Chapter Twelve
Theodore
It's taken me a few weeks to get Cora's house back to its original condition. When I returned, a thin film of dust covered nearly every surface. Even now, there's work to be done. I shake the throw blanket and fold it over the arm of the couch before addressing the rotting tulips in the kitchen. Petals litter the floor and table. I could incinerate them with the power that Vivienne's sacrifice provided, but the weight of them in my palm makes me feel halfway normal, and Cora would be furious with me if I tracked soot on her floors.
The thought of her makes my chest tight. She lived longer than she should have, the stubborn old bat. Our first conversation should've been our last, but she knew who I was before I even opened my mouth. "The devil himself will have to drag me to hell," she said, "or I'm not going." She was happy, at least at the end. I had a part in that, or I tell myself that I did. I can almost hear her calling from the other room, chastising me for showing up empty-handed. I'll replace the flowers tomorrow with the yellow tulips that she loved.
"Pink for luck," she explained once. "White for condolences. Yellow for hope."
I've just finished cleaning up the petals when a wisp of energy floats towards me, raising the hair on my arms.
Domesticity doesn't suit you.
Heat prickles my skin but I swallow the rising tide of anger, taking a breath before I turn back towards the living room. Marcella is lounging on the couch, resting her feet on the coffee table and grinning like she's oblivious to her own guilt. She's smart enough not to goad me further. "Morrigan wants you dead," I say.
"Ach, old news. She's wanted me dead since she made me undead." She surveys me with narrowed eyes. "Do you?"
I plop down next to her and swat at her legs until she sets her feet on the floor like a civilized person in someone else's home. "I haven't decided."
"Az wants you to come home," she says, glancing at me sidelong.
"I don't care what Az wants."
She tilts her head back and groans. "You're leaving me to deal with his moping—"
"Drop it." I curl my fingers into fists, watching the light dance in the creases. I close my eyes and see a body on the dining table, blood dripping onto the hardwood like a metronome, Liam upstairs holding a pillow against his chest like a shield, Az pinned against the wall, my hand around his throat, lightning searing his skin. I should've turned the manor into rubble for what he did to Anya. I should've buried him beneath it. It wouldn't have fixed anything.
Az claimed that it was an impossible choice: Anya's life for Marcella's continued existence, a fee to be paid for her growing role in the rebellion. But the blow was intended for me. Az may have killed her, but I sentenced her to death.
Marcella watches the light skitter over my arms, tingling like a feather duster on my skin. "Yielding isn't real, huh?"
My anger surges and then winks out, replaced by a bubble of insane, exhausted laughter. "You could've warned me."
“You would have said no. You would have said,” she deepens her voice in what I can only assume is an impression of my own, “this is dangerous, Marcella. You’re going to get both of us killed.”
I lean back against the couch and tilt my head towards the ceiling. I'll have to dust up there, too. "You are going to get both of us killed."
"Let it be a worthy death."
I roll my eyes and mutter, "Don't be dramatic," but the unspoken addition lingers in the air between us. If I die again, it will matter.
Marcella hums, tucking her knees to her chest. "How's your girl?"
"She's not my—" She shoots me a glare. "She's fine."
"Fine," she mocks.
"I'm assuming The Glades was your idea?"
"Assume that every good idea is my idea." She tilts her head to look at me, pressing her cheek against her knee. "Morrigan knows about her."
I swallow and avert my eyes. "I figured."
"You want to be strong enough to protect her?" She almost sounds like she cares. "I can help you."
Nothing she can teach me would be enough.
She huffs and swings to her feet. "Get up. We have hours of daylight left."
"I thought you said you trained." Marcella offers me her hand and I take it, standing from where she knocked me on my ass for the fifth time in an hour.
I dust off my pants. "I trained like this," I conjure an orb of sparks in my palm, letting it spin and expand to the size of a grapefruit before it sputters and disappears, "not like… this." I punch at the air.
"Well, if you don't know how to," she mimics the admittedly wimpy way my fists flailed, "then all the fancy tricks in the world won't save her. She'll be dead before you can pull out that light show." She paces around me in a slow circle. "Your feet are too close together."
I grumble but spread them, shoes scraping against the rocks. We're in Cora's backyard—my backyard, technically, since she left me the deed when she died. It's larger than most in the area, lined with a tall wooden fence, half gravel and half grass. Cora wanted a garden, but by the time I arrived, she was unable to do the physical labor required to grow anything other than weeds.
