“Caroline was practical. It was likely a matter of convenience—leave it there, come back when she might reclaim it safely? Was it the ring her father gifted her with at the wedding? Perhaps.”
He watched Eleanor turn these ideas around, looking from him to the leaf and back again. “Do you believe Caroline loved you?” she finally asked.
The question made Virgil want to shed his human form and run. He forced himself to stay where he was. “I believe she did. In her own way.” Her own way may have been alien and strange to everyone else, but everything told him that Caroline had loved him.
“I believe that, too,” Eleanor said. “I didn’t know her, not beyond a couple of strange encounters, but if she was career Mistral—she still married you, Virgil. What purpose does the marriage serve if not for the simple fact of love? You said she was practical—was it practical to marry a fellow agent? An agent who might one day discover her secret? It’s not practical, you two marrying.”
Virgil could only agree. His marriage to Caroline hadn’t been practical on either side. That Eleanor believed Caroline loved him was a strange relief, and it placed him one step closer to being able to put his past with Caroline firmly to rest.
“With love comes trust,” Eleanor continued. “No matter what else she did, Caroline loved you—and, as much as she could, trusted you.”
Virgil rested his head against Eleanor’s and allowed his eyes to close. That long-ago Russian night came back, threatening to drown him, but he held to Eleanor and stayed above the tide. “The night she died, she said she wanted to tell me. I think she was going to tell me who she really was, what she was doing.”
He felt the soft touch of Eleanor’s fingers against his chin and opened his eyes. Eleanor’s eyes were lit by the flickering fire, gold and brown twined together.
“She trusted you, so she chose the vineyard because of you. Because of that trust.”
“I loved her,” Virgil said in a low tone, “but I didn’t fully trust her.” He felt the wolf inside him stir. “Do you believe that’s possible?” When Eleanor nodded and her fingers slid into his beard, he exhaled. “I trust you, Eleanor.”
Eleanor’s fingers slid down the line of Virgil’s jaw, down his neck to rest against the thrum of his pulse. “I trust you, Virgil.”
It felt like the crossing of a threshold to Virgil. To admit to that trust; to give himself up to it and believe that she would never willingly harm him, would never willingly betray the secret of him. It felt like placing himself in her hands and not minding as she carried a part of him with her. He felt . . . safe. Knowing—always knowing—she would be his sanctuary as he was hers. Or wanted to be, if she would have him as such.
There were unanswered questions, too, as to what did or did not bide its time within Eleanor. Was she more like him than they knew?
Virgil closed the slight distance between them to capture Eleanor’s mouth with his own. She was still warm from sleep and the fire, and the touch of her lips against his brought to mind the spark of lightning in a storm. So bright and potentially devastating, but he couldn’t stop himself from courting the danger. When Eleanor’s tongue lapped at him, tasting, he felt nearly the last thread of his control come undone.
Yet he didn’t want to know the touch of her body against his own until he was certain it was a thing he could not lose, for that he knew he could not—would not—bear. He slid his hands up the length of her smooth neck, to curl his fingers into her nutmeg hair. With effort, Virgil lifted his mouth from hers.
“Come home with me, Eleanor.”
“It is reckless, and believe me when I say that is the kindest word I can find at the present, Eleanor Folley.” Renshaw made a great fuss of shaking his blankets, smoothing the wrinkles out, then starting anew.
Virgil couldn’t fault the man’s opinion, but they were already fully involved. There was no easy way out, so in Virgil’s mind, they could only go forward. Forward and through to the end, and if that meant searching the vineyard from stem to stern, so be it. As the Bible told him, one did not live in the valley of the shadow, but walked through it. If this was their valley, they had to pass through.
His eyes met Eleanor’s, and her smile silently told him she was still in agreement. Eleanor stood to the left of the bed, Juliana sitting to the right. The curtains at the window were mostly drawn, though a pale line of daylight snaked in to bisect Renshaw’s bed across his knees. From the look on Juliana’s face, it was clear she also felt Renshaw was being kind with his words, that he and Eleanor were demented to consider this mission. Virgil knew he could have asked Eleanor to stay behind, but knew also she would refuse. Surely her father understood that—and perhaps that was why he balked now.
