The Rose Master

by Valentina Cano

  At that moment, what I desired more than anything was to have Elsie next to me, telling me one of her awful jokes.

  I folded the letter back up, my hands shaking with silent sobs.

  The reality of my situation was a burning pang in my chest.

  TWENTY-three

  I was kicking something that slid around me, attempting to brace myself, but finding no foothold. Hands were wrapped tight around my neck; so many hands, pushing their fingers in, digging with their nails. I tried to raise my own to pry them loose, but they wouldn’t respond. They were so heavy. I was so heavy, so tired. Water burned my eyes, and I could see my hair waving around me, oblivious to the danger, enjoying the water’s caress. I opened my eyes as the hands, the claws, tore at my throat. In front of me, smiling underwater, was a woman, her shining auburn hair encircling me.

  With a yelp, I woke. I sat up, my forehead dripping with sweat, and heard that familiar low, crackling laugh.

  A second later, Lord Grey was careening through the doorway, his hair a lovely mess. He glanced around the room and then released the tight coil of tension he’d been holding.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, just a nightmare.”

  “Bloody hell, Anne. Do you think you can manage to dream without giving me an apoplexy?”

  He shuffled into the room, while I tried to shake the nightmare from my head.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Sure you are.” He moved across the room to the only chair, picking up the clothes I’d left there. I almost didn’t catch the care he took in placing them on the desk. As my eyes followed his movements, I saw his hands rest for a second on my gown, one finger tracing the line of black buttons. I frowned.

  He pulled the chair forward and sat down, placing his head in his thin hands. I took a moment to check his injury. It looked clean and dry.

  “Sir, does it still hurt? Your wrist?”

  He looked up. “It’s fine. It has stopped . . .” His eyes trailed over me, taking in the gown I was wearing. I began to feel too warm.

  “Sir?”

  He met my eyes, his face remaining calm and severe. “The gown suits you, Anne.”

  “Thank you, sir. It is a lovely one.”

  “I thought so, when I bought it.” A red contraction of pain raced through his features and he looked down to the floor. He was quiet for so long, I thought he would not say another word.

  My mouth itched to speak the question, to ask about the woman who had followed me into my dreams, but I didn’t dare.

  Lord Grey cleared his throat and looked back up at me. “It’s perfect for you, Anne. Keep it.”

  “Sir, I couldn’t.”

  “It deserves to be worn, not to hang in a man’s closet picking up lint.”

  I felt myself blushing and I dipped my head, allowing my heavy curls to tumble around me. My heart was beating with painful enthusiasm, sending pulsing thuds up to my throat.

  A soft brush of warm air touched a lock of my hair, a caress that sent my hands tingling. I moved and the touch disappeared. Raising my head, I saw Lord Grey was still seated on the chair, his eyes dark and focused on me. Immediately, he lowered them and stood.

  “Well, I’ll leave you and see if we can both get some more sleep.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “It’s August, Anne.”

  He closed the door behind him.

  I got no more sleep that night.

  “Again, Anne.”

  He sent a jolt of searing power toward me with a flick of a long finger.

  I was standing before him, already bruised and cut, and it wasn’t yet mid-morning. Raising my hands, I willed them to become shields, if not weapons, and for a few seconds, I felt Lord Grey’s energy pause, held back. I concentrated, but my mind faltered and the anxious wave of power slammed into me, knocking me down.

  “Damn it!” I screamed. Rubbing my scraped elbow, I stood.

  “That was better, though. It held up a bit longer. I don’t think, however, the creature would give you time to gather yourself off the floor.”

  “Maybe not, but if we keep doing this, I might not make it alive to next week.”

  Lord Grey’s lips twitched. “You have a knack for exaggeration, Anne. But if you’re tired, we can try something different.”

  He walked closer to me and held up his hands. “I will not attack you now. It’s your turn. You will attack, and I’ll attempt to defend myself.” He raised his eyebrows in amusement. “I’m sure this will ease some of your frustration.”

  He turned around and began walking back across the room. I smiled at the opportunity.

  I began to feel that odd sensation of lightness, as if my body were made out of sea-foam and salt, everything around me taking on a sharper feel. The stones felt colder, more grooved; Lord Grey’s footsteps were more hollow.

  With a deep breath, my blood seemed to warm, bubbling as it thumped down my veins in a thick current. When it became too painful to sustain, I released the power with a sigh.

  Lord Grey felt the change in the air and snapped around, his mind raising up a defense that I couldn’t see. I felt it deep in my entrails when the energies met, smashing together.

  Lord Grey fixed his eyes on mine, and I held the gaze, unblinking, as his reflection wavered like a fish. A flash of pain brushed through his face, and I felt his defenses splinter, then crack. He was thrown backward against the floor, his bones landing with a creaking twist.

  The feeling passed in an instant, and I was back in the reality of the main hall, watching as the manor’s master bent his torso to sit up.

  “That was certainly better,” he said.

  I attempted to help him, but he waved me off with a trembling hand. “You seem to find it easier to strike first, vicious creature that you are. We need to remember that.” He coughed softly and stretched his arm to pick something up off the floor next to him.

