After a bit of Beethoven, then Alexi’s favourite, Chopin, Percy leaned against the top keyboard, causing a lingering, dissonant noise, when she heard, “My sentiments precisely.”
Percy turned with a smile. Leaning against the frame, his cloak and frock coat removed, the sleeves of his charcoal shirt rolled up his forearms, his cravat open along the lines of his unbuttoned collar and a snifter of a dark liquid in hand, was her husband. Would she always be as struck by him as the day he first burst into her classroom and soul? It seemed so, especially with him in partial undress, in the comfort of his home. The sight of him now was a wish fulfilled. Her dear professor had come to her, to bid her relax and undress, to join and lie beside him.
“How you stare, Percy. Do I look that much a fright?” Alexi chuckled warily. His rakish look flushed her cheeks with longing.
“No! I…” Percy giggled. “To see you a bit undone utterly undoes me.”
His chiseled lips curved and perfected the rakish picture. “You play beautifully, my dear. You must impress our guests when next we entertain.” He held out a hand. “Come. Are you tired?”
Percy nodded and rose to meet him at the door. He offered her a sip from his snifter, sliding his other arm around her waist. One potent whiff, and the look on her face caused Alexi to withdraw it with an amused snort. The liquor, however, tasted sweet and heady in the clutch of his subsequent kiss. To the latter intoxicant they gave themselves eagerly, rather than ruminate upon the danger yet to come.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The gruesome face of ash growled, jaws grinding in anger, stony snakes on her cracked scalp slithering, hissing, flaking ash onto the ground. “I’m going to find her.” The voice was coarse, wet gravestone. “She’ll pay.”
The Groundskeeper fussed. “You’re hardly in a state—”
“Taking matters into my own hands. I’ll prove to him I ought to have been queen all along!”
One by one, her fingers crumbled into heaps of ash. The rest of her body gracefully followed suit, like hourglass sands spilling uniformly down onto the cool stone floor. “Noooo!” the Groundskeeper howled as she again slipped away, particle by particle. “I’ve spent so much time puttin’ you back, you can’t come undone again!”
“Leave off, and leave me be,” the ash hissed, congealing and trailing away in the shape of a long snake. “I’ve business on the other side. To see who’s the greater power…”
The routine of breakfast and readying for Athens, Percy realized, would establish itself pleasantly. But there was an anxiety beneath her every move. The key against her bosom was growing warm, and she couldn’t ignore it anymore.
Seeing Alexi to his classroom, weathering the stares of students who still could not get used to the idea of her ghost-pale flesh or her marital situation, she murmured that she would be in her office, translating—which she did, for a bit, hoping Beatrice would breeze in and recall her to her task, and reassure her myriad fears or tell her pleasant things about her mother. The ghostly professors Hart swept in to talk poetry, which was a delightful distraction, but she didn’t feel she could allow herself the luxury for long.
Walking down and into the Athens chapel, she lifted her mother’s key from her neck and held it tightly. Moving to the altar, she wondered how to get below. She sighed, shrugged and threw her arm forward. A similar motion had vanquished an enemy once, and it did not disappoint now. A black spot appeared in midair, grew into a square, then lengthened into a door-size rectangle.
“Well…that was simple.”
She wasn’t fond of how simple it was. She didn’t like the ability to do impossible things if she didn’t understand how. But, perhaps it wasn’t her at all. Perhaps it was the very stones of Athens, built to respond when she came calling.
Percy descended the steps into The Guard’s sanctuary. She glanced up at the bird, its prismatic beauty calming her. The fortifying pillar of power and light was absent, but she assumed only Alexi struck that particular fire.
Searching the edges of the feather carved into the dusty floor, she found what she sought on the tip, as Alexi had recalled. Her shaking hands fumbled with her necklace clasps, and the key slid to the floor with a clatter. A moment later, before she could think twice, she picked it up and jammed it into the hole. There was an enormous grating sound, and the room was suddenly awash in flame.
