by Theresa Kay
“Not really. I’m bored out of my mind,” I say, leaning a little closer. Why risk making a bigger fool of myself and asking a stranger, when I have someone right here? “And can you, please, tell me where I can find a restroom?”
He laughs, head back, mouth open. “I am certainly capable of helping you find the restroom.” He pushes open a door I hadn’t noticed in the back of the alcove and gestures toward the hallway behind it. “Take your first left, and it should be the second room on the right after that.”
Without even thanking him, I rush into the dim hallway and the door closes behind me, taking all the noise of the party with it.
I follow Charles’s directions. Or I think I do, but the room I find is some sort of sitting room, definitely not a bathroom.
Could Charles have given me false directions? What would be the point? Maybe just to be an asshole like Adrian says all his family members are.
Glancing up and down the hall, I take stock of my surroundings. There has to be a bathroom around here somewhere.
I take slow steps, eyeballing each door I pass. They all look rather . . . stately? Ornate? None of them look like a bathroom would be behind them. I turn a corner only to find myself facing another long hallway. This place is like a freaking maze. Even if I find my way to a bathroom by myself, how in the hell am I going to find my way back?
I guess I’ll have to leave that problem for ‘later me.’
It takes another fifteen minutes, but eventually I locate a bathroom tucked into the far end of a narrow hallway and find some relief. I wash my hands, exit the bathroom, then glance up and down the corridor. Lovely. I have no idea where I am. Apparently ‘later me’ isn’t any more equipped to find my way back to the party, not unless I want to use the talisman, something I’d rather save as a last resort.
Finding a large, noisy group of people can’t be that difficult even in a house this big, right? I walk to the end of the hall and look to either side, then pick a direction and start walking—I think—back the way I came from.
A few more turns have me in yet another hallway, but in this one I’m not alone. About halfway down, there’s a woman standing and staring up at a painting on the wall. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask for directions.
“Hello? Excuse me?” I call out.
The woman turns and I recognize Thea Andras, her expression undecipherable. There’s everything from anger to guilt moving across her features like a slide show. Much like Tristan, she pushes away the emotions and settles on an expression blander and more composed.
“Guests are not supposed to be in this part of the house,” she says.
I cringe. I wasn’t even snooping around yet and I’ve already gotten caught. “Yes, I, uh, realize that. I got a little turned around and . . .”
She arches an eyebrow.
“I was looking for the restroom, which I found. And now I have no idea how to get back.” My gaze goes to where she was looking when I first came over, and I have to stifle a sharp inhale. Another portrait, this time of Helen by herself, maybe in her late twenties, which if my math is correct, isn’t too long before she got pregnant with me.
“She’s beautiful,” I blurt out, my still somewhat champagne-loosened tongue not giving me time to get my brain fully in gear with this conversation.
“This is the last picture I have of her,” says Thea absentmindedly. The blandness drops from her face to be replaced with a flash of pain. She reaches a hand out to the painting and trails a finger along its edge.
“It’s your daughter, right? The picture?” Curse my stupid, stupid mouth.
She narrows her eyes, suspicious—or maybe just curious and I’m being paranoid. “You’re here with the St. James boy, yes?”
“Yes,” I reply, not entirely sure what that has to do with anything.
“Are you a student at Ravencrest as well?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze passes over me, assessing. “Are you a scholarship student?”
Well, if I had any doubts as to whether or not I was fitting in here, I guess I have my answer.
“Something like that.” I eye the painting. “My birth mother arranged for me to go to Ravencrest.”
She nods, thoughtfully. “You are not someone I would expect Tristan to associate with. Or, perhaps, not someone Bernadette would allow him to associate with.”
I barely conceal a snort. “Oh, she doesn’t. But Tristan . . . he’s . . . we’re . . . I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Yes, well, be careful. His family has quite an interesting reputation, and I’m not certain if his is much better.” She smiles, a small, secret thing. “Are you enjoying the party?”
I don’t manage to conceal my wince. “It’s not really my type of thing . . .”
“These parties were never Helen’s thing either. She much preferred to be out in the woods, surrounded by nature.” A sad look passes over Thea’s face, but she wipes the expression away with a strained smile. “If you would like, I can show you to the library so you can have some time to yourself before returning to the party?”
“I’d like that. Thank you,” I reply. The urge to identify myself is on the tip of my tongue, but it doesn’t feel right yet. Not completely. At least my grandmother seems like a normal person and not a crazy woman like Tristan’s mom.
As I follow Thea to the library, she gestures to various paintings or pieces of furniture along the way, giving me a brief history or bits of trivia about them. I can’t say I find it all that interesting, but I smile and nod anyway.
She finally stops in front of a set of large double doors and opens them, revealing a library straight out of Beauty and the Beast. The entire room is bookshelves from floor to ceiling, and there’s even one of those rolling ladder things.
“Wow,” I say.
“Helen helped design this place. It was my daughter’s refuge from our parties—and the world in general. If she wasn’t running the grounds, this is where she would be, curled up in front of the fire or the window with a book in her hands.” She pauses, studying me from the corner of her eye.
