Adalynn didn’t think he was talking about the peanut butter anymore.
Her body reacted to those words, and she recalled how close he’d been to her in the bathroom, how warm his breath had been on her skin, recalled the feel of his touch, the powerful energy he’d exuded—and the candles.
But the candles weren’t all—the window by the front door was intact this morning, as though it hadn’t been broken last night.
She dropped her gaze to the butter knife in her hand, brows creased as she dipped it back into the jar and added more peanut butter to her cracker. Her guilt at what she saw as excess lingered, but he’d insisted, and she wasn’t about to decline a second time—this was an opportunity she wasn’t likely to get again. Besides, she needed the nutrition as much as Danny did, so she could help him on his journey for as long as possible.
Adalynn ate a few more crackers; in her mind, the candles flickered to life in unison on a ceaseless loop, and she could almost feel their heat on her skin.
“What troubles you, Adalynn?”
Adalynn started; she hadn’t realized that she’d been sitting there fiddling with the cracker packaging and staring off blankly. “Nothing.” She twisted the package closed, reached across the table, and grabbed the lid to the peanut butter jar. Setting the knife aside, she screwed the lid onto the jar.
“It’s in your face. In your eyes.” He sat forward, leaning his arms on the table. “A great many things trouble you at every waking moment, I imagine, but there’s something bothering you more than the rest now. What is it?”
“The window,” she blurted.
“The window?” he asked flatly.
“By the front door. It’s not broken.”
“Good. I don’t need the wind blowing in rainwater to ruin my floor.”
Adalynn frowned. “But it was broken. I broke it.”
His brow creased infinitesimally. “I’ve not seen broken glass in the foyer. Perhaps you’re mistaken?”
“What?” Adalynn drew back, confused. “But you mentioned it last night, right before you brought us back in here.”
Merrick turned his gaze upward and drummed his fingers over his chin. “Ah, yes. I do recall. The repair was so simple it must’ve slipped my mind. No harm done.”
“Repair,” she repeated with undisguised disbelief. “I don’t know much about repairing windows, but there is no way that you could have repaired that overnight. There wasn’t even the faintest crack on the windowpane this morning. You would’ve had to at the very least have replaced that whole pane, and I doubt you just had one on hand.”
He shrugged. “I’ve a fondness for puzzles and a healthy supply of fast-drying glue.”
“That…that doesn’t make sense.”
“Think about everything going on beyond these walls,” Merrick replied. “Does anything in this world make sense?”
He was right. She couldn’t make sense of anything out there; none of it should’ve existed, none of it should’ve been real. But the window… She had broken it.
“What about the candles in the bathroom?” she asked, fresh warmth flooding her cheeks. There was no way to think about the candles without thinking about what had transpired between her and Merrick, and she guessed his mind was going to the same place. “How did they all light up at once?”
His expression faltered, but only long enough for her to wonder if it had happened at all.
“You were somewhat…flustered last night, Adalynn. You had the candles lit when I entered.”
“But I hadn’t. I only lit two of them.”
“Perhaps you’re just misremembering?”
“I told you what was happening out there, Merrick, and I wasn’t lying or exaggerating about any of it. There’s…I don’t know, magic in the world. It doesn’t make any sense, but it’s there. If you’re involved in that somehow, well…it doesn’t matter. I just…I need to know that Danny is safe.”
For the second time since she’d come downstairs, Merrick’s features softened. He reached forward and settled his hand over hers. His palm seemed to thrum with unseen energy, which zipped up her arm in a pleasurable thrill that nearly stole her breath. That faint, barely perceptible song entered her awareness again, a bit clearer than before but no less mysterious.
“Danny is safe here, Adalynn. As are you.” Just that quickly, Merrick withdrew his hand and stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, my routine has been disrupted. I’ve research to resume. Help yourself to more food.”
Before she could ask why his touch affected her like that—before she could respond at all—he strode out of the kitchen and vanished into the hallway, leaving her alone.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d somehow taken a part of her along with him.
Chapter Six
Adalynn grasped the patterned, velvety cloth in both hands and drew the curtains apart, allowing grayish light into the ballroom. She lowered her arms and stared through the tall window.
The rain hadn’t let up since it had begun yesterday. The puddles around the house were closer to ponds now; if the rain continued like this for much longer, it was possible the manor could be classified as a lakefront home. Thankfully, the building was on slightly higher ground, and the first story was raised about six feet from ground level.
The thunder and lightning had persisted, though their occurrences had become infrequent—and the lightning never seemed to strike near the house.
Adalynn found a certain beauty in the dreary weather; apart from the rumbling thunder, the storm was soothing. Despite that calming effect, she felt on edge—partly because she felt good. She couldn’t recall a single day passing without some degree of a headache or at least a bit of discomfort over the last few months. She felt perfectly…healthy, which was bizarre.
The rest of her unease was because of Merrick.
She’d been unable to shake her suspicions regarding him. There was far more to the man than he let on. She knew that was true about everyone, but it felt truer regarding him. He had some kind of magic, but she didn’t know enough about it to draw any concrete conclusions.