Percy screamed and threw up her arms, ducking, panicking of being burned alive. It took her a moment to see that the fire was blue and contained no heat, was harmful only to the dead. It was the now-familiar force and odd friend, Alexi’s personal weapon: Phoenix fire.
Percy dropped her arms, and the flames lowered. They maintained a gently licking pattern on the floor: lines and angles opening into round spaces. A floor plan. A map laid out in fire upon the floor. The map revealed a building. Familiar in it shapes. Athens, but not quite.
There was a circular space off to the side, separate. There was a dot in its centre. Percy moved closer. The dot moved, too.
“Me?” she murmured. As she retreated a step, the dot adjusted.
Two other blue spots showed in a small room off a great open space. If this were the main foyer of Athens, the small offshoot would be in the approximate place of Headmistress Thompson’s office. “Rebecca. And…Alexi?” Percy looked for other such spots.
At the top of the map, on a hazy outer perimeter, there was a red ruby of flame, bright, burning red, like a glistening eye. Behind the mark was a swath of solid, sparkling blue.
The red spot was too familiar for Percy to ignore its possible meaning. It moved. Back and forth. As if pacing to and fro. There was a wispy shape that floated above its red flame: a key. A second key in the hands of an ancient enemy…Beatrice had said there would be another.
Dread filled Percy’s body and she yanked her key from the hole. The fiery map vanished into mist. The Guard’s space was so quiet, her ragged breathing and heart roared in her ears. She ran up the stairs, out into Athens chapel and into the wing of Promethe Hall, about to run across to Alexi’s office when she recalled his likely location on the map.
The map was correct. Alexi was inside Rebecca’s office, barking about how he could not find his wife. His voice carried into the hall. Grimacing, Percy knocked on the door.
Alexi threw it open. “There you are. Where have you—?”
“There’s something you must see. In the chapel. Below.”
“What were you doing there?” he asked, aghast.
“There’s a map. The key from my grave went into the keyhole just like you said. It makes a map.”
“You went there without me? A map of what?”
“I can’t be sure,” Percy replied, shrinking away from his harshness.
Alexi sighed. “Show me. Now. Rebecca,” he called over his shoulder, “gather another meeting tonight.”
“Yes, Alexi,” Rebecca replied.
Alexi slammed the door, grabbed Percy by the arm and began walking briskly down the hall. Percy couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you angry with me?”
“You entered an unpredictable realm without aid or supervision! It isn’t a place one goes alone—none of us do!”
“I never thought I was crossing you, Alexi. I was examining my mother’s gift. How was I to know—?”
“What if portals open again and you’re somewhere unbeknownst to me, unprotected?”
“I didn’t want to trouble you—”
“I will always be troubled when you put yourself in harm’s way.”
“That isn’t a harmful place—”
He snarled. “It can be. You’ve seen it so.”
There was a strained, angry pause. Percy shook her head. “Alexi, you’re acting like these new occurrences are somehow my fault. I want nothing but to be your loving wife. I want no portals, no war, no spirit world. I haven’t come to you withholding knowledge. I’m at no advantage here,” she pleaded against his seething silence. “It’s my fate, too, you know!”
He con
tinued to drag her forward, his gaze angry, his grip tight.
“Alexi?” she gasped.
“Yes?”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
He looked down, his hand a vise around her. He let go as if scalded and stared at her, his eyes wide. A flicker of shame crossed his face. “I’d never mean to hurt you,” he whispered earnestly, his voice catching before his usual mask of stoicism returned.
“I know, love.”
His brow furrowed in anxiety, Alexi stormed ahead. Percy let him go. He threw the chapel doors open roughly, and Percy reached the threshold just as blue fire shot from his hand, hurtling toward the altar. A dark doorway responded, which Alexi paused before, his hand held out. Percy took it. He met her gaze, and they descended.
“It seems so long ago that I was here, shivering in your arms,” she breathed.
