Chapter Two
Theodore
I beat Marcella to dinner. Az is already seated at the head of the table, his fingers interlaced in front of him. “You’re late,” he says without glancing at the clock.
I mumble, “She’s later.”
Right on cue, the front door opens. A woman with dark hair and darker eyes saunters in. She wears a skin-tight dress that’s short enough that one tiny movement would leave her exposed. Her lipstick is smudged so that it looks like blood on her lips and chin. It might’ve been.
I scowl at her. In a quick flash of light, Marcella is herself again, tugging an elastic off her wrist and pulling her hair into a ponytail. “I know, I know,” she says, throwing herself into her seat.
Az frowns but holds his tongue as Anya and her cohort bring out the first course. As the others lay the plates, Anya diligently and quietly explains the menu, speaking to all of us but only looking towards the sullen man that owns her soul. Az gives no indication that he’s listening aside from a small nod after each dish is listed. I try and fail to catch her eye.
There will be no banter, no comforting hand on my shoulder. The soul inside of me thrashes, but I shove the noise down until it’s barely a mosquito’s whine, staring at a speck of dust on the wall above Marcella’s head. Too high for any person of average height to notice, but I’m surprised that Azmaveth didn’t have a fit. He must’ve been distracted coming in.
Az dismisses Anya and the others with a wave of his hand and picks up his fork. I do the same. Marcella cradles her head in her palm. “Dinner starts at seven,” Az says.
“We know,” Marcella and I grumble in unison.
“It’s 7:05.”
Marcella sighs, drumming her fingertips on the table. “I can’t speak for my sanctimonious counterpart, but I was doing something important.”
“Are you suggesting that prowling the streets is more important than dinner with your family?”
Az pinches the bridge of his nose. “You two are going to send me to an early grave.”
“Back to an early grave,” Marcella corrects with a grin that shows all of her teeth.
“Stop it,” I say. “You stress him out, witch. Look! His hair is going gray.”
“Is that true, pops?” She leans forward. “Should I inspect you for signs of decay?”
A faint smile plays on Az’s lips, gone as quickly as it appeared. We eat in silence for a moment— well, Az and I eat. After a too-large bite that gets lodged in my throat, I say, “I talked to Daniel today.”
Marcella sits back in her chair with a huff.
Az asks carefully, “The new chauffeur?”
“He was looking after Liam. Seems like a good guy.”
Marcella laughs. “You say that about all of them.” I clench my fist around my fork to resist the urge to throw it at her. Az shoots her a warning glance. She looks down and picks at her nails, but she keeps her mouth shut.
I stab my fork into the food with more force than necessary. Pan seared trout tonight. Caught this morning, probably. “He was afraid of me.”
Az considers, taking a slow sip of his wine. “He’s been here for less than a week. He’ll adjust.” I frown at my food, unwilling to call out the lie for what it is. Most of the people that work at the house give us a wide berth. “Morrigan won’t be around for a while now,” Az says, deftly changing the subject. My head snaps up at her name. Az is already watching me. “She’s dealing with the issue on the west coast.”
This piques Marcella’s interest. “The rebels? It’s true, then? Is it even possible for someone to become as powerful as her?” Or more powerful. She leaves the addition unspoken.
Az shrugs, but his demeanor is anything but casual. “It has been said that nobody has seen the extent of her power. Nobody has challenged her in a millennium.” He takes another sip of wine. “We’re lucky for the grace she has given us.”
“We’re lucky she hasn’t slaughtered us,” I say.
“Is it slaughter if we’re already dead?” Marcella twirls a strand of hair around her index finger. “And I’d say she’s lucky we haven’t—” Az clears his throat. Her eyes snap to meet his. “Could someone become as powerful as her?” she asks again. “Maybe through Yielding?”
“Yielding isn’t real,” I mutter. This pleasant conversation has chased away my appetite.
“The only Mortae able to accept power that way is the very being that they are rebelling against,” Az says. “There’s only one conduit.”
I tap my foot, seeking respite from the vicious energy prickling my skin. “Yielding isn’t real.”
“There’s only one conduit that we know of.” Marcella sits up straighter. “Maybe—”
I slam my palms on the table. They both jump at the clatter of porcelain on wood. “Yielding isn’t real!”
Marcella scoffs and leans towards me, her forearms on either side of her untouched plate. “Oh, and you would know? Because you know everything?”
The soul inside of me twists upwards, running its sharpened nails against my lungs, draining the air and pumping them full of such rage and hate and terror that I can hardly suck in breath. My head spins. Everything inside of me screams to flee. I open my mouth and brace myself for whatever will come out.
“I know because I’ve tried.”
Some emotion that I don’t bother placing flashes in Marcella’s eyes. The pounding in my head makes me unable to see straight, unable to hear anything beyond the unintelligible screaming that isn’t my own. Bile rises in my throat. I push away from the table before I vomit on my plate of half-eaten food.
Marcella and Az are gaping after me, mouths slack as if they’re searching for the right response. As if there is one. As if there’s anything that can fix what has been broken, what she’s broken. She won’t stop, not ever. Even if I kneel, even if I become the devil that she wants me to be, she will keep taking and taking until I’m not me anymore. Death is greedy, and Death is a liar, and Death does not want me to realize my potential or whatever bullshit she’s currently spreading to convince her followers that I’m an obstinate, lazy infant that needs to be whipped into shape. Death wants me to be her, and I would rather—
I bound up the stairs before they can say anything, taking them two at a time, and slam the door to my bedroom. There’s nowhere to run, no place far enough to escape what boils underneath my skin.
I collapse onto the bed, pull the pillow over my face, and focus on breathing.