  “Where did this come from?” He held the object up for me to see.

  “Oh, my cross, it must have fallen out of my pocket. Ms. Simple gave it to me.”

  He turned it over in his hands, the sunlight shining on it. “It can’t really protect you, Anne. It has no magic.”

  I gazed at the small object, then brought my eyes back to him. “Shouldn’t something given in affection carry its own brand of magic?”

  He stood, walked over to me and handed me the cross. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  He didn’t back away, but remained close enough for me to feel his warmth playing over my gown. It became harder to breathe.

  His cough broke the moment in two.

  “I still don’t know what to do if the wraith attacks, sir,” I said, backing away.

  His face darkened as if he’d been pulled back into the shadows.

  “August,” he murmured.

  “Sir, it’s not right. I would feel out of place.”

  “You know, Anne, no one’s called me by my given name since my father died. Except for the wraith. I’ve begun to hate the sound of it. It’s one more name I’m trying to recover from the creature’s jaws.”

  When he raised his eyes to me, they were a deep blue, the swirling and shifting colors having subsided.

  I couldn’t stand that gaze, and I lowered my head. From my throat’s recesses, I pulled out the word he wanted to hear, tugging it up by its silver thread all the way to my lips.

  “August.”

  I didn’t see his reaction, if there was one. I just kept my eyes on the indifferent stone floors.

  “Thank you.”

  I could only nod.

  TWENTY-four

  In the afternoon, after I’d managed to sneak a few cleaning hours to myself, Lord Grey (or August, as I needed to accustom myself to saying) invited me to a walk around the grounds.

  “Well, at least as far as we can make it without puncturing every artery on rogue branches, or finding ourselves in an uncomfortable drowning scenar
io,” he said.

  I bundled up, rushing into my now glowering old room, my Bible’s residue still floating in the air, and snatched my cloak along with any other items I might need. I was trying to avoid further trips to that particular section of the house. It now seemed as much as part of the wraith’s domain as the fountain did.

  As if to prove my point, all the doors in the servant’s quarter slammed open at the same time. I gave them a quick look with eyes too tired to be quaking in fear, and walked back to the front door.

  “What was that noise?” August asked.

  “The wraith. Obviously, the rooms needed airing.”

  He looked at me. “You’re not afraid, then?”

  “I was,” I shrugged. “I’m sure I will be again, but for now, I’m willing to enjoy the day.”

  He nodded and held the door open as I stepped out of our frozen cocoon and into a cloudy but warming afternoon.

  The roses had returned to their naked splendor, and as we passed by them, I caught a smile on August’s face.

  “Will I ever be able to do that?” I found myself asking.

  “What? The flowers?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Anne. Your powers are of a different sort than mine, more controlled even in their, as yet, untamed wildness. Not set so much to burst in exuberance as to quiet, to gather together, to calm.”

  We continued walking around the corner and down toward the stables.

  “Summoning, though, I think I could teach you. It’s not incompatible with your skills. After all, to banish something, you would need to first call it up.”

  “I’m not sure that’s something I’m willing to experiment with, August.”

  His voice was suddenly harsh. “Not when you have my example glowing before you.”

  I stopped. He walked on a few paces, then also stopped. I saw his back, even through his clothing, swaying with the effort it took to avoid one of his coughing spells.

  As I looked after him, memorizing every one of his angles, I felt what by then was a familiar dizziness. A stretching root of my thoughts traveled through the snow, over to the dark figure before me. I felt it encircle him, then brush against his skin like soft fur.

  August sighed an instant before a lunge of energy nudged me backward.

  He turned around. “You were able to reach me, Anne. Very good. You’re learning to control it, even to mold it into gentleness. That’s something I’ve never been able to accomplish. My power is violent, and still unpredictable.”

  He fiddled with the stained bandage around his wrist, pulling at the ragged corners.

  “Let me see.”

  “It’s all right. It doesn’t hurt.”

  “Please, August.”

  He stepped toward me in silence and brought his wrist up to me, pushing back his sleeve.

  “May I undo the bandages?” I asked.

  “If you can do it without touching my skin.”

  My hands trembled as I neared them to the linen. I unknotted the fabric, my head bent over the task. Unrolling it, I released the stained skin. Without touching August, I inspected the wound. Still a bit raw, but seeming to be sewing itself back together.

  I was so focused on the pale canvas of his arm that I didn’t notice the noise until August called my name.

  It was the sound of wind caressing feathers, of small, downy chests filled with winter magic floating through the air.

  I looked up into a patch of sky that had filled with birds of every sort. Mirror-blue, blood-colored, pupil-black, all of them circling us without a single cry of anger or fear. A harmonious beating of wings. August could not take his eyes off them.

  “Birds never come to Rosewood anymore. They sense the darkness that lives here.” He smiled. “You’ve brought the birds back, Anne.”

  Happiness rushed through me as I realized I had not forced them down into the hard ground. I hadn’t attempted to immobilize them.

