And it was here he was certain he would find an answer to the question of who actually cast the spell on Emilia and Magnus.
Chapter Eight – Emilia
They left the clothes store over an hour after they entered it. On her arms, Emilia carried bags filled with everything she could possibly need, from undergarments to T-shirts and jeans, plus a couple of dresses and three pairs of shoes.
She loved them. But Emilia also missed her pretty long dresses and the ribbons she wore in her hair. Ladies today were more practical. Perhaps she could buy some fabric and make a dress of her own in the style of her choice.
A lump rose in her throat as she lifted her head and surveyed the main street running through Bear Creek and the museum building in the distance.
“Are you okay?” Ruby asked, noting Emilia’s pale face.
“Yes.” She snapped out of her daydream. “I was just remembering what Bear Creek looked like last time I stood here.” A stray tear trickled down her cheek and she wiped it away. “It’s so silly.”
“No, no, it’s not,” Ruby said kindly. “Listen, before we go and find Thorn, why don’t we go and get a coffee and something to eat? You look all done in.”
Her heart ached to see Thorn, to feel the comfort of his presence, but her stomach rumbled at the thought of food. “I would like that. If it is not too much trouble.”
Ruby smothered a smile. “We must work on your speech.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Emilia asked quickly, her hand over her mouth.
“Nothing is wrong with it.” Ruby’s forehead creased as she searched for words. “Magnus was the same. It’s not wrong, it’s just different and we don’t want you drawing too much attention.”
“Ah, I understand.” They walked along the sidewalk until they reached a… “What’s this place?” Emilia shortened her words.
“A diner.” Ruby opened the door and held it open for Emilia. “Coming?”
“Is this like an inn or a tavern?” Emilia asked as she stepped into the diner. It was clean and bright, filled with an incredible aroma of coffee.
“Not exactly.” Ruby led them to a table and sat down. “There’s a pub, at the end of the street. The Horse and Wagon.”
Emilia’s face lit up. “I remember it. People would come in on the fast coach and stay there overnight on their way to Reamington.”
Ruby watched Emilia closely. “You and Magnus hold so much of the past inside you. The real past, not the history that is gleaned from trying to piece the era together with fragments of paintings and written accounts.”
Emilia looked down at her fingers, which were clasped together. “It’s strange to talk about it as if it were long ago when to me it was only yesterday.” Emilia looked up as a serving wench came to take their order.
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” Ruby replied.
“What can I get you?” The woman smiled brightly.
“Two coffees and a couple of muffins, please, Betsy.” Ruby placed the order, then added, “Chocolate, I think.”
“Coming right up.” Betsy smiled at Emilia, who smiled back amiably. It was obvious Betsy wanted to ask who Ruby’s friend was, but she slipped back to the kitchen with her questions unanswered.
“Betsy likes to know everything and everyone. When it’s tourist season, she spends as much time talking to her customers as she does serving them. But it’s her diner and her choice.” Ruby leaned back in her seat.
“What are tourists?” Emilia asked then lowered her voice. “Are they a kind of shifter?”
Ruby gave a short laugh and shook her head. “No, a tourist is someone who travels from their home to another place in the world to spend a couple of weeks on vacation. We get a lot of hikers who come to spend time on the mountains. Many shifters come to Bear Creek, so they can shift and explore. Tourism brings business to Bear Creek.”
Emilia nodded. “I see.” She looked up as Betsy returned with a pot of coffee and two cups.
“Here we are, ladies.” Betsy poured the coffee. “How is your family, Ruby?”
“Good, thanks.” Ruby glanced at Emilia, and then back to the coffee cups.
“I heard you found your mate.” Betsy lowered her voice as she spoke, her eyes flickering to Emilia.
“I did.” Ruby pressed her lips together as if trying to stop herself from talking. She was a private person who didn’t like answering questions about herself. Emilia understood her feelings. Maybe it was a dragon shifter thing.
“And is this one of your mate’s relatives?” Betsy inquired.