“We were all shivering. Frightened, despairing, helpless without you,” Alexi murmured, staring at the floor, at the carven feather symbol. His eyes narrowed, as if searching. “It feels like years ago, but it’s hardly been a fortnight.”
“Has it?”
“A great deal has happened,” Alexi added with a partial smile. It faded. “And more will come.”
Percy handed him her key. “The hole’s where you said it would be.”
Alexi bent, brushing grit from the grooves of the feather. “Let’s hope Beatrice hasn’t set a trap for us and it’s indeed a map, not a door direct to hell.”
“You may not like what she has to say, but we’ve no reason not to trust her,” Percy repeated. “It’s a map, I assure you.”
Alexi set his jaw, slammed the key inside, turned the lock and rose to stand beside her. Grating stone sounded, and the room was again afire. Percy reflexively ducked, but Alexi remained still. “Do grow accustomed to this, Percy; the fire is the one consistent measure of our power.”
Percy lowered her arms and nodded. “It takes a bit of getting used to.”
Alexi watched as the flames became a map.
“You see, it’s very much like Athens,” Percy pointed out.
“Not quite,” Alexi said, gesturing to small areas that trailed away from the Athens grid. “These spots don’t match our floor plan. Perhaps this is two places superimposed.”
“The spirit world and Athens?” Percy breathed.
“Both.” Alexi nodded. “What else could it be?”
“I believe this is our sacred space here.” Percy pointed to the circle at the side. She walked him around, the fire licking at the hem of her skirts and his robes, harmless. “And the patches, us. Look here. Two spots in a circular room that move as we move. And one right where the office of the headmistress might be.”
“And the patch of red, near that ocean of blue? It appears to be moving. Is it a destination? It appears another key is connected…” Alexi squinted at the dot, the transparent, flickering icon of the key hovering above. He moved closer.
Percy cringed, reaching out and clutching the edge of his cloak. “It must be Darkness. Red. I’ve had visions of eyes that colour, searching…”
Growling, Alexi yanked her key from the lock. The fire vanished and the map was gone.
“Alexi!” She reached for him, her heart seizing with sudden fear. “Hold me, please.”
“I’ll not have some constant reminder of a life you never remember living. Of a creature who has no claim over you.” He paced, his boots echoing on the stone, his robe whipping about his ankles. Percy could only continue to reach for him, straining for reassurance. “I’ll not have a map leading the way to you. You’re here in the Queen’s beloved England, with me. You are my wife, whose virgin body I claimed, free from whatever literal hell your powers may have…”
He finally saw past his rage and noticed her outstretched hands. He darted to her, scooped her into a smothering embrace, and she kissed him hungrily, hoping passion could shove aside her deepening dread.
“Alexi, I’m yours,” she gasped. “This heart, soul and body has never been anyone else’s—nor will it!” She tore at her blouse and pointed to the mark of the phoenix. “That is the mark of our destiny, burned there when you prayed to find me. I’ve no other destiny but you.”
He pressed his lips to her scar. His hands roved mercilessly, his clutch weakening her knees. She soon found herself on the cool stone floor, his dark robes engulfing her, his fingertips raking her body as he pinned her beneath him.
“You would wish for no other? You would forsake whatever divinity you may yet possess to remain with me? No matter what you learn, you are still mine?”
Percy’s eyes widened as she stared up at him, wounded. “Truly, Alexi. Did my vow mean nothing? Don’t you pledge the same?”
Her husband’s eyes were fierce, and Percy couldn’t tell if he was seething with passion or fear. Perhaps both.
“We’re operating under uncommon circumstances,” he hissed. “We have forces against us, pressuring, straining our vows so freshly made. Who knows what powers might break them—?”
Percy placed one of his hands on her scar and the other around her wedding band. “You’re the only power that could break me, Alexi,” she murmured in his ear. Craving a vow made tangible, she gratefully offered him acquiescence, hoping that passion in a place such as this sealed a further compact. “All of me rests wholly entrusted to your hands.”
Concentric circles of blue fire erupted around their entwined bodies. Alexi cried out in The Guard tongue Percy had been born to understand, “My beloved is mine!”