“It’s lovely, really. I mean, I like books.” I internally wince at the idiocy coming out of my mouth.
She smiles softly and nods. “When you’re ready to return to the party, all you need to do is follow this hallway down to the end and take a right. That will bring you out into the foyer where you arrived.”
“Uh, thanks,” I say.
She waits for a beat, as if expecting me to say more, then smiles again before quietly shutting the door behind her and leaving me alone to the massive library.
I trace a finger along a row of book spines, letting my mind wander. Did Helen ever do this? How with all these books to choose from did she ever pick one to read? Did she have a favorite? Maybe a classic or a steamy romance?
I love my parents, and I’m glad Helen gave me up. I wouldn’t be who I am if she hadn’t, but there’s still this sense of loss when I think about her. I’ll never know what types of books she liked or what her favorite color was or what type of mom she would have been. Because I’ll never know her. My eyes burn, and I have to swallow back a lump in my throat.
There’s another painting at the back of the room and I make my way toward it, continuing to run my finger over the books as I go. This portrait, another one of Helen alone, is taller than I am and takes up most of the wall. She’s shown in profile sitting in a window seat with a book propped up in her hands and her gaze directed out the window. She looks around my age, and the resemblance between us is strong enough to make me wonder if Thea might not have realized exactly who I am. She was awfully nice to me for thinking me a stranger.
And there’s also something else about the painting that I can’t quite put my finger on . . .
I wander closer, my head tilted to the side. When I reach the picture, I extend a hand and brush a finger over the canvas. Leaning closer, I examine the scene outside the window and recognize one of the topiaries I saw by the s
ide of the house earlier. So, the painting was done here at the house, in a place she looks quite comfortable. Where might this window seat be?
The sudden urge to be where she was, even separated by decades, washes over me, and I instinctively reach for the necklace at my throat and brush my thumb over the stone. Nothing happens. A rush of disappointment floods my stomach. So much for Basil’s spell.
There’s a soft click, and part of the wall on the other side of the portrait moves inward. A door. I gently push it open on silent hinges, revealing a small room tucked into the space behind the wall.
The room is some sort of study or office with a lower ceiling and a cozier feel than the library outside. There are fewer books here, but the shelves are still filled. A little roll-top desk sits against the wall to the left of me, and the center of the room is taken up by a comfy-looking chaise stacked with pillows. The room is clearly unused, because unlike in the library itself, there’s a layer of dust over everything. Weird.
I move inside and shut the door behind me.
There are heavy curtains across the room in front of me, and pulling them back reveals the deep-set window seat from the painting. Does that mean this room was Helen’s? Is that why it isn’t used anymore?
Like outside in the library, something about that window seat calls to me, drawing me forward. A cloud of dust puffs out when I settle onto the cushions, resulting in a mild coughing fit. Once my lungs are back in working order, I stare out over the grounds of my grandparents’ house.
There’s nothing particularly special about the view. The lawn extends toward the large line of trees I saw when we arrived, but it’s too dark outside to see much more than that. Everything is pretty enough, but an instinct tells me that’s not what was important to her here.
I rest a hand against the cold glass, and a shiver runs through my body. Weird.
Or maybe not . . .
My hand still on the glass, I glance down at the bottom of the pane, half-hidden under the cushions, and see a single sigil, one we’ve only glossed over in class, but I know it all the same.
Conceal.
I brush my fingers over the sigil, getting that same shivery feeling I did from touching the window. Could it be a way to keep people outside from seeing in through the window? But sigils don’t work on inanimate objects . . . right?
The feeling of the paper fluttering under my fingers at the entry test flashes through my mind. Maybe the rules of sigil usage aren’t quite as straightforward as I’ve been told.
I hop out of the seat and pull the cushions away so I can get a closer look. Definitely Conceal. But what is it hiding here? Could there be more?
I walk the perimeter of the room with my hand trailing along the wall. When I reach the door, another sigil flares into sight. Conceal is drawn across the back of the door. I look over my shoulder at the rest of the room. Could that be why this place is empty and covered in dust? Can no one else find it? Could the sigil make people forget this room is here altogether or just make them unable to find it?
But then who painted the portrait? And what was Helen trying to hide?
Walking to the bookshelf, I take a closer look at the titles. The books seem normal enough. They’re on a variety of subjects, and none of them stick out to me as particularly odd.
I walk over to the roll-top desk and use the knob to open it. A stack of blank papers. A couple envelopes. A few old stamps. Once again, nothing that appears out of the ordinary.
I run my hand over the wood, and another sketched Conceal flares into sight, this one over a tiny drawer I’d either missed or hadn’t seen at all because of the sigil. I gently tug at the drawer. Stuck. I tug again, this time putting a little more effort into it. There’s a cracking sound, and the drawer flies out, nearly pulling completely away from the desk and landing on the floor.
The first thing I pull out is a slim notebook that looks like a journal. Blue leather cover, lined pages. But completely empty and unused. Why hide a blank journal?