“Mr. Folley—”
“Young man, I will thank you to keep your silence.” Renshaw snapped his blankets again. “Ellie, for the love of God, I’ve been attacked, beaten, stabbed. Is that not enough to put you off this?”
“What would you have me do?” Eleanor asked. “Get back to my needlework and wait for Christian to claim these rings from me? And then allow him to skip off and open the Glass? Or maybe Mistral will come, with Irving leading them, and they’ll open the Glass.”
Renshaw’s head dipped down, fingers worrying a lump of blanket in his lap. His hands were old, darkened by time spent in the sun, and yet still strong; the way he gripped the blanket proved to Virgil that even though the man was injured, he was fighting to keep his temper. How very like his daughter.
“What’s the worst that could happen, should the Glass open?” Juliana asked.
Renshaw’s temper burst. “Juliana Day, of all the foolish, shortsighted things you could say!” He sputtered, smoothing his hands over the blankets. “Opening a portal to the past, or who knows where? What might one do with that power?”
Anything one damn well wished, Virgil thought, remembering Hubert’s words in the Anubis chapel. He felt certain the idea of losing Eleanor was also becoming a tangible possibility for Renshaw Folley. Would Eleanor, like her mother before her, choose to step through that portal?
Renshaw held up a hand when Juliana opened her mouth. “No—no. Juliana, I can picture it all too well. One person killed who should not be, one small incident—it could be anything—one change follows another, toppling like a row of dominos, then history spills every which way. And for me . . . No. I have lost my wife, and I’m not about to lose my daughter.”
“You aren’t going to lose me,” Eleanor said, and made to reach for her father’s hand. But stubbornness was winning out with Renshaw today, and he avoided the handclasp.
“No?” he asked, his eyes searching hers. “How do you determine that, Eleanor? Because you have your mother’s blood within you, your grandmother’s blood, Egyptian blood. It connects you to the rings, it’s what will—” He broke off, going pale enough that Virgil stepped forward, thinking he ought to summon a doctor. Renshaw waved him off.
“Finish your thought then, Mr. Folley,” Virgil said, coming to stand beside Eleanor at the bed.
Renshaw looked rather like a trapped animal, surrounded on all sides. Virgil sympathized with the man, knowing how difficult it could be to keep such secrets.
“Mr. Folley, if you have more information regarding the rings, we need it,” Virgil said. “If anything, a lack of information could place Eleanor in more danger. We have no idea what Irving knows, but I feel certain we’re already working at a disadvantage.”
“Tell me,” Eleanor said to her father, her tone almost pleading. Still, Virgil thought he heard an edge of anger there. A growl? “It can’t get much worse than it is, Da.”
Even so, Renshaw held his silence. Virgil didn’t press. If the circumstances weren’t enough to convince Renshaw, Virgil wasn’t sure what would.
“I cannot bear to lose you,” Renshaw said, and now reached for Eleanor’s hand, gripping it as tears tripped down his bruised face. “The way I lost your mother. Watching her all those years, this thing consumed her.”
He reached toward Juliana with his other hand. Juliana took it, mindful of the bandages.
When Renshaw spoke again, his voice had regained its calm tone. “Lila had a theory. About how the rings worked. She didn’t think it was a matter of simply possessing them, and one does not have to wear them.”
Virgil took a step closer to Eleanor, sliding his hand along the small of her back, where her waistcoat had a loop of fabric and three buttons. He slid his fingers through the loop to hold Eleanor steady.
“You mentioned blood,” he prompted Renshaw. “Egyptian blood.”
“Anubis judged the deceased, to determine their worth and where they would spend eternity. Lila theorized that in order to look upon their lives, he required a measure of them. In Tau’s journal, there was mention that Sagira had injured her hand. When she later held the rings, the portal opened. That day in the desert, Ellie . . . Do you remember the blood?”