They soon lay crumpled in a heap together upon the floor, dazed by their furious and exhausting bout of passion. Stirring, Percy heard whispers dangerously close to her face, and imagined red eyes burning down upon her.
Her eyes snapped open. The fiery gaze vanished, and she saw only the luminous bird overhead. This replacement image was so unbelievably comforting, Percy wondered what sort of innate magic it possessed.
She turned to look at her husband. Alexi had drifted off to sleep, strings of black hair stuck to the moisture on his prominent cheekbones, his long nose pressed against the thick fabric of his cloak. She hadn’t seen his face as peaceful since their honeymoon—which, she reminded herself, hadn’t been very long ago. Would this mysterious fate of theirs make every week seem an eternity?
A terrible thought forced its way into her mind: When her husband slept, was he dreaming of a goddess? Was he dreaming of someone not her? Perhaps the jealousy he felt was a remnant from another life, another love…
Without moving the arm slung possessively around her middle, she lifted her head, her neck stiff from the stone floor, to examine the state of her clothing. Alexi would never have had the foresight to bring them extra clothing. Blushing, she wondered if their disheveled appearances would make their spontaneous activity entirely obvious. Thankfully, save for the collar she herself had dramatically ripped, the only real damage to her clothing was in the layers beneath her petticoats, which she assumed she could tie and tuck to hide the evidence.
She turned to find Alexi staring at her. He snickered. “They’ll think you’ve married a wild animal.”
“I wonder.” Percy grinned.
“There’s a shop with fine and frivolous things just down Bloomsbury.” He lifted her effortlessly to her feet. “Let me buy you something to mask our pastime.”
“Otherwise Lord Withersby will never keep quiet.”
“I daresay he’d flush with jealousy.”
“Hardly. He only has eyes for Josephine. But answer me this,” Percy blurted, suddenly set on learning the truth.
Alexi raised an eyebrow.
“Beatrice said that I…that your goddess came to you after your annunciation as The Guard, in dreams. Do you remember? Am I only something you love because…?” She bit her lip and fought tears.
“Darling! First you worry I’ll not love you for your skin. Now you worry I’ll not love you if you’re not that goddess?”
Percy blushed. “I don’t know. I’m so co
nfused.”
“Well, we both have wondered who and what you are. But that doesn’t change our vows. As for the past…I can say that the goddess, your predecessor, was my first love. I do recall hazy dreams, but I never imagined that she really—”
“But she did,” Percy snapped, jealousy thundering in her heart.
“Those dreams stopped at sixteen. Around the time you were born. That cannot be coincidence.” He smirked suddenly. “Do you remember me at sixteen?”
Percy blushed. “Of course not.”
“I lived life believing I’d marry whomever Prophecy directed. Love was never expressly stated, and Rebecca vehemently denied it had anything to do with our task.”
“Because she’s in love with you!”
“I can’t help that, or my instincts. When I met you I feared I might be doomed, for I loved you, regardless of Prophecy. If my words now can’t reassure you, then I’m afraid nothing will.”
Percy sighed. “It would seem we’re both jealous of the intangible. Part of the burden of such strange lives.”
He lifted her chin with a finger. “But a lifetime of jealousy will surely never do for either of us. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Percy gazed into the darkness beyond the room’s pillars. “What is out there, beyond the light? If I were to walk into that darkness, what would I find?”
Alexi held up his right hand and tilted it toward the light. Percy had never noticed the slight scar furrowing the skin. “I once walked to where the light fades. I reached out. I did not hold it there long. Afterward, I always made sure to keep to this side.”
Percy shuddered. Perhaps he was right to be angry that she had come into this space alone.
The winds of the Whisper-world were howling. The hellhounds were eating their own tails and whining, wishing to sharpen their teeth on real flesh again, but their canine forms remained partly scattered, unable to come together. To Darkness’s ongoing chagrin, his amalgamous pet could not be recreated.
The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker Page 19
