The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

Then she spoke, “This is the conversation between Raimlas and Gorgon.”

  “Gorgon: You’re a fool to give your true name.”

  “Raimlas: The bastard already knew it, Gorgon.”

  “Gorgon: Do not say my name in this place. Ever.”

  “Raimlas: I don’t take my orders from you.”

  “Gorgon: No, you take your orders from Flavith, but I don’t take orders from anyone. Do not forget who I am, regardless of our current circumstances, or I will make sure you live long to regret it.”

  More silence.

  “Is that it?” asked Lily.

  “That is all I can find that relates to the subject.”

  “Very well,” Lily sighed, then thought of something else. “Why did you never pass this information to Duncan McAllister?”

  “He never asked,” Ana said.

  Because he assumed he already knew the demon’s name. An excellent reminder of how impossible it was to squeeze information out of this memory box when they didn’t know what exactly they were looking for.

  “Flavith,” Greyston said. “That’s the name of the Ostrich Lady demon.”

  Lily nodded. “Flavith scented Raimlas’s blood in you. They must be close, working together.”

  “Can Raimlas manipulate time?” Greyston asked of Ana.

  “That is not mentioned,” Ana said.

  Lily knew to be specific for the full truth. “Can Flavith manipulate time?”

  “That is not mentioned.”

  “What is the relationship between Raimlas and Flavith?”

  After minutes of silence, Ana said, “A conversation that includes Raimlas and Flavith.”

  “Raimlas: Leave Flavith out of this.”

  “Gorgon: Your precious High Queen is a weak slave.”

  “Raimlas: And yet she rules while you waste away here in a McAllister dungeon.”

  “Gorgon: You may be wasting away here. I’m biding my time.”

  Lily’s mind spun. Given the mention of ‘High Queen’ and ‘she’, demons did have a gender. She couldn’t believe the McAllisters weren’t aware of this. They must be, she decided. Kelan had never actually said otherwise, she’d just assumed that to be the case. He’d always insisted she refer to demons as ‘it’, but that was to objectify them, to remember they weren’t human despite the human forms they took on when they came through the tear.

  Ana went on and on, spewing out snippets of conversations that were interesting but generally clipped out of context and impossible to place much value on. This was precisely the problem, the reason why blanket questions were a waste of precious time.

  “Gorgon: Does Flavith know you have struck an alliance with another?”

  “Raimlas: You know nothing of my alliances.”

  “Gorgon: You forget who I am. I know all.”

  “Raimlas: You will not tell her.”

  “Gorgon: This is tedious. We have already established that I take orders from no one. I will do exactly as I please.”

  “Raimlas: You are welcome to try.”

  Ana paused. “Another conversation that includes Raimlas and Flavith.

  “Wait,” Lily said. “Continue with the previous conversation. I want to hear more about this alliance.”

  “Lily.” Greyston put a hand on her shoulder. “Our time is up.”

  “Just a little more.” She glanced at the clock, then gritted her teeth. Five seconds left. There’d be no more. Not today. Not until Greyston’s next visit. She placed her hand over his, cementing their touch. “Take us back.”

  SIX

  Ana insisted on dressing Lily’s hair in an elaborate waterfall of curls. Not only that. Before Lily could think to protest, she’d been tucked into an evening gown of gold silken threads more suited to a London ballroom than Cragloden’s supper hall.

  “This may be your first and only opportunity to make an impression on your new father,” Ana said, patting an unruly curl back into place.

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Lily nibbled absently on her lip. “The man seems set to stay a good long while.”

  “Would that be so terrible?”

  “What?” Lily met Ana’s gaze in the mirror with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, my head is still down in the laboratory.”

  The reason she’d given herself over to Ana’s ministrations when impressing Keither McAllister was the last thing on her mind. She kept thinking about the memory box, wondering if she’d been wrong. Maybe blanket questions would yield far more information than she’d been able to squeeze out of the box to date, even if it were tedious and would require wasting hours. She’d asked so many specific questions about Agares, about the demon’s abilities, intentions, where the demon could hide from her demon glass. All to no avail.