Marcella shoves my back, and I sway but don't fall. "Better," she says.
"Where did you learn to fight?"
"Tomas taught me." Before I can respond, she swings. I dodge the first blow, leaning sideways—directly into her other fist. It hits my side with enough force that the air rushes from my lungs. I double over and stumble, but at least I don't fall again.
She throws her head back and groans. "I'm not a human!"
The sting of the impact forces me to brace my hands on my knees. She's stronger than her lithe body suggests. I pant, "I'm well aware."
This isn't the answer she's looking for, apparently. She presses her fingers against her eyes. "You will not draw my blood. You will not break my bones. I have already died."
I grit out, "I know."
"Then why," she sneers, pulling her hands away from her face, "won't you hit me!"
With a steadying exhale, I straighten and throw my shoulders back. The wind blows my hair into my eyes. I don't brush it away. "There's no need. We're just practicing."
"How am I supposed to trust that you can hold your own if I can't judge the final blow?" She stalks towards me, stopping with her toes touching my own, and taps her cheek. "Go on. Land one."
I don't move.
She laces her hands behind her back. "I know you've thought about it." When I keep my hands in loose fists at my sides, she sighs. "Ugh. You self-serving invertebrate."
At least she's coming up with new insults. "I don't intend on engaging in hand-to-hand combat."
"Nobody intends on engaging in hand-to-hand combat, you absolute oaf. Do you think Morrigan is going to join you for a nice meal and listen while you beg her to spare your pets?" She throws up her hands. "It never worked before, but hey! Maybe this time, right?"
"Watch yourself," I grumble.
She doesn't heed my warning. She never does. "Rosalie will die just like Anya died. Not because you're incapable of protecting her, but because you're unwilling to."
I lunge at her, aiming low. It's a clumsy attack, but it surprises her enough to throw her off-balance. With my arms looped around her waist, I shove her to the ground, pinning my hands between her back and the gravel, knees bracketed on either side of her legs. Heat and light surge upwards through my chest and down my arms, searing her. Despite her earlier declaration, she winces. I let up immediately, struggling to unwind my hands. She takes advantage of my confinement, smashing her forehead against my nose.
"Better," she huffs from below me.
My face is still singing from the impact, but I bare my teeth at her. "Talk about Anya like that again, and I will kill you."
She shoves my chest—her hands are unrestrained, a mistake I don't see until I'm flailing backwards—and flips us, pressing her elbow against my throat and pinning my arms above my head with one hand. "Unfortunately for both of us, I know you too well to be frightened of you." She sighs and gets to her feet, dusting off her pants before offering me a hand. Again. "My life would be much less stressful if I were blissfully unaware that my only hope for salvation is a sniveling pacifist."
I let her help me to my feet. If she's trying to annoy me into action, it's working. I slip into a fighting stance, feet wide like she instructed. "Again."
I visit Rosalie again that night, lingering on a bench outside, far enough away and obscured by trees and shadows so she doesn't spot me when she enters. Her hair is loose tonight, waves brushing her shoulders as she walks, entering the building with a heave of her shoulders. Even from this far away, her eyes look sunken and dim, but her cheeks have more color in them.
Once the other employees and visitors have filtered out of the building, light with chatter and the relief of work completed, I watch her turn the locks, peering out at the retreating people and the empty street—looking for me, I hope but don't entirely believe. For a moment, I'm almost certain she spots me, but then she sighs and turns away.
I move to stand, but a flicker to my left makes me turn. A man, chin high with the swollen pride of fresh immortality, meets my eye from a few yards away. One of Morrigan's rats, or he must be. There are few Mortae in this city and fewer still that don't report to my mother. I narrow my eyes and sift through his thoughts, better now at turning incoherent energy into intelligible phrases—or in this case, emotions. Curiosity mostly, laced with a fine amount of fear when I incline my head. Not enough for me to feel comfortable with his proximity to Rosalie.