Virgil felt Eleanor tense under his hand, and she nodded; one could not forget such a thing. He recalled the scars on Eleanor’s arm, the way she spoke of those inhuman teeth ripping her flesh.
“Your arm,” Renshaw whispered. “I don’t know if your mother had your blood on her or . . . ”
Virgil pictured the fingerprints on the Lady’s arm, the bloody fingerprints that were likely Eleanor’s. He smoothed his hand over Eleanor’s back.
“You think my blood is necessary to open the Glass?” Eleanor asked her father.
“Not necessarily yours,” Renshaw said, “but Egyptian blood. That was Lila’s theory. Ellie, I don’t want you to go, but I know . . . I understand you must.” His voice was resigned now, and so, too, his expression as he looked at his daughter. “If you fail to return . . . You should make arrangements—”
“Arrangements!” Juliana cried.
“Yes, arrangements,” Renshaw repeated. “Ellie may well be trapped back there if they manage to open the Glass. To my knowledge, no one has ever returned. Sagira didn’t, and granted your mother can’t, since she is trapped without the rings. Anything could happen to you.”
Eleanor laughed, but it wasn’t a sound of pleasure to Virgil’s ears. “I always presumed we would be able to control the Glass,” she said.
“The arrogance of youth!” Renshaw managed a laugh of his own. “I have debated all these years whether my Lila is still alive somewhere. It gave me comfort to think that she lived a full life somewhere, if not here. I only wanted for her to be happy—even if that happiness came at such a cost.”
A cost that made Virgil shudder. Dalila Folley had been willing to give up this life, her husband, her child, to reach backward in time for her own mother. And yet Eleanor was willing to risk her life as well. What was it about the Glass that called to these women?
“Juliana, the book.” Renshaw released the hands he held, reaching for the leather-bound volume that Juliana handed over. “This is Tau’s journal, Ellie. Perhaps it will be of use to you.”
Eleanor’s hands were pale against the leather cover; Virgil watched her take the journal in hand, fingers brushing over the timeworn cover. He wished then that he might peer inside her mind. What must she be thinking? Feeling? Renshaw Folley had been the answer to so many riddles across the years, but he had been an unwilling sphinx, not parting with his knowledge even in the form of riddles.
The man had his reasons, Virgil told himself, and was likely conflicted over them—as they involved a wife and a daughter. It couldn’t have been easy, but neither was it easy to see the pain that crossed Eleanor’s face when she peered inside the journal. How much easier her path would have been if her father had only shared what he knew. And yet, had that been Eleanor’s path, Virgil felt certain he would never have encountered her. He felt a strange gratitude to the man, but kept his silence, thinking on his earlier words.
The arrogance of youth. Perhaps, Virgil thought, but they damn well had to try.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Loire Valley ~ October 1889
Eleanor felt sick the next morning as The Jackal lifted into the air. It wasn’t flying that caused the nausea, but the feeling that she was on a slippery slope and that her father still knew more than he was telling. Despair and grief had gripped her from the moment her father voiced her mother’s theory about Egyptian blood.
She had taken his advice and made “arrangements” should she not return. Her possessions were few, and leaving them to her father and Juliana was the simplest of all courses, yet writing it down wasn’t simple at all. The fact that Mallory stayed with her during the afternoon made it easier, but no simpler.
Now she leaned against Mallory as The Jackal soared southward toward the Loire Valley, taking advantage of his solid shoulder, which was encased in dove gray today.
She was aware of Mallory taking her hand into his at some point; she didn’t stir, only threaded her fingers with his, and kept on dozing. She hoped the nausea would pass, but if anything it only deepened as they journeyed deeper into France.
“Eleanor, you should see this.”
Mallory’s hand squeezed hers, and she opened her eyes to the landscape around them. Beyond the windows of the airship, the valley looked like something from a painting, the trees on the hills rioting in autumn colors illuminated by late morning sun. Here and there, cottages perched between the vineyards, but it was the chateaux that stood out, rising grandly along the river Loire.
“See there—Chambord?”
Eleanor sighted along Mallory’s arm to the sprawling chateau he indicated. Pale walls supported a roofline that looked like a city in miniature, so many towers and windows and curling pathways.