Any other questions I might have get lost when I spot the stack of pictures that were underneath the journal. The one on top shows Helen standing between Uncle Connor and Mom, an arm flung over both their shoulders. They’re young, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and all three of them are grinning. And Connor . . . his eyes are warm with a glint of something more as his gaze focuses on Helen.
Could Connor be . . .?
No. He wouldn’t keep that big of a secret from me, and these pictures were taken at least a decade before Helen got pregnant.
I flip to the next picture. This one is of Helen and Mom, looking thick as thieves. And gloriously happy.
I do some quick math in my head. These were taken before George and Aileen got married. Was it before Helen went to Ravencrest? It must’ve been. Helen looks too young for it to have been after.
The next picture is of Connor and Helen. He’s kissing her on the cheek and their arms are wrapped around each other’s waists.
Where . . .
How . . .
Connor is a Born wolf, so he’s always been a shifter. How in the world did he come to know Helen so well? How did they meet? Is this what Burke meant when he told Vivian that Helen left me with the pack she was friends with when she was a teenager?
Why the hell didn’t Connor tell me? Hell, why didn’t Mom? All they said was Helen was a friend of the pack. They gave no indication at all that they were this close with Helen.
More pictures. Mom jumping off a rock into a lake with Helen close behind. The three of them lying on the ground with the picture taken from above. Connor and Helen, foreheads resting together, her hand on his cheek in an intimate pose that leaves no doubt in my mind that at one point they were much more than friends.
The next few pictures are of woods and forests and lakes and plants and trees. Close ups of flowers. The ice over a creek. More artsy. Then the pictures get weird. Plants I’ve never seen. A lake with water such a deep, dark blue that it’s almost purple. There’s something alien to them, as if they’re one step off from the world.
I reach the end of the pictures and set them to the side to pull out the last two things in the drawer: an envelope and a pressed purple flower.
Moving the flower closer, I hold it to my nose, the fresh floral scent a pleasant surprise. I twirl the stem between my fingers. The bright color isn’t the least bit faded and, except for the bloom being pressed almost flat, it could have been freshly picked an hour ago. Strange.
I set down the flower, and my attention moves to the envelope. Sliding my finger under the flap, I break the seal and then pull out the sheet of paper within. The lines written on the paper look like they might be a spell, but not one in any language I recognize. Even weirder is the sigil drawn at the bottom of the page, one I haven’t seen in any textbook, but that the place deep inside me recognizes.
And, combined with the strange spell, I don’t have much doubt as to one of the uses of a sigil called Seal. Could this be the binding spell used on me? It seems almost too simple of a spell to have such a big effect, and didn’t Isobel already discard the idea of a sigil being used because . . . I glance at the door, then the window, and then the tiny hidden drawer. Maybe there’s more to sigils than people realize.
If this is the binding spell then—
“This is not the time, Zeke,” says a muffled male voice from somewhere in the library on the other side of the wall. “We’re only here to observe, get an idea of security and defenses. We do not have approval to take any action.”
Zeke? Why is that name familiar?
“I know that, Teegan,” says a voice I recognize as it moves closer to where I’m standing, and the power of an alpha shifter tickles against my senses. Zeke. The shifter from the bonfire party. “I just hate being here and watching them flit around in their fancy clothes, with their perfect hair and vapid smiles.”
“You volunteered for this mission. You knew what was involved.”
“But I didn’t expect the St. Ja
mes brat to be here,” says Zeke, his voice dripping with rage. “That’s the part I can’t stand. He’s out there chatting away, acting like he doesn’t have a care in the world while Penny is stuck in a cell somewhere.”
I startle at the sound of my former friend’s name. Zeke knows Penny?
“And it won’t do her any good if you go around acting like a hotheaded idiot,” says Teegan. “Waiters might be practically invisible to these rich assholes, but not waiters who shoulder check a guest. You’re lucky he believed it was an accident.”
“I don’t get the point of all this subterfuge,” says Zeke. “We know the targets. Why can’t we just take care of them tonight?”
Targets? My breath stops in my chest, and my body goes cold. Are they talking about killing people?
“You know it’s not that simple,” says Teegan. “Acting impulsively is what got Penny caught. If she hadn’t—”
“You shut up about her,” snarls Zeke.
Someone growls, and then there’s a loud bang as one of the shifters is slammed against the wall—the one I’m standing right behind.
I jolt, and my heart races in my chest.
The two shifters have gone quiet, talking in hushed whispers I can’t make out. Maybe they’re leaving.
I inhale sharply as someone thumps a fist on the wall. Shit. This isn’t good.
Whoever is knocking on the wall does so in a line to the corner and back again, this time ending with a solid thump against the door to the hidden room.
“I told you I heard something,” says Zeke. “The wall is hollow here.”
“And I smell magic,” adds Teegan. He pauses. “Do you think someone’s back there?”
I slam my hand over my mouth to try to quiet my rapid breathing and slowly back away from the wall. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“I don’t know, but we need to get in this little hidey hole and find out,” says Zeke.
I glance frantically at the room around me. What the hell am I supposed to do? They can’t find me here. I somehow don’t think Zeke would be quite as friendly to me in this situation—nor would he stand there and let me hit him if I needed to fight my way out.