  As I watched, they began to land on the branches all around us, until scaled claws gripped every one of them. We turned to leave them in peace, but a strangled cry pierced through the air. I turned toward the sound and gasped as a laugh encircled me.

  On the white ground lay a blackbird, ripped apart, its blood spreading through the snow like spilled wine.

  August buried it. I couldn’t stand to leave it uncovered like that, for any animal to pick through. After all, the only reason it was dead was because of me.

  I couldn’t shake the guilt even as we practiced, my lack of concentration chaffing at August until he threw his arms up in silent frustration and sat down right on the floor. I’d never seen anyone who enjoyed cold stone more than he did.

  “Unless you’d like to join that little creature in silent death, I think you’d better pull yourself to attention, Anne.”

  I followed his example and sat down close to him. Almost instantly, I began to feel the tug of energy, like fingers plucking at strings woven deep in my body.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “This. Help you end all of this. I’m afraid. What if something were to happen, where would I go for help? Would I even be allowed to leave?”

  I could feel him turning to look at me as I spoke.

  “The wraith can’t prevent a Grounder from leaving. It’s tied to me and to the manor, not to you. If something were to happen to me, you must grab the essentials and run off the grounds, as fast as you can. Forget about everything but getting yourself past the roses’ boundaries.”

  “And just leave you to die?”

  “Yes. I doubt the creature would kill me. Frighten me, yes, but as I told you, it needs me. You, however, will be in danger if I am incapacitated, so leave me to my fate and get out. Is that clear?” His eyes seemed to drill into me.

  “Yes, August.”

  “Look at me.”

  I raised my face to his.

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” I said without a twitch. I’d always been a good liar.

  We were both in better spirits after a filling dinner, although August left half his plate untouched. I didn’t know how he could maintain himself on the little fuel that ran through his veins.

  I shooed him away from the kitchen as I prepared his tea, hoping he’d sit and rest a bit, because, in truth, his health still concerned me.

  I had just begun to pour the concoction into a cup, smiling in satisfaction as I realized I’d heard August cough less the previous hours, when I heard a trickle of music sliding into the kitchen like a mist of dark notes. I tried to ignore it; I did have things to do, after all. But the music began to fill the kitchen, reminding me of warmth, of grass, of summers in London. I could feel the loosening of muscles as the cold lost some of its power on me. I was putting everything down to follow the music’s trail, when a breath of pure voice surprised me, twined around the piano’s lament.

  The music grew as I neared the parlor, edging into the doorway and gazing at a sight that made me smile.

  August had pulled off the white cloth that had covered the large, black piano, and he was sitting at its bench, almost completely bent over its keys. His voice was not the strongest I’d ever heard—it was tremulous like a flower in a sudden rain shower—but it was clear.

  He sang on, in Italian, from what I could tell with my limited ear, never lifting his eyes off the keys before him. I yearned to get close and yet, I hated to break the crystalline moment of peace the room cradled.

  His voice lifted in flight, and my feet began to move toward him, as if they had their own thoughts on the matter. I felt an irresistible current passing through me, leading me on to what my future was holding.

  August still did not look up as I stood near the crook of the piano, attempting not to mar its fluid surface with my touch. He sang on, his voice wrapping around me, its feathery caress soft, light.

  The silence was so vast when he finished, that I dared not utter a
single compliment. I stood where I was, tension wrapped tightly around me.

  Many moments passed. And then August rose from the bench with such decision, he frightened my heart into a gallop. He came to stand before me, only a sliver of air separating our bodies. I couldn’t look up into his face, for fear, for shame, for a hunger that twisted and boiled in my stomach. Our energies brushed against each other in a painful tangle.

  I saw August’s hand lift from his side and come close to my face. His skin never touched mine, never touched my hair, and yet I felt the warm caress nonetheless, like a silken flame that yearned to burn everything near it. I closed my eyes with an intake of breath, feeling his other hand close to my right arm, my gown’s fabric shimmering as his fingers hovered above it, and trailed down to my hand.

  I opened my fingers with unconscious yearning. I could almost feel his thin ones wrapping around mine, clutching at them in aching panic.

  When I thought I couldn’t stand the tension anymore, it stopped. As my heart slowed down and my blood cooled like tea, I opened my eyes.

  August had disappeared.

  He paced through most of the night. I could hear him like a distant drum as I came in and out of a crackling layer of sleep.

  An itching worry slept next to me. We were still missing the crucial piece, and I had a feeling things were about to escalate.

  A most accurate premonition.

  TWENTY-five

  August’s voice was as cold as the stones around us as he passed me a sheet of paper etched with strange words. I took it with trembling hands, eyes fixed on anything that wasn’t the man in front of me.

  “You need to learn this. You are ready, so we will attempt what we’ve discussed tomorrow. We need to be prepared for the second we know the master’s name. The wraith will give you no time when that moment comes. It will destroy you to save itself.” He pointed at the black words. “This is a banishing chant, one I’ve come across in my studies, and the one that is the strongest for destroying this particular creature. I have divided the chant, since it’s usually performed by only one person. You will say these words here, and I will say the ones at the bottom. This blank space here, in my part, is where the blasted name goes.”