“Tonight,” she mouthed. “My room.”
He grinned a happy feral grin. Cerise turned and went with Kaldar downstairs.
TWENTY-FOUR
CERISE awoke. Her bedroom lay dark. It took her a second to place the even, whispery sound next to her, and then she recognized it—Lark, breathing.
The explanations didn’t go well. She’d tried her best, but the only thing Lark heard was that Mother wasn’t coming back. Ever. The poor kid broke and cried. She cried and cried with feverish desperation. At first Cerise tried to calm her, and then something snapped inside her, and she cried, too. You’d think she had no tears left, but no, she bawled just like Lark. They huddled on the bed and sobbed from the pain and unfairness of it. Finally Cerise made herself stop and held Lark, murmuring soothing things to her and stroking her hair, until her sister curled into a ball and fell asleep, whimpering like a sick kitten.
Cerise looked at the ceiling. No noises disturbed the silence. She heard nothing, she saw nothing, but something had to have woken her up.
She sat up slowly and turned to the tall window opening onto the verandah. A pair of glowing eyes stared through the glass.
William.
He had no shirt on. The moonlight slid over his back and shoulders, tracing the outline of sculpted biceps, sliding over the shield of muscle on his side to the narrow waist. His hair fell on his shoulders in a dark mane. He stood with easy predatory grace, beautiful and terrifying, and he stared at her with the same impossible longing she’d seen in him in the lake house. The intensity of it took her breath away. She wasn’t sure if she should swoon, scream, or just wake up.
He moved and tapped the window with his knuckle.
Not dreaming. He’d showed up and he wanted in.
Cerise shook her head. No. She needed him so badly, it almost hurt, but Lark needed her more.
He raised his arms. Why?
She leaned over and very gently pulled the blanket down, revealing Lark’s tousled hair.
His face fell. He rocked forward and bumped his head on the glass.
“Aaaah!” Lark jerked up. “Ceri! Ceri!”
Cerise thrust herself between her sister and the window. “What is it?”
“A monster, a monster at the window!”
Cerise grabbed Lark into a hug and turned, keeping Lark’s face away from the glass. William ripped off his pants. A convulsion gripped his body, jerking him, breaking his arms, twisting his shoulders. Cerise gulped. “There’s nothing there.”
“There is a monster! I saw it.”
William’s muscles flowed like melted wax. He crashed to all fours. Dense black fur sheathed him. He shook, and a huge black wolf sat at the window, his eyes glowing like two wild moons.
She did not just see that. Surely, she didn’t.
Every hair on the back of Cerise’s neck stood up. She swallowed. “Look, baby, it’s not a monster, it’s just a dog. See?”
Lark pulled from her and glanced at the window. “Where did it come from?”
“It’s William’s dog.” The damn wolf was the size of a pony.
William pawed at the glass gently and licked it.
“William doesn’t have a dog.”
“Sure he does. His dog stays in the woods so he doesn’t bother our dogs. He’s very nice. See?” Cerise rose and opened the window. William trotted in, an enormous black shadow, and put his head on the sheets next to Lark. She reached over and petted his sable fur. “He’s nice.”
“Come on.” Cerise adjusted the pillows. “Try to get back to sleep.”
She slid under the covers next to Lark. William hopped on the bed by their legs and lay still. “Behave,” she told him.
He yawned, showing her white teeth the size of her pinkies, and closed his mouth with a click.
“Ceri?”
“Mmmm … ?”
“You won’t let them keep Mom that way, right?”
“No, I won’t.”
“You have to kill her.”
“I will, Sophie. I will.”
“Soon, right? I don’t want her to hurt.”
“Very soon. Go to sleep now. It will hurt less in the morning.”
Cerise closed her eyes, felt William shift to make room for her toes, and relaxed. Tomorrow would be a hellish day, but for now, with the giant wolf guarding her feet, she felt strangely safe.