“She’s his sister.” Ruby’s brow furrowed, and she looked at Emilia apologetically.
“Oh, how nice.” Betsy hung around, looking at the bags Emilia had stashed under the table filled with her new clothes. “And where are you from?”
Color rose in Emilia’s cheeks. What was she supposed to say? Whatever her answer was, she would have to lie. If she said Bear Creek, it would open herself up to more questions.
“Himalayas,” Ruby blurted out. “She lives close to Helena. You know, Alex’s mom.”
“Oh.” Betsy reeled backward as if she’d been hit. “I know Helena.”
Ruby picked up her coffee and sipped it as Betsy made her way back to the counter. She returned almost immediately with two muffins. “Thank you, Betsy, they look delicious.”
“Enjoy.” Betsy scurried away, leaving Ruby chuckling.
“What is so funny?” Emilia asked.
“Sapphi told me she brought Helena here for coffee last time she was in Bear Creek and something happened that frightened Betsy. Maybe we should tell her you are a dragon, too, and she’ll stop asking questions.” Ruby placed her cup down on the table and tackled her muffin.
Emilia toyed with hers before breaking a piece off and eating it. “This is like heaven on a plate.”
“Isn’t it?” Ruby asked, taking a big bite.
“Who is Sapphi?” Emilia asked.
“Sapphi is my sister. She recently met her mate, Alex.”
“And Alex’s mom is Helena?” Emilia nodded as she swallowed. “And they are dragons?”
“Yes, they are dragons. It’s strange to think that you and Magnus were alive at the same time as Fiona, Harlan, and Helena. If you hadn’t slept, you and Magnus would have been a lot older.”
“Fate.” Emilia savored the word in the same way she savored her chocolate muffin. No matter which way she looked at it, fate had stepped in so that Emilia and Magnus could be here at just the right time. There was no way to tell if they would have survived the last four hundred years or more if they had not been under the Ancient Slumber spell.
“Here’s to fate.” Ruby raised her coffee cup and Emilia did the same.
“To fate.” Emilia drank her coffee, letting go of her sorrow. The past was the past, it could not be changed. It was easier to learn to live with it than to fight what could not be beaten. Time marched on and even a ferocious dragon could not turn back the clock.
By the time they left the diner, and Emilia once more stood looking at the museum, which she had visited many times as Perry’s guest, she held forgiveness in her heart. Only by forgiving Perry could she be free of him.
They crossed the street, taking care to avoid the cars that drove along the main street where wagon wheels once rolled behind horses. The sights and sounds, and of course smells, were so different. No traders shouting their wares, no ladies in long skirts and petticoats. And not a bonnet in sight! Emilia threaded her fingers through her long blonde hair and shook it back from her shoulders. She did not miss the tight bodices either.
When they reached the museum, she stared up at the building. Behind the ornate wooden doors, she expected to see the house Perry lived in. Instead, there were clear cabinets holding bones and tools from the past, and images telling the history of the area. People mingled in front of the exhibits, where she had once danced at a ball.
“Are you okay?” Ruby asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”<
br />
“Ghosts from the past, they are all around me.” She forced a smile on her face. “Shall we find Thorn?”
“Yes.” Ruby raised an eyebrow expectantly. “Can you find him?”
Emilia frowned. “How am I expected to find him?”
“He’s your mate. Can you sense him?” Ruby studied Emilia as she asked the question.
“I don’t know.” Emilia looked inside herself, trying to focus on the bond between them that stretched out like an invisible cord. If she pulled on that cord, she could sense his presence somewhere up above them. “This way.”
Emilia led them to the stairs and looked upward. When Perry lived here, a huge crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling over the staircase. Now it was replaced by a replica, the lights artificial, just like her life.
What was real? Who was real? The people who she’d once known or those she had just met?
“I want to show you something.” When they reached the top of the staircase, Ruby took her hand and pulled her toward a gallery which displayed paintings. “There’s a couple here that Magnus painted.”