Three hours and seventeen minutes later, heavy footsteps approach from down the hall. She’s dragging her feet, each step warning her approach. It’s unnecessary. I knew she’d come.
The door creaks open. She doesn’t bother knocking. I don’t bother looking up. “Told you those breathing exercises would come in handy,” she says.
“Fuck off.” The pillow over my face muffles my voice.
She shoves my shoulder. I’m up in an instant, bearing my teeth at her. “What?”
“Who were you going to Yield to?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters, you ape.” She shoves me again. I smack her with the pillow, but she’s undeterred. “Morrigan?”
“I wasn’t picky,” I grumble, “as long as I died and stayed dead.”
The fight drains from her, shoulders lowering, brows dropping. The softness doesn’t last. Anger sours her face again before I can take a full breath. “No.”
“No?”
“No. You don’t get to opt out. You don’t get to leave—us.”
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. The rage that coursed through me has cooled, leaving me hollow. I suppress a shiver at the new, terrifying apathy. I want her to leave. I don’t want to be alone. “It has nothing to do with you, and it didn’t work anyway, so we don’t need to have this conversation.”
“You’re a coward for even considering it.”
“I’m aware.”
The bed shifts. I crack an eye open to find her sitting next to me, spine straight and shoulders back. There’s a vulnerability in the curve of her shoulders that I haven’t seen since Az carried her into this house for the first time. She was too weak or broken to stand, so he cradled her like a newborn. Her hair was limp and stuck to her head by water or sweat or blood. The salty smell of tears lingered in the foyer for days afterwards.
She came out of it, though. Maybe that makes her stronger than me. “We can’t let her win.”
I don’t say, She has already won.
“We have to do something.”
I don’t say, She has won a million times over. I don’t say, I was born at a loss and I’ve been losing ever since. “She’ll eviscerate us for even having this conversation.”
“She’s kept you around for this long.”
“I’m not worried about myself.”
Marcella exhales. “You are the most irritating person I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
She stands, hovering over me to say, “Let me know when you tire of the self-pity. Maybe then you’ll actually be useful to someone other than yourself.” With a flip of her hair, she turns towards the door. Over her shoulder, she adds, “Oh, and if you ever think of pulling that self-sacrificial bullshit again, I’ll kill you myself.”
Thunder splits the uneven beat of feet on pavement, a warning of the storm I’ll be trudging through if I don’t hurry. My muscles protest as I urge them to move faster, legs too clumsy, breath too quick. I turn a corner. The crowd is already gone. A bad sign, but I keep moving just in case. A lone figure stands on the sidewalk rocking from toe to heel. At the sound of my footsteps, her head whips towards me, long brown hair swaying with the movement. Even with the distance between us, I can see the smile that blooms on her lips.
Even the gloomy sky lightens in the wake of that smile.
“You’re late,” she calls to me, cupping her hands around her grin to amplify the sound. I open my mouth to reply, but I don’t have the breath to spare. I bound the last few yards and bend over, bracing my hands on my knees and panting.
She pushes back the hair stuck to my forehead and says, “I tried to convince Robert to wait for you.” I straighten, staring into eyes the color of fresh honey, framed by thick lashes and crinkled with the ferocity of her amusement. Her nose and cheeks are flushed with the chill.
The soul inside me whispers the script. I step back, willing myself to wake up, to be transported to my body and my life and my own damn decisions— but if I’m being honest, I’m curious, and it’s just a dream. A memory, even if it’s not mine, and better than the ones that my murderer provides.
The face I wear shifts into a sheepish smile. “Robert hates me.”
The girl loops her arm around mine, tugging us both into a walk just as thick raindrops start splashing onto the sidewalk. She ducks her head, the smile still lingering on her lips. “He doesn’t hate you. If anything, he hates me for always asking him to wait.”
I stumble a bit, the body lankier than I’m used to. A recent growth spurt, maybe. He’s young, but the tug of his soul feels older, more assured. Or maybe I want it to be. Maybe I don’t want to admit that this memory was likely only weeks before he met me. If he’s young here, he was young then, and I snipped the stem of his life before he was able to blossom.
He might not have survived even if I hadn’t shown up. The wounds were deep, and the house was silent. He might’ve bled out anyway, alone and frightened. At least he wasn’t alone. Did I not offer him comfort?
But I stole from him. I took— what? Memories of tumultuous teenage years? A new resident in my chest that occasionally drags me into mundane but pleasant dreams? A window into a life that I can never live? A normal life, one where I’m born, and I live, and I die, and I’m remembered or I’m not, and all of it is as important as it is inconsequential.
I want it. I want it so badly that I shuffle to keep up with her and say, “Nobody could hate you, Rosie.” Inside me or beside me, the boy exhales. “You didn’t bring an umbrella.”
She laughs like the crackling of fire on ice. “I don’t own an umbrella, which you should know considering you’ve been at my house almost every day this week.” She glances at me, gaze flicking to my abdomen as if she can see through my shirt to the bruises that pepper my skin. “About last night—”
“I’m fine.” Sharp words, but her expression doesn’t change. “Thanks for staying up with me.” Lightning flashes in the distance, and the drizzle turns into a real storm. At this rate, we’ll be drenched before we make it halfway to school. Small, frizzy curls are beginning to form around her face. I take off my jacket and raise it above our heads. “We’d get there faster if we ran.”
She laughs again, thawing my freezing skin. I start at the sound, opening my mouth to say— I don’t know. It’s not part of the script. He didn’t comment on the sound, the gravity of it, the way it curls around us like a shield. He should’ve said something. I would have said something.
“Absolutely not." Her body heat licks at my wet clothes. Despite the frigid rain, I am warm.