WHEN Cerise awoke, William was nowhere to be seen. He’d stayed through most of the night—she had awakened earlier, just before sunrise, and he had still been there, a big shaggy beast sprawled on her bed. Now he was gone.
It was crazy, she reflected, as she got dressed. She knew he would eventually turn into an animal. After all, that was what changelings did. But witnessing it was like staring Raste Adir in the face. This was magic so old, so primitive, that it didn’t fit into any of the neat equations her grandfather had taught her. It roared, furious and primal, like an avalanche or a storm.
The journal she had seen in Lagar’s mind bothered her. It looked just like one of her grandfather’s journals in which he used to write out his planting schedule and research. The journal had to be the key, the last piece in this big tangled puzzle.
She found Richard in the front yard, supervising as Andre sharpened his machete.
“I need to go to Sene,” she told him. “Will you come with me?”
He didn’t ask why. He just had two horses brought and they rode out.
Half an hour later Cerise stood on the rotten porch of Sene Manor. She used to be so happy in this house, back when the garden was cultivated, the path to the creek swept, and the walls were a bright cheery yellow. Yellow like the sun, her grandfather had said after he’d finished painting. Grandmother had shrugged her delicate shoulders. Congratulations, Vernard. You turned the house into a giant baby chicken.
She could still hear the muted echoes of their voices, but they were gone. Long gone, stolen by the plague. She never even saw the bodies, only the two closed coffins. By the time the bodies were found, they’d been decomposing for a few days. Father said they were in bad shape and not fit to be displayed. She had to say her good-byes to the wooden lids.
All that remained of her grandparents was the empty shell of their house, abandoned and forgotten. And the garden, once overgrown, was now barren, since Lagar had mowed it down to nothing.
A bright spot of red drew her eye. She squinted at it. Moss. Burial shroud, they called it. Short and stubby, it grew deep in the Mire, feeding on carrion. It would sprout over the corpse of a fallen animal, so dense that after a couple of days all you could see was a blanket of red and a bump underneath. Odd that it would be in the garden.
Richard nodded at a small patch of redwort growing by the porch. “Lagar’s thugs missed a spot.”
“I hate that plant.” Cerise sighed.
“Yes, I remember. The earache tea.” Richard nodded. “Grandfather used to make us drink it every morning. It worked. I don’t recall ever getting an earache.”
“I remember gagging on it. I think I’d take the earache over the tea.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Richard’s narrow lips bent in a smile. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“It was awful.” Cerise hugged herself.
Richard nodded at the door. “The longer you put it off, the harder it will be to go in.”
He was right. Cerise took a deep breath and crossed the bloodstained porch to the door, hanging crooked on its hinges. No time to waste. She stepped inside.
The house greeted her with the gloom and musty, damp smell of mildew. A sitting room lay to her right. She passed it. A brick red rug once covered the hallway, but now it lay torn and filthy, little more than an old rag. Floorboards, warped by moisture, glared through the rents.
The house felt cold. Her steps made the floor creak and quiver. Behind her Richard paused, leaning to examine the sitting room.
“No vermin,” he said. “No droppings, no gnaw marks. Perhaps, the plague’s still here.”
“
Or maybe it’s just a dead house.” Its people had died, and the house had withered away, unwilling or unable to support life. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
A pale door loomed before her. The library. Her memory thrust an image before her: a sunny room, a plain table, walls lined with shelves crammed with books, and Grandfather complaining that sunlight would bleach the ink off the pages …
Cerise pushed the door with her fingertips. It swung open on creaky hinges. The oak table lay in shambles. Pieces of shelves, torn from the walls, lay in a pile of splinters here and there. The books had spilled on the floor in a calico cascade, some closed, some open, like a pile of dead butterflies. The library wasn’t just ransacked; it was smashed, as if someone of extraordinary strength had vented his rage on it.
Behind her, Richard made a small noise that sounded like one of William’s growls. Destroying Grandfather’s library was like ripping open his grave and spitting on his body. It felt like a desecration.