  That’s exactly what she’d do, Lily decided. She’d ask the memory box for any references to Agares and see what it spat out. Unfortunately, that would have to wait for Greyston’s next visit. True to his word, he’d departed not long after Georgina had returned from her excursion into the port town.

  Once Ana was satisfied and took her leave, Lily perched on the edge of the bed and closed her eyes to take a quick look in the demon glass. She slowed her breaths, quietening her thoughts and turning all her senses inward, reaching for the grainy stillness buried deep inside her. She’d been searching in vain for so many weeks, she pulled out in surprise when the grey started swirling into the tunnel that usually sucked her through into a demon presence.

  Her eyes snapped wide open, her heart thumping. She could actually sense Agares, or some other demon. Finally!

  She closed her eyes again and concentrated, reaching deeper and deeper inside herself, her senses swimming into the smoky fog that whirled and whipped around her like a windstorm, sweeping her through the tunnel…

  The plush oriental carpet and walls of leather-bound books, the massive hearth, the mahogany table and heavy armchairs… Ice shot through Lily’s veins. She knew exactly where she was, even before she saw Kelan and his father seated across from each other. Kelan sat with one leg squared over the other, arms stretched out along the armrests of the chair. His expression was its usual impenetrable wall with inbred arrogance riding the harsh ridges of his face, unflinching righteousness lurking in the shallows.

  They couldn’t see her. Couldn’t sense her. She was a ghost sifting the Aether, spying without a trace.

  “I’m not a coward,” Keither McAllister was saying, his eyes turned down to the amber liquid swirling in his glass. “I did not leave, and I certainly did not stay gone, because I was—”

  “We’re all aware of that, Father.” Kelan’s fingers thrummed a steady pattern on the leather armrest, the only betrayal of agitation. “You believed the McAllister presence here provoked the demons, possibly even weakened the tear. You weren’t all wrong, although I think the damage was done long before we removed ourselves to Florence. Lesser demons are coming through in hordes, piggybacking on King Demons—”

  “And now you have a war on your hands,” Keither cut in gruffly, “and you expect me to turn tail and scurry back to safety like the coward you insist you don’t believe I am.”

  “Your time will come for—”

  “My time is now!” Keither lifted his glass to his mouth and threw back the contents in one gulp.

  The look he set on his son was one Lily was remarkably familiar with. Like father, like son. Both believed their way was the only way.

  Kelan released a heavy sigh. “Be reasonable, Father. Your heart is weak. You’ve had three episodes in three years. Your physician has warned you the next will be your last.”

  “I’m not an invalid yet.”

  Lily stopped listening, her own heart thumping as she drifted along the walls of Cragloden’s library, peering into every shadow, under tables, behind cabinets, searching for the demon presence that had brought her here.

  This scene was wrong. How could she be here? The protection runes were cast into the castle’s foundations, forming a bubble of protection.
No demon could enter, not through the gates, not over the walls, not falling from the sky, not digging from beneath.

  She paused in her search to look back at the men, scrutinizing their forms so fiercely, her temples began to ache. But of course neither man was blurred around the edges, the single feature that differentiated demon from human in this parallel dimension. And there were no other demons in the room either.

  So, why was she here? What had brought her?

  Was it possible…? She shook her head at the absurdity of the sudden thought, but what other explanation was there? Was it possible that her emotional bond to Kelan had opened up this new channel of communication? The basis of her demon glass was, after all, the bond of her demon blood to other demons.

  And if so, Lily realised at the same moment, if she wasn’t here tracking demons, she was doing little more than eavesdropping on her husband and his father.

  She started to withdraw from the scene, but as if to spite her best intentions, her hearing honed onto the conversation. Or perhaps it was the mention of her name that subconsciously snagged her attention and stopped her dead.

