Chapter Twenty Six
Rosalie
Late morning dips into afternoon as Liam shows me every corner of the estate. We spend most of the time outside. Smaller houses like the one Daniel pointed out as his own sit near the tree-lined edge of the property. They're simple brick constructions, probably less than a thousand square feet each, but nice enough. Most of them have bare front yards with trimmed grass and little decor. One has a plastic flamingo staked in the dirt. Another has a welcome mat with a picture of a muddy duck in rain boots.
Liam names the occupants as we pass. "Not everybody who works here lives here," he explains. "Actually, most of 'em don't. But if they've got nowhere else to go, Azmaveth offers them a place."
For the meager price of their souls. "Where do you live?"
"With Daniel." He scowls. "Mom's house is empty, but Azmaveth says I can't live alone yet. He said maybe when I'm sixteen I can have the house. I bet Theodore could change his mind."
Beyond the houses is a cove of tall trees. They're untrimmed despite the landscapers patrolling the grounds with clippers and trowels. Liam grabs one of the lower branches and tugs on it, sending some early spring leaves swaying to the ground. He's been less animated since my conversation with Daniel but not dismissive. It's difficult enough navigating the waters I've leapt into with the tiny amount of autonomy I've staked for myself. Being a child surrounded by adults is hard. Being an adult surrounded by immortals is taxing. But being a child surrounded by immortals?
I won't insult him by pitying him, but I do kneel beneath the tree so he towers over me.
"Have you ever had a picnic?" I ask.
"No." He releases the branch, letting it spring back into place. A leaf drifts into my hair, but I don't pluck it out. "If you're hungry, we can ask someone to bring out sandwiches or something. They never make anything nice for lunch. My mom did."
He resolves to picking bark from the tree and mutters, "Probably should save your appetite for dinner, though."
"Theo made me some of your mom's recipes."
"Yeah?"
"They were really good."
He tears off a piece of bark and flicks it onto the ground. "What else did he do?"
I consider telling the truth. It means something, the hesitation before a lie slips free and the guilt that follows. What good would come of Liam learning that he was so rarely mentioned by the man he idolizes? To be loved and then discarded— if it's not better to focus on the former, it's definitely easier.
"He talked about you. About his time here. He said you're a good kid. Strong. And that he misses you."
Liam keeps picking at the tree. "So why hasn't he come back?"
"It's complicated."
"People always say that. It's never that complicated."
I tilt my head back and let the sun hit my face through the canopy. Did Theo sit in this exact spot? Have this same conversation with this same boy? "You can ask him when he gets back."
Liam perks up at this, sliding his eyes to mine. "So he is coming back."
"Of course. He has to."
"Because you're here." He scrambles to sit cross-legged beside me, putting his hand on my shoulder to catch my attention. "Take me with you. When he comes to get you, make him take me too."
I put my hand over his. The hesitation means I haven't abandoned myself. The truth would only hurt him, and he's been hurt enough. "I'll try," I lie. "I can't make him do anything, but I'll try."
Once the sun sinks towards the horizon, I usher Liam back to Daniel's place with a promise to tell him about the dinner and head back towards the main house. The grounds are deserted. Even the bustling landscapers have retired, tucking into the cottages surrounding Daniel's or hopping in their cars and heading to their homes elsewhere. The silence would be peaceful if I were unaware of who this estate belongs to and what might await me inside.
I slip through the unlocked back door of the manor and duck through an arch that leads to the pantry. Inside are bags of grain and flour and shelves of canned fruit. The bunker of non-perishables is capped by a steel, lightly frosted door. I can only imagine the sheer quantity of refrigerated or frozen goods inside. It's beyond wasteful, this apocalyptic hoarding of food while the residents of this house don't need to eat.
Does Azmaveth serve the people who work for him, too? He must, or at least the ones who live on property. Still, this is enough to feed a small city. It's enough to weather a famine.
He probably has. How many times must a man think the world is ending before he starts preparing for it as an inevitability? Before he starts keeping the essentials tucked away, just in case?
If our circumstances were different, I'd question him about it. I'd lock myself in this room with him and ask about his history until he either answered or killed me. But we don't have that sort of time, and I'm not sure I'd feel better for knowing.