Neither she nor Danny had seen him since he left her in the kitchen yesterday morning. True to Adalynn’s word, she and her brother had occupied themselves in their room and kept away from both his study and his bedroom. Though Merrick had told them to help themselves to his food, Adalynn had reined Danny in, ensuring he ate only what she deemed a reasonable amount.
Adalynn didn’t care how crazy the rest of the world was right now, there were things here that didn’t add up. The front door window—which she’d checked for cracks again and found only smooth, unbroken glass—was only one of those things. The way he’d lit the candles was another. In fact, all the candles here were suspect—she’d used a few last night, and this morning noticed that none of them seemed to have burned down at all.
But that wasn’t all; his home was completely devoid of dust and dirt even though she hadn’t seen him dust or clean anything since she’d arrived, and everything here was in like-new condition despite its apparent age. And she hadn’t forgotten what she saw when she’d first looked in through the windows from outside—broken-down, dust-blanketed rooms, a far cry from the reality of the manor’s interior.
All that couldn’t be mere coincidence, couldn’t be the result of Adalynn losing her mind. And when she’d given him a chance to come clean, to tell the truth, he’d taken the escape route she’d left open—he’d avoided the matter entirely by saying she and Danny were safe.
How could she not take that as some sort of admission that he had magic at his command?
How am I even standing here considering all this rationally? Six months ago, this would’ve seen me committed to a psych ward for a mental evaluation.
Why wouldn’t she believe in magic after everything she’d seen?
And if Merrick was other…wouldn’t it be best to grab Danny and run, to face the storm rather than let her guard down and trust this man?
&n
bsp; Yet despite all she and Danny had been through, despite the supernatural things that now roamed the world, Adalynn did trust that Merrick wouldn’t hurt them. She felt it down in her bones, in her very soul. If Adalynn had to leave Danny with anyone, it would be Merrick. This late in the game, what more could she possibly do?
Nothing.
Her chest tightened, and she raised a hand to gently rub between her breasts as though it could erase the pain.
The world was big, and without modern technology, it felt impossibly larger. She slowed Danny down every time she suffered an episode. How long before she became a liability? How long before she slowed him down so much that she’d be placing him in danger rather than protecting him from it?
I’m already doing that. Every time I have a seizure, it forces him to choose whether to stay and protect me or to run and save himself—and Danny’s always going to stay.
This reprieve from the headaches, the dizziness, the seizures was just an unexpected lull in the storm—she was in the eye of the hurricane.
Sighing, Adalynn turned and stepped away from the window to look at the rest of the ballroom. Though the light provided by the open window wasn’t the best, it was enough to grant her a clearer view of many of the details that had been lost to her in the dark that first night.
The ceiling was made of the same golden oak as the floor, with thick borders around the edges of the room and encircling the lowered portions of the ceiling from which the three crystal chandeliers hung. Intricate designs were carved into the borders and the ceiling itself, including radial patterns around the bases of the chandeliers stylized like rays of sunlight. The frame of each of the tall windows extended beyond the top pane in an arch; those spaces were adorned with painted images of blue skies, clouds, and delicate flowers, adding brightness to the room. The walls were off-white, intersected between each window by gorgeously carved wooden pillars that ran from the floor to the ceiling borders.
She could just imagine the chandeliers above shining in the evening, casting their glow upon the polished wooden floors and ceiling. Their light would reflect upon the windows running along the length of the room. Music would fill the air, drifting through the side doors and into the garden where dancers would sneak away for a moment’s solace.
But those days were long gone.
Why did Merrick live in such a grandiose house? Why had he let the exterior fall into such disrepair?
She supposed none of that mattered.
The thumping of her boots echoed across the wide-open room as she walked to her pack. She crouched down, opened the zipper, and dug inside. She found what she was looking for closer to the bottom of the bag, carefully wrapped in one of her clean T-shirts—a cassette player. If not for Stranger Things, Danny wouldn’t have had a clue what the device was when Adalynn had discovered it in an abandoned pawn shop.
She hadn’t meant to take the cassette player. It was unnecessary; the batteries were better used in flashlights and other handheld tools that contributed to their survival.
They’d gone to the shop in search of supplies—camping equipment, knives, and guns, all of which had been picked clean—when she’d passed a small tower of cassette tapes with familiar names like Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky printed on the sides. Without thinking, she’d slipped them into her bag, along with one of the cassette players sitting in the bin beneath them—one that had a built-in speaker—and a pair of headphones.
Returning the T-shirt to her bag, Adalynn opened the player to check which tape was inside. Beethoven’s Greatest Hits. Snapping the player shut, she rewound the tape until she found the beginning of the song she wanted, stood, and walked to the piano. She set the player gently atop the closed fallboard and pressed play.
The hauntingly beautiful notes of Moonlight Sonata spilled from the speaker and drifted across the ballroom. Adalynn closed her eyes and raised her hands, her fingers moving in the air as though she were the one playing as she swayed to the music.