  “Lily is a fine addition to our family and our cause,” Keither said. “You chose well.”

  Kelan grimaced. “To say I chose at all would be a stretch of anyone’s imagination, Father.”

  Undeterred, Keither stated, “She is a fine lass.”

  “Yes,” Kelan said, his jaw loosening. “She is indeed.”

  “May I assume your mother and I will be hearing good news soon?”

  Kelan’s brow shot up. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about an heir.”

  “There will be no heir,” Kelan said flatly.

  His father turned an incredulous look on him, clearly waiting for more.

  Lily waited, too. There will be no heir until the demon war is over. Until the tear is sealed. Until we decide to start our family. She waited, but Kelan wasn’t forthcoming with any elaboration.

  “Now, son,” Keither said, “I realise you want this war to be the end, but even with Lily’s ability, even given all the time in the world to secure the ground, nothing is guaranteed. You may well need an heir.”

  “If it comes to that…” Kelan cleared his throat. “I’ve always done what was needed of me.”

  “Thank the Saints.”

  Kelan’s grimace returned. “But not from Lily.”

  “Not from Lily?” Keither’s pallor reddened. “You keep another wife somewhere that we don’t know about?”

  “If it comes to that… If I’m without choice, there’s no requirement that my heir cannot be a bastard.” Kelan unsquared his leg and rose from the chair. “There are plenty of brothels around, plenty of whores who wouldn’t object to me raising our son alone with the right financial incentive.”

  He shifted, his back now to Lily, his head dipped, looking down to where his father remained in his seat. “This is my last word on the matter. Lily will never mother any child of mine.”

  Lily flipped out of the demon glass so quickly, she felt completely lightheaded and disorientated. Once the room stopped spinning, there was nothing left to blur the meaning behind Kelan’s words.

  Tears pricked her eyes. Her heart threatened to shrivel into a cold, bleak thing. She’d been clinging to threads of a useless dream.

  How could she have been such a pathetic fool? No doubt Kelan cared for her. He certainly enjoyed their marriage bed. But when all was said and done, she wasn’t quite good enough. She never would be. So, that’s what the rune tattooed to his groin was really all about. He’d made his mind up from the very start and wouldn’t take any chances. For the first time, she understood how Greyston had felt when he’d first learnt about their demon blood. Her blood was tainted, dirty and impure. Kelan would father a bastard before he allowed her to stain the soul of his child, to sully his own flesh and blood.

  Lily blinked back the tears. She refused to cry. She refused to be undone by Kelan McAllister, a man who’d never claimed to be any less ruthless or cold hearted than he truly was.

  And she couldn’t even hate him properly. She couldn’t wallow in bitterness. Because Kelan had never promised her love. He’d never promised her a family. He’d never promised her anything at all.

  Lily fisted her hands into the bed covers and sat there until her breath evened, until her head cleared, until her heart stopped threatening to shrivel. She was stronger than this. She didn’t have a choice. She had to focus on what was important. So long as demons walked this earth, that was the only thing that mattered.

  She slid to her feet, instantly alert and focussed as she raced out the bedroom. She had to find Kelan at once. She was no longer convinced an emotional bond had taken her into the library. Her demon glass required demon blood on both sides of the tunnel to pull her through while any emotional intensity she’d attributed earlier was clearly one sided.

  She rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste a couple of times, and at the bottom barrelled straight into Kelan.

  His hands came up to steady her, holding her at an arm’s length while his gaze roamed downward with an appreciative pause on the low cut bodice of her evening gown. “You look breath-taking.”

  Lily stepped back, out of his touch. “When did you leave the library?”

  His eyes flickered up again. “I’ve just come from there.”

  “And your father?”

  “He went into the camp to pay his greetings to some old friends,” Kelan said, his brow creasing in concern. “What is it, Lily?”

  “I was searching the demon glass,” she started saying.

  “And you saw Agares?” Kelan finished.

