too. And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if this is a lost cause."

"Of course, it is. If she could have been found, I think Paesha would have done it by now."

"You don't have to come, Orin. I don't mind doing this by myself."

He circled the table, closing the distance to rub my shoulders. "It's important to you that we exhaust all our options. So that's what we'll do. If you told me you wanted to find a way to reach the moon, I'd be here for that, as well. Your desires are mine because you are mine, Wife. And then, when all else fails, we'll find something else to occupy our time."

Standing, I spun to wrap my arms around him. "What did you have in mind?"

Something dark crossed his face as his dangerous gaze raked over my body. "Nothing decent. I can promise you that."

"Thank the gods. I hate decency."

He stroked a finger over my bottom lip, heating me thoroughly. "I was hoping you'd say that." Brushing a gentle kiss on my lips, he grabbed my thighs and lifted me onto the desk, deepening the kiss until every part of my body answered to his touch.

When he gripped my throat, before sliding his hands back, holding the dark waves of my hair to bring me closer, I moaned against his mouth. We'd been alone here before. We'd taken these moments for stolen kisses, but he always stopped. Always pulled away.

This time, when he broke the connection, I snagged his shirt and brought him forward again. Maybe he wasn't ready to cross that line with me. Maybe he was still trying to work through it all, but I was so ready for him. Desperate for him, even. Each night, I ached for him. Dreamed of him opening the door to my room and crawling into my bed. But he never did.

With Orin's body pressed to mine, I could tell he was hard for me. I knew he wanted more than passionate kisses in an old library. The way he clenched his fist at his side, the way he held his breath. He was holding back.

"What's wrong?"

"You'll never understand it." His strained whisper intertwined with his breath hot on my collarbone as he kissed my neck. "I've spent a lifetime reining myself in, controlling everything around me. Every move I've made. But this is a new kind of torture."

Drawing back, I took in the pain on his face. "Why?"

"Both of the villains in this world want you. And it's made me believe that maybe there are three."

"Icharius and Drexel… who is the third?"

"Me. Because should any harm come to you, Deyanira, I will become the thing of nightmares. I will bring this world to wreckage. It's the only thing I can give you. My only promise."

I reached for his face, stroking the smooth, hard edges, staring into the depth of his amber eyes. "I can protect myself. I don't need anything more than this, Orin. Only you. All of you."

He grabbed the back of my neck and jerked me forward, controlling everything as he kissed me once more, full of possession and steeped in desire. "You don't know what you're asking for."

I locked my hands behind his neck. "I know exactly what I'm asking for. What are you so afraid of?"

He smirked, a glint in his eyes as he leaned his head against mine. "Whatever this is, it's not fear. It's fucking obsession. It's the chase. The capture. The godsdamned overturn of everything I thought I knew about what a man and woman should be. I want to savor every moment for eternity. I won't rush, because the craving, the anticipation, is intoxicating. I will drag these moments out for as long as I can because once we cross that bridge, Wife, we burn it to the ground and never look back. Nothing else will matter to me."

A smile played on my lips. "That sure of yourself?"

He growled, biting my earlobe until a shiver crept down my spine. "I'm not just sure; I'm absolutely, irrevocably, and undeniably certain that when I take you, we will be lost to each other for the rest of time."

And though I wanted nothing more than to believe every promise he delivered so perfectly, he'd all but admitted he was holding himself back. This marriage was born of beautiful lies, yet even flowers couldn't escape the taint of poison in a seed. There was more to Orin's story than what he'd allowed himself to share.