Cerise crouched by the pile of books and touched one of the leather-bound covers. Slick slime stained her fingers. She picked up the edge of the book and pulled. A page ripped, and the book came away from the floor, leaving some paper stuck to the boards. A long gray and yellow stain of mold crawled across the text to the cover, binding the pages together.
“This is an old mess,” Richard murmured.
“Yes. Spider didn’t do this.”
Dread stirred inside her. Anybody could’ve ransacked the library—the house stood empty for years. Still, something didn’t quite fit. A burglar looking for things to steal wouldn’t have torn the books apart.
Cerise circled the book pile. She hopped over the ruin of the table to get a better view of the walls, slid on a slimy patch, and almost fell on her butt. Deep gouges marked the old walls. Long, ragged, parallel strokes. Claw marks. She spread her fingers, matching the wounds in the wall, but her hand wasn’t big enough. What the hell?
“Come, look at this.”
Richard leaped over the book with his usual elegant grace and touched the marks. “A very large animal. Heavy—look at the depth of the scars. I’d say upward of six hundred pounds. An animal would have no reason to enter the house. The place has no food, and it sits in the middle of the clearing. And if this was an animal, we would see other evidence: feces, fur, more claw marks. It looks like this creature broke into the library, demolished it, and left.”
“As if it broke in to wreck the books on purpose.”
Richard nodded.
“William said he saw a monster in the forest. It looked like a large lizard.”
Richard frowned. “What was he doing in the forest?”
“Lark was showing him something. The monster attacked Lark and William fought it off. Apparently Grandmother Azan helped.”
“You like the blueblood,” Richard said carefully.
“Very much.”
“Does he like you?”
“Yes, he does.”
“How much do the two of you like each other?”
She couldn’t hide a smile. “Enough.”
Richard tapped the side of his nose with one long finger.
“Please,” she invited with a wave of her hand.
“We know nothing about him. As a blueblood, he may have certain duties and obligations back in his world. Maybe he’s on leave from the military. What if he has a wife? Children? Could he stay with you if he wanted to?”
“He’s no longer in the military and he has no one.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me.”
“He could’ve lied,” Richard said gently.
“He’s a changeling, Richard. He has a hard time with lying.”
Richard drew back. He opened his mouth, obviously struggling. “A changeling,” he finally managed.
She nodded.
“What …”
“A wolf.”
Richard cleared his throat. “Well.”
She waited for him.
“It could be worse,” he said finally. “Efrenia married an arsonist. Jake’s wife is a kleptomaniac. I suppose, a psychopathic spree killer isn’t that odd of a choice, considering. We’ll just have to work around it. Gods know, we’ve had practice. He’s certainly good in a fight.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” Richard said. “We’re family. If you love him and he loves you, we’ll do whatever we can to let you be happy.”
Cerise turned to the corner, where a small bookcase used to contain the planting journals. The book case lay overturned. She picked it up and wrestled it upright. Nothing, except a puddle of soggy pulp that may have been a book at some point, but now served as a shelter for a family of muck bugs. The journals were gone.
They left the library and headed to the kitchen. Both windows stood wide open, the freshly installed metal grates catching the light of the morning sun. Dead leaves rustled on the floor. Shards of broken pottery crunched under Cerise’s foot. A shattered plate. And a knife. She picked it up. A thin paring knife that was missing its tip. A dark brown stain marked the blade. She scratched at it and the dark brown crumbled, tiny flecks floating to the floor.
“Blood,” Richard said. “The entire blade is stained. This knife went into someone.”
“Grandma could’ve been cooking something.”
He shook his head. “Anything she cooked would’ve been drained of blood. This knife went into a living body.”
Cerise looked at the knife. Three inches, maybe four. “It’s too small to hurt anyone. I could kill someone with it, but Grandma? She would faint first. Besides, they died of plague.”
“Supposedly.” Richard strode to the sink.
“What do you mean, supposedly?”
“We never saw the bodies. Look, dishes.”