Her earliest memory, from when she was only four years old, was of her father—who was sitting at the piano in the spare room downstairs—helping her up onto the bench beside him. He’d placed his fingers on the keys, given her a smile, and played this song.
Adalynn had been in awe; that moment had sparked her love for piano. It had set her on the path she’d walked until half a year ago, when all that had been taken away forever. That life was gone. Her father, who’d been her very first piano teacher, so patient and nurturing, was gone. Her mother, who’d taken her to every practice, recital, and competition, whether it was for dance or piano or volleyball, who’d always cheered her on, was gone. Only Danny and Adalynn were left…and soon she’d be gone, too.
But this moment, this place…it was a chance to take a little of that back, wasn’t it?
I’ve never danced in a ballroom. Why not knock something off the old bucket list while I feel good?
She smiled as she swayed in wider motions, ceasing her pantomimed piano playing. Toeing her shoes off, she let herself get swept away by the music.
* * *
Merrick paced back and forth across his study, hands clasped behind his back—he couldn’t trust them not to expel rogue bursts of magic in his heightened agitation. Everything he’d learned over his life told him this whole situation was a problem, a massive problem. Close interaction with mortals never ended well. He could only suffer loss and pain as a result.
Adalynn had dominated his thoughts even though he’d kept himself isolated from her since yesterday morning. He’d locked himself in his study, meaning to continue searching the books lining the bookshelves for useful information regarding this new world, the awoken ley lines, and the nature of life, death, and magic.
Instead, he’d found himself seeking a way to turn his power toward healing. He’d perused tomes for hours and hours, flipping through countless pages—many of which would’ve crumbled to dust at his slightest breath were it not for his magic holding them together. All that searching had come up with nothing. Warlocks, it seemed, could not use their magic to heal mortals. Healing was the forte of witches—who were separate from Merrick’s kind, despite the misconceptions of humans—and the fae-blooded.
Even after he’d finally pried himself away from that search—well after night had fallen, when only occasional flashes of lightning brought any illumination to the sky—he’d thought about Adalynn. About the way she looked, the way she sounded. About the little he knew of her life and circumstances. About the strength, courage, and character she’d displayed in her short time here.
About his overwhelming desire to be near her, to touch her, to taste her.
That undeniable attraction unsettled him. He’d been in control of himself for centuries, had honed his discipline and detachment to a fine edge—a blade to wield in self-defense against an unforgiving world. Magic was in his blood. Magic was in the very fiber of his being. It was his calling, his purpose, and humans had always stood against that.
But perhaps even more unsettling was that a deeper instinct—deeper than those that urged him to send the humans away—suggested she was his calling. They suggested Adalynn was Merrick’s purpose. How could he accept, after two days, that he’d been wrong for over a thousand years?
It was lust. Dangerous lust, powerful lust, but nothing more than that.
He swept his gaze over the open books atop his desk as he turned to resume his pacing. This was all a distraction, a waste of time that would have no reward in the end.
Storm or not, he needed to cast the humans out. He couldn’t risk anyone having control over him, not when his power had risen to such immensity. If he’d grown so obsessed after the brief time he’d spent with her so far, how bad would he be in a week? In a month? Would there be room for a single thought in his mind that didn’t involve her?
And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the question of his magic. For his own security, he needed to keep his abilities hidden from them. They seemed to thin
k of him now as a grumpy-but-kind stranger, and once they’d all worked past their initial tensions, they got along well enough. How quickly would that change once they learned what he was? In Merrick’s experience, humans tended to view what they didn’t understand—magic being high on that list—as an intolerable evil.
He doubted the resurgence of magic and monsters in the wider world would make them any more accepting; it would all be terrifying to them, regardless of its source.
But their fear made no difference—if Adalynn and Danny had survived the harsh world she’d described, that made them dangerous. What would stop them from making an attempt on Merrick’s life while he was vulnerable?
“I cannot risk it. They must go. They must go…tomorrow.”
Yes, he would send them on tomorrow, rain or shine, and then he’d be free to carry on with his existence. Then he could turn toward the future and embrace the new world with a clear mind and an unburdened conscience, for the lives of these two mortals were of no consequence, and he was not responsible for them.
To send them away today, with half the day gone, would be unnecessarily cruel.
Being firm didn’t require being unfair. They would appreciate the gesture, would be grateful for an additional night in a warm bed beneath a sound roof, would appreciate a few more decent meals before they’d need to find sustenance for themselves again.
Though…what would two more days matter, in the grand scheme? It would allow them more time to rest and prepare for whatever trials awaited them…
No. I need to tell her now. Tomorrow, they need to leave.
He allowed himself no further internal debate; he halted his pacing, turned on his heel, and stalked to the door, which he tugged open a bit too hard before exiting the study. Halfway across the loft, he paused. A soft, eerie sound was drifting up from downstairs, unidentifiable but somehow familiar.
Merrick descended the staircase. The sound grew more distinct as he entered the space between the foyer and the parlor. It was music—piano music—emanating from the southern hallway. There was something diminished about the notes, however, something flat and almost metallic; he couldn’t understand why, but they lacked the fullness and subtle power piano music usually contained.
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