  Lily shook her head. “It took me to the library. I saw you and your father, Kelan. In our library here, but I didn’t see any sign of demons.”

  Kelan scrubbed his jaw, his eyes darkening and narrowing as he looked at her.

  “I thought you should know,” Lily said, “but it can’t mean anything, can it? Demons can’t pass through the shield. It’s impossible.”

  “Saloese.” The name tore from Kelan’s throat, hoarse and gritty.

  “Saloese?” Lily gasped. The first demon she’d ever seen in her demon glass, the one at the farmhouse. A follower of the Winterberry demon, presumably Agares. “But you banished it.”

  Kelan was already turning from her. “Stay here, Lily. Do not move a foot until I return, do you hear?”

  He didn’t wait for her reply. He strode down the passage toward the front door, and then his long strides broke into a run.

  Lily took exactly one breath and then she charged after him, outside and onto the portico. Kelan was halfway across the courtyard. By the time she reached the bottom of the steps, he was through the side gate cut into the perimeter wall. She didn’t stop to think or worry. She wouldn’t even know where to start. How did a banished demon manage to pass through the castle’s protection shield?

  She gathered her skirts in one hand and picked up her pace, darting across the cobbled courtyard, ruining her satin slippers and drawing curious stares. At the side gate, she skidded to a halt, peering around the wall first. She wasn’t a blundering idiot. And if Kelan had engaged the demon in a fight, the distraction of her tumbling into the fray wouldn’t help.

  But there was no demon.

  There was only Kelan, hunkered over the body of his fallen father. Kelan’s head lifted, his gaze met hers, and the haunted look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. Keither McAllister was gone. Dead.

  She barely knew the man, and yet intimate, personal grief spread through her. Kelan. Oh dear Lord, Kelan… Her heart reached out to him.

  “Get back inside,” Kelan told her coldly. “Now.”

  On the beat of his last word, Lily fell back inside the walls without argument. This is what Kelan needed of her in this moment. This is what she’d give him. The questions, the explanations, the sympathy, that could all wait.

&
nbsp; SEVEN

  Kelan didn’t regret much in his life. He made mistakes. Plenty. But his time was better spent learning from those mistakes than regretting them.

  Remorse was a well that sucked you dry. Ironically, that was one of his father’s favourite teachings and now, in death, he failed the man. Then again, it wasn’t every day one killed your own father. Perhaps the slip was unavoidable. A grim sheath had slid over him as he’d felt for his father’s pulse, as he’d held the man in his arms and prayed to a God who never listened. A sheath that was only part grief, part guilt, and mostly remorse for the things he’d done.

  Kelan closed his eyes, took slow, shallow breaths through his mouth, then turned to hand the folded paper to Lily. “This is the frequency for the Aether Signaller in Hampstead Heath. They’ll know how to reach me in an emergency.”

  Lily’s fingers brushed his with deliberate slowness as she took the paper. “Kelan, let me come with you to Florence. I won’t interfere, I won’t talk, you don’t even have to acknowledge me. Just let me be there in case you need me.”

  “I won’t need you.”

  She flinched at his flat rejection. He watched, unaffected as her beautiful hazel eyes dulled to a pale brown. In the last few hours, a hard shell had crept over every part of him that had ever softened, even slightly, for his wife. She’d developed an affection for him. She’d started falling in love with him. He hadn’t encouraged her, but he hadn’t stopped her either. There’d even been moments when he’d fallen into her and forgotten who he was. That he’d allowed any of that to happen was cruel, selfish and heartless.

  No more.

  “I’ll be back within a week,” he said, gesturing for her to walk on ahead from the Aether Signaller Chamber. One week was too long to be gone, but that could not be helped. He had to take his father’s body back to Florence. That much, he owed his mother.

  When Kelan followed Lily into the main room of the library, Armand was there, just outside the inter-leading door, pressing a glass of whiskey into Kelan’s hand as he stepped through.

  “You were right,” the man said softly. “You always have been. I should have left your father out of this.”