“We’re just downriver from there . . . ”
“Your neighbors?” Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh a little at that and was relieved when Mallory joined in.
“They kept us humble, yes,” he said. “You can see Mallory there on the right. Imogene used to think Château de Chambord was a princess’s castle.”
It could have been, Eleanor thought, but it was Chateau Mallory that interested her more, so she focused her attention on the smaller house, butter-colored walls rising from a tangle of golden and red-leafed trees. There even appeared to be a walled garden, containing more trees within its boundaries. The vineyards themselves spread west of the house, rolling in straight lines over more hills than Eleanor could count before The Jackal banked and angled toward the dock.
Eleanor thought of their conversation atop the pyramid, about coming home after long absences, and she turned her attention from the scenery to Mallory. “Are you all right?”
“From this distance, yes,” Mallory said, with no trace of laughter this time.
From this distance, Eleanor thought, the house looked like a plaything; it looked safe and distant and unreal. She took in a slow breath as Gin began the airship’s descent.
“My apologies, in advance, for the adventures that will no doubt befall us tonight,” he added. “Mother’s message said it was her Christmas miracle come early, me returning home.”
Eleanor could see the tension in the way Mallory held himself. “She does think you have a way about you. They’ll be happy to see you, Virgil. Family can be embarrassing, Lord knows, but they love you. I think we can endure a family meal or two.”
“Remind me to be on my best behavior, will you? No snarling, no letting my temper get the better of me . . . ”
“No running naked in the vineyard?” Eleanor asked. She pressed her cheek into Mallory’s arm, peering up at him as he laughed.
“There was one night,” he said in a low tone, “I was coming home after having been chasing rabbits, and in the vineyard, there was old Master Toms, one of the men who worked for my father. Deep into his drink at that point, but he screamed at the sight of me. Covered in mud and God only knows what else . . . Yes. No running naked in the vineyard, period.”
Eleanor tried to picture that and pondered the life Mallory had led here. Growing up was difficult enough, but growing up as part wolf? And never having
told his parents. She thought of every secret her father had kept and all those that Mallory must have swallowed through the years, and knew that in some ways it must have felt like drowning.
She had little time to appreciate the dock Gin nestled the airship against before a flurry of people could be seen approaching, intent on welcoming Mallory. Even the workers securing the lines of the ship to the ground had to step back; the gangplank, fortunately, fell solidly against the dock and was fastened into place before family streamed over, nearly pulling Mallory from the ship. Eleanor waited with Auberon and Gin on the ship, but only until Mallory had crossed to the dock proper. All three then descended.
“They’re quite pleased to see him,” Auberon said.
“As long as we aren’t bitten,” Gin added.
Bitten? Eleanor looked at him in confusion, but before she could ask, she saw a sleek black dog had joined the mix of people. Mallory crouched to scratch the dog’s ears and had a slobbery trail licked across his face for his efforts.
Anubis, Eleanor thought with a sharp pang, only jolted from the idea when there was a tug on her trousers and a small voice asked, “Are you Virgil’s sweetheart?”
Eleanor looked down to find a young girl with pale blond hair streaming loose about her shoulders. She was clad in a dress colored to match her hair, but had paired it with buttoned boots that were a brilliant red. The hand that wasn’t curled into Eleanor’s trouser leg was wrapped around a handful of stick candies, another of which was wedged into the corner of her mouth. Wide brown eyes peered up, as if they anticipated the answers to the mysteries of the world.
“I’m Virgil’s friend,” Eleanor answered, deciding that “sweetheart” had not entirely been determined. Did wolves have sweethearts? “Miss Folley.” She extended a hand to the young lady.
“Margarite Antoinette Mallory. I am six,” she said and took Eleanor’s hand before making a quick curtsey. Her adult air was maintained until Margarite could plainly no longer contain herself. “I am named for a dead queen!” She dissolved into giggles, which turned to a shriek as Mallory swung her over his shoulder.
Rings of Anubis: A Folley & Mallory Adventure Page 31