When I rise, he flashes his palms at me and takes a step back. He's too far for me to see the details of his face, but his cheeks are round and pulled taut with a simpering smile. He's just a kid, really, an infant in a war between forces too ancient for him to comprehend, just as I was when I died. He'll tell my mother about my whereabouts, certainly. He'll inform her of the object of my attention, the woman shuffling papers just beyond the glass doors. Is that enough to sentence him to death? Permanent, real, no-takesies-backsies death? Marcella would say yes. Morrigan would say yes. Yet I can't bring myself to call upon the power that belongs to me as much as it doesn't, the stolen strength. I can't move towards him. I can't look away.
He retreats, my decision made for me.
My reckoning comes two weeks later, and it's sweeter than I expected. On that same bench, I listen to the gnawing anxiety pulsing from Rosalie alongside the beat of her heart. The soul within me urges me to go to her, to smooth the worry between her brows—worry about me, I realize with a smugness that twists into shame—but I keep my distance, heeding Marcella's words. For now.
We've trained every morning. Physically, as she's not as adept at manipulating the flow of energy as my mother is—as I am, after watching my mother and practicing in secret. Not that I'm an expert in either discipline, but the effort keeps my mind occupied, and it's a useful outlet for the insatiable flow of souls that whisper beneath my skin. Even now, I roll a flattened disk of compressed air across my knuckles like a coin.
I don't turn when he sits next to me, recognizing the pitch of his breathing and the way that the air shifts to make room for his body— a body I know as well as my own, or used to and have been recently refamiliarized with. I expected my mother to send Uriel or, if she was feeling particularly cruel, Gemma, so his arrival is a welcome surprise. Him, at least, I'm confident that I can subdue despite my lack of combat prowess.
And maybe I missed him. Maybe his was the voice I wanted to hear offering platitudes about Anya's death. Like maybe he'd know what to say.
It doesn't change the fact that he acted against my direct order. It doesn't mend the piece of me that shattered when he, too, became a captor instead of a friend. We were never friends, and I was a fool to convince myself otherwise.
"Another command from Her Highness?" I ask, because he won't speak without leave, because he is a dog that claims me as his master when I'm not the one holding the leash.
He tips his chin towards the front door of The Glades, the direction of both of our attention. "Who is she?"
The air disperses over my fingers, and I hook my elbows over the back of the bench. "I never took you for a jealous man, Elias." I tilt my head towards him and watch him stiffen under my perusal.
"You're especially catty today, my prince."
The moniker draws a shiver from me that I hide with a shrug. "Perhaps I've grown tired of hosting my mother's creatures."
A muscle in his jaw flexes. "Can we not just talk?"
"You are here on her orders, are you not?" I wave my hand. "But sure. Talk. Though I can't guarantee that I'm inclined to listen. Actually, I suspect I'm not, given my track record—and yours, if we're being honest." He turns to me with wide, furious eyes. "I will say that her creativity is lacking. Murder is so tiresome, and has proven to be ineffective, but go on. What warning were you sent to relay, and why would I listen to you of all—"
His lips crash onto mine, wild and searching and leaving me defenseless. Stunned, my arms fall to my sides while his hands find my cheeks, holding me there even after he breaks away, forcing me to look at him. There's a hardness in the set of his mouth that wasn't there before. I want to brush it away with my fingers.
"I'm so sorry." His breath is hot on my cheeks. "About your friend."
My hands find his chest, and I shove him. He sways back, releasing me. I concede, "I'm listening."
He frowns at the distance between us or at the versions of ourselves that used to exist. With a sigh, he removes his glasses and cleans the lenses on his shirt. "Marcella will lead you to ruin."
My answering laugh sears my throat. "You are jealous." Then, "Marcella will not lead me anywhere." And, because his kiss has left me feeling just reckless enough to expect honesty, "Are you a rebel now, Elias?"
"Gemma would have my head."
"And the rest of you," I agree. "You didn't answer my question, though."
He leans forward to brace his forearms on his knees. "Have I not proven my devotion?"
"To Morrigan?"
He shoots me a flat look.
I say, "Forcing my hand is hardly devotion."
"They would've Yielded either way. Would you rather they did it while your back was turned?"
"You sound like my mother."
"You sound like your mother." He brushes off his pants and stands. "Be careful, Theodore. She sees everything. There's your damn warning."
I catch his arm as he starts to walk away. "Elias." His name is a question lodged in my throat, an apology that dissipates as easily as the conjured disk of air I was fidgeting with. He lets me hold him there, my fingers closing around his wrist, my eyes on his back. Walking away, but not forever, because he made a promise nearly a hundred years ago and has kept it since. I don't need to read his mind to know his answer. He's told me before.