The sink held a small stack of dirty dishes. To the right two dusty glasses sat in a tray upside down. Grandfather set the glasses right side up to dry. He thought they ventilated better. Her grandparents used to bicker about it.
Cerise came to stand by the sink. “So Grandmother was washing the dishes, when something attacked her. She grabbed the first knife she could find, turned …” Cerise turned with the paring knife. “The knife broke.”
“She must’ve grabbed a plate, probably several, and threw them at her attacker.”
Cerise put the knife on the counter. “And then?”
Richard touched her elbow, steering her from the sink, and pointed to the cabinet. Stains marked the doors, dark patches on dark wood. A thick crust had formed on the cabinet doorknob. Several long silver hairs were stuck to it.
“Whatever it was knocked her down.” Richard spread the leaves off the floor, revealing a long dark smudge. “And dragged her off.”
They chased the trail of blood through the kitchen, down the hallway, and to the bedroom. Blood spattered the walls. Dried to nearly black, it spanned the boards to the right and left of the headboard as if someone had bathed in blood and then danced around.
“The bed,” Richard murmured.
He grasped one side of the torn mattress, she grasped the other. Cerise heaved. The mattress gave, rising off the floor. A large fuzzy blotch of mold marred the underside. It didn’t look good. Cerise leaned closer and rubbed at the mold with her sleeve. Dark brown. Blood. Nobody could bleed that much and survive.
There was no plague, no fever, no sickness. Her grandparents were murdered.
She looked at Richard. His face was controlled fury.
“The family lied to us,” she said.
“Yes, they did.”
THE kitchen buzzed with angry voices. Forty-six adults, stressed to the limit, trying to outscream each other. The insult to the family was monumental. Gustave kidnapped, Genevieve fused, the house of cherished grandparents robbed.
Cerise let them rage. They had to vent enough to be reasoned with. She wished she had William with her, but he had to stay outside the room. This was a Mar affair.
“They c
ame onto our land,” Mikita’s voice boomed. “Our land! They took our people. We’re Mars. Nobody does that to us and lives. We fuck them up and we fuck them up good.”
“We hit them with everything we have,” Kaldar yelled out.
“Y’all are out of your minds.” One of the older women, Joanna, pushed from the wall. She was Aunt Pete’s cousin. “We have kids to think about. That’s the Hand we’re talking about here.”
Kaldar turned to her. “You have three daughters. How the hell am I going to marry them off? We don’t have money and we don’t have prospects. Right now, the only reason people want to marry into our family is because they know if something happens, we’ll back them up. What do you want me to do when your eldest comes to me crying, because she’s in love, but the man won’t have her and we can’t even pay for her wedding? Love fades, fear stays.”
“If he really loves her, the name won’t matter,” Joanna yelled. “Love’s what does it.”
“Really? Speaking from experience, are you? Where the hell is your Bobby, and why isn’t he taking care of his kids?”
“You leave my kids out of it!”
“We must fight,” Murid’s voice cut through the noise with raspy precision. “We have no choice.”
“Aunt Murid.” Cerise made an effort to say it just right, sweet but with an edge to it. “You’ve lied to us.”
Instantly the room was silent.
“You, and Aunt Pete, and my parents. You’ve lied to all of us. We went down to Sene this morning. My grandparents didn’t die of the plague.”
Aunt Pete glanced at Murid.
“We found the blood,” Richard said. “Too much blood. And claw marks on the walls.”
Murid raised her head. “There was no fever. Your grandfather lost his mind and murdered your grandmother in the bedroom.”
A wave of cold rolled over Cerise. It couldn’t be. “Why?”
“We don’t know,” Aunt Pete said. “He had become withdrawn over that spring and summer. He rarely visited the main house. Your mother thought he was depressed. When your father and she came down to visit your grandparents, they found your grandmother’s body. He’d ripped her apart like a straw doll. All of you loved him very much. We spared you the pain of knowing what he did.”
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