“Really?” Emilia followed, intrigued to see her brother’s paintings still here in the house where it all began. “Oh.”
“Magnus remembers painting this.” Ruby indicated the portrait of Peregrine Manning that hung amongst other paintings donated by him.
“I remember it.” She touched her hand to her side. “It was while I was recuperating after I’d been stabbed.”
“Magnus told me.” Ruby’s voice was gentle as she stood back while Emilia stared at the portrait of the man she thought she knew so well.
“We were such good friends, I didn’t realize he wanted more until it was too late.” She smiled wistfully. “He changed our lives and in my own way I loved him.”
“But not in the way he wanted. It wasn’t your fault, Emilia. You are ruled by more than your head or your heart.”
“Fate. That small word. We hold fate responsible for so much. But I could have lived with him as his wife. I could have loved him. Goodness knows many women alive in those times married for less.” Emilia sighed, her heart aching.
“You are not the same as those women. If you had married him and met your mate it would have been so much harder for him. And for you.” Ruby hooked her hand under Emilia’s arm. “I wanted to show you this.”
Emilia sidestepped and stood before a painting of the woman she used to be. “Me?”
Ruby peered closer. “You are wearing the same dress in the painting as the one you wore when you woke up.”
“It was my mother’s. I wore it as best.” Emilia lifted her hand and pressed her fingers to the glass. There she was, young, naive and full of hope, but weighed down by the burden of who she was. What she was. “The cottage is gone.”
“The ruins are still there, we visited it a few days ago.” Ruby’s voice betrayed her emotions. “Magnus…”
“I can imagine how he feels. It was our home.” Emilia stared at the painting, remembering the day as if it were yesterday. Magnus had just arrived home after two weeks away painting a portrait for a member of parliament. He was tired but so happy to be back at the cottage.
After a drink and some food, he’d lounged on the grass by the side of the river, paintbrush in hand, painting the roses around the door of the cottage which were in full bloom. Their mother had planted them when they first arrived at the cottage and had tended them every day throughout her life there. On her death, Emilia had taken it upon herself to keep the roses alive and blooming. Sweet, red roses, she could almost smell them as she closed her eyes and remembered the warmth of the sun on her skin.
“Perhaps it could be your home once more,” Ruby suggested. “If Thorn owns the land, then he could rebuild it for you to live in.”
“He said no one was allowed to live there,” Emilia murmured. Magnus had painted the cottage and the roses while she was inside cleaning. When she left the cool interior and came out into the sun, he’d called, stop. She’d giggled as he changed position and painted her onto the canvas to stand among the red blooms. His brush had moved as if it were a part of him.
“Why do you think Perry did that?” Ruby asked, glancing from the portrait of Perry to the one of the cottage.
“I don’t know.” There was a lot about Perry she did not know.
“I think it was because he could not bear the thought of anyone else living there. But you are not someone else, are you? That cottage was yours.” Ruby sighed. “Magnus would love to see it rebuilt. He never said anything, but I could tell he hated seeing it in ruins.”
“It was our home and we were happy there.” Emilia dragged her attention back to the room. “Let’s find Thorn.”
She turned her back on the paintings, shutting Perry out of her mind as she followed her senses that led her to Thorn.
“Are you sure he’s up there?” Ruby asked from the bottom of a spiral staircase.
“Absolutely.” Emilia grasped her bags filled with clothes and began to climb the spiral staircase. Round and round she followed the stairs that led to her mate.
When she got to the top, she found him standing in the open doorway, waiting for them. “I didn’t realize the time had passed so quickly.”
“We have indulged in retail therapy,” Emilia told him proudly, holding up the store bags for him to see. “That’s what Ruby called our trip to the store.”
Thorn chuckled. “Yes, you have.”
“And what have you been doing?” Ruby asked, peering over his shoulder.
“I have been trying to find out if Perry wrote about Chin.”