My hand falls.
He leaves.
The sun rises, and so do I. People filter into the building, dragging their feet and sipping from paper cups. Through the window, I watch Rosalie speak to one of them for long enough that I start rocking from heel to toe and consider eavesdropping, but she slings her bag over her shoulder and pushes through the doors before I convince myself to invade her privacy further.
She's squinting against the new sun or the fatigue that weighs down her steps. The braid that hangs low on her back is tousled, and some errant strands frame her face, dancing down her cheeks— cheeks that turn pink when she spots me.
She crosses the street without looking. An act of trust, maybe. A belief that I'd prevent her from facing an untimely death. Which, to be fair, I would if it were in my power to do so. My mother has yet to share that divine skill with me, if it exists at all. I doubt that such an ability is in her repertoire. Aside from resurrecting Mortae, I've never seen her save a life. Is there, then, a being opposite of us? An entity that provides the first breath instead of stealing the last?
But she's frowning, so I tuck that line of thinking away for later.
She stops in front of me, one hand curled around the strap of her bag, the other tucked into her back pocket. "You've been out here all night?"
"No," I say, earning an eyeroll. "Maybe."
"Why didn't you come inside?"
"Always with the questions." I hold out my hand for her bag. She gives it to me without argument, a welcome respite, and we start walking towards her apartment—an apartment that I'm not supposed to know the location of because I'm not a creep, but do nonetheless. "Have a good shift?"
She slides her eyes to mine. "You've been gone."
Not entirely accurate, but I'll take it over the alternative. "Did you miss me?"
"Yes." The sincerity of her answer makes me inhale, a tiny gasp that I can only hope she doesn't notice. Her next question catches me similarly off-guard. "Is it dangerous, being the son of Death?"
"Sometimes," I admit before I can convince myself not to, "but rarely for me."
She nods, tugging her lip bottom lip between her teeth. I stop myself just short of deciphering her thoughts. I'd rather hear her voice, even if the silence makes my fingers twitch.
"Funny," she says finally. "Marcella speaks in riddles and you in half-truths. I didn't think you were capable of giving a direct answer."
The angry rouge of her cheeks is more amusing than concerning, and I chuckle to inform her as much. "I'll surprise you yet." And maybe I'm still itching to pick a fight because I ask, "Are you cross with me, Rosalie?"
She huffs, "Yes, I am cross with you, Theo."
I shift her bag to my shoulder and wait.
"You disappeared."
"I am, in a technical sense, a phantom. One could argue that it's in my nature." She crosses her arms, so I spin to walk backwards, ducking my head to meet her eyes— like diving into honey, warming my thoughts and leaving them sluggish and subdued. "I'll leave a note next time."
She flicks up her brows but loosens her shoulders. "Next time?"
"So desperate to be rid of me."
"The opposite, actually." Her mouth scrunches to the side. "Who is it dangerous for, then?"
I tear my gaze from her lips. "Hm?"
"You said it was rarely dangerous for you."
With a shrug, I turn around to walk beside her and gesture vaguely at the city just beginning to wake, the pedestrians and commuters, the birds flapping overhead and the trees just regaining their leaves. "Anyone who would suffer my absence, which is a regrettably short list but does, by your own admission, include yourself."
She scowls. "You're avoiding the question."
"It's a nonsensical question."
"It's not—" She grabs my arm and pulls both of us to a stop. "What are you so afraid of?"
My eyes flick towards her hand. I watch her fingers curl, insistent, and I'm struck with the overwhelming sense that whatever I say next will set us on a path that we will be unable or unwilling to stray from. The hand of fate, perhaps, though that is a bit too theatrical even for myself. Less of a fork in the road and more of the turning of railroad tracks towards— something. But what comes out of my mouth is a too-quiet, "Let go of me."
She obeys without question but doesn't step back. "Should I be worried?"
"No." I slip into a smirk. "Though I doubt that'll stop you."
She averts her eyes, idly picking at the skin around her thumb. I skim the top of her thoughts. Concern, definitely, and frustration, but no fear. Maybe she was born without a sense of self-preservation. Maybe it died with—
"I trust you," she says. I blink, stunned into silence. "Alright?"
"Alright," I echo.