“Chin?” Ruby asked.
“An Oriental man who was here around the time the spell was cast,” Emilia filled in more details, eager to hear more from Thorn.
“I had a hunch I read about him before. And I had. Perry entertained him here at the house.” Thorn turned away and walked back toward his desk, with Emilia and Ruby following. “He made an entry into his journal a month before he recounts that you and Magnus disappeared.”
“He wrote in his journal that we disappeared.”
“To cover his tracks,” Ruby said caustically. “What a lying bastard.”
Thorn rifled through his papers until he found a leather-bound book. Holding it open, he came back to them and showed them the detailed account of the meeting. “He paid him one hundred gold coins.” Thorn ran his finger under the words scrawled in ink by Perry’s own hand.
“For an amulet. That was a fortune to most people,” Emilia said.
“And this Chin guy cast the spell and used the amulet to keep everyone else out.” Ruby shook her head in disgust.
“How could he?” Emilia asked, short of breath as she considered this. “Perry planned it for so long and yet he acted as if nothing was wrong. As if everything was the same between us.”
She choked down her anger. His actions were so premeditated. If he’d acted on the spur of the moment, in a fit of jealous rage, she could forgive him, but this made it impossible. During those last few weeks, they had grown close. She had shared secrets with him. Personal secrets.
“I was such a fool. A couple of weeks before he…” She dashed a tear from her cheek, angry at herself for being so stupid, so trusting. “I showed him my dragon.”
“Emilia, don’t beat yourself up over this,” Ruby wrapped her arms around Emilia.
“He already knew when Chin was here.” Thorn’s words hit her in the stomach, winding her. “He already knew you were dragons. I’m sure of it, there’s a veiled reference a long time before Chin arrived.”
“I didn’t tell him until after that,” Emilia said adamantly.
“So how did he know?” Thorn asked.
“Magnus.” Ruby sat down heavily in the chair across the desk from Thorn’s. “He broke his promise to you.” She raised her eyes to Emilia. “He blames himself. This will just compound his guilt.”
“He has nothing to be guilty for,” Emilia crouched down next to Rub
y. “He doesn’t need to know this.”
“I can’t lie to him,” Ruby replied.
“I’m not asking you to lie. I’m asking you to simply keep these new details from him.” Emilia stood up and crossed the room to Thorn. “What else does the journal say?”
“I’ll take them home and study them more. A lot of information that I never fully understood seems to be clearer now with the knowledge of what he did. Before, they were ravings of a madman.” He gave a short laugh. “Now they also appear to be ravings of a madman but for a different reason.”
“I won’t tell Magnus. Not unless I have to lie to keep the truth. If you decipher those journals and find out how Perry made his discovery, then Magnus should know. Keeping secrets never ends well.” Ruby’s face was set firm.
“I know it’s a difficult thing to do. But Magnus has been through enough. This was not his fault, it was Perry, all Perry. None of us should forget that.” Emilia nodded. “Can we go? I need fresh air.” The museum was too much of a reminder of Perry. It was as if he were here, haunting her, taunting her.
“Sure, I’ll gather up these books and we can go.” Magnus picked up the journals and put them into a leather satchel, which he hooked over his shoulder. Then they all went back down the spiral staircase.
Emilia loved to be outside and free, the building made her feel trapped, and she never wanted to be trapped again. Unless it was in Thorn’s arms. Then she would never want to escape.
Chapter Nine – Thorn
He hadn’t told Emilia everything he’d found in the journal and that made him uneasy. Like Ruby, he had no intention of lying to his mate, but if he didn’t have to disclose the whole truth he wouldn’t. Not until he figured out what the whole truth was.
He wasn’t worried that his findings would hurt Emilia, it was worse than that. He was worried his findings would scare her. Emilia and Magnus were not the only ones Perry deceived.
“Thorn.” Mr. Tully met them as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Did you find anything?” Thorn had almost forgotten he’d asked Mr. Tully to go to the basement for him.
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