He's old, is the answer I give myself instead. He's so fucking old.
The pantry leads to the kitchen. If a meal was being prepared, all evidence has been scrubbed clean of the stainless steel surfaces. Pots are hung to dry above cool stoves. I run my finger over the counter top as I move towards the swinging door and the dining room beyond. Not a crumb or drop of oil. The tile floors are swept and washed. Whoever works in this kitchen runs a tight ship. It might be pride, but the simpler explanation is fear. If my manager at the restaurant was an immortal being who owned my soul, Dom and I would've kept our space spotless, too.
I'm about to push through the swinging door into the dining room when voices trickle from the other side.
"—set the pieces, but now you must leave," Azmaveth says. "I won't have her take you as well."
I press my back against the wall next to the door and hold my breath. As if it'll make a difference. Marcella knows I'm listening. She's probably known since I set foot in the house.
"I want to trust you," Marcella says, "but if I gamble and I'm wrong, we'll both lose."
"Are you not gambling now? Has this entire endeavor not been a gamble?"
They stop just beyond the door. Only a flimsy and swaying slab of wood separates us.
Marcella lowers her voice. "He can do it. He just needs a little push."
"I can't hear about this," Azmaveth sighs. "You've dodged the consequences thus far, but there's only so much I can do to shield you. It's my duty to keep you in line. Both of you. If my failure becomes too obvious to ignore, she'll have your head and mine. And if my loyalty comes into question—"
"Your loyalty?" Marcella snorts. "Tell me now, and be honest, pops. Where does it lie?"
Azmaveth doesn't answer at first. If Marcella didn't want me to hear this, she'd move along. No doubt she's reading my mind at this moment, gauging my reaction. I wish she'd talk to me. I wish I could scream at her and not be humiliated by an uncaring audience.
"The two of you," Azmaveth says slowly, "are the only joy in my existence. I would suffer an eternity of bowing and begging if it meant both of you were seated at my table every night. By some cruel twist of fate, it's your own actions—and his—that keep you from my hearth. I don't resent your decisions. I only ask that you make the next one with me in mind. Don't tempt a confrontation I won't be able to deescalate. Leave before she arrives."
It's Marcella's turn to pause. Footsteps scrape against hardwood until her voice comes from directly opposite the wall I'm pressed against. "Rosalie lives, or he'll destroy everything you've built. He won't hesitate this time."
"You have my word."
I didn't know my survival was in question, but considering the company I've chosen to keep, I shouldn't be surprised. A smarter person than I would flee. It isn't not an option. Emily would have questions, sure, but she's carried me through bad spots before.
Would Mortae gather on her doorstep? Would Morrigan follow me there, or Marcella? Could I damn my best friend to the fate I've chosen? Because I did choose this. I chose it before I knew what I was signing up for, true, but even after I knew, I had ample time to jump ship. I could've done so much differently, but here I am, palm against a door, readying my nerve to push or else sink into myself and never rise again.
Andrew would call me a coward for even considering it. He'd cover it with a laugh, but the accusation would slip. Shying away from a fight wasn't a skill he possessed.
"C'mon, Rosie," he'd say. "Given or gone to, we're looking at hell either way."
I shove through the door and find Azmaveth leaning against the table, arms stretched behind him and palms pressed to the surface on either side of a plate. True to Daniel's information, there are four places set, two on each side of the table with no seat at the head. Marcella is gone.
Azmaveth straightens when he sees me, startled. He's dressed in vintage finery, a long dark coat over a red buttoned shirt with a black cravat tied around his neck. His shoulder-length hair is loose and combed back. If I didn't know better, I'd think he contoured his face to make his features sharper. The shadows on his forehead and beneath his cheekbones can't be natural.
He surveys me with a frown. "The laundress left fresh clothes on the bed."
"I've been out," I say, crossing my arms, "and I don't trust Marcella's judgment when it comes to my outfits."
"Not hers. Mine." He turns towards the table and refolds a cloth napkin. "You ought to change."
"No, thank you."
"I'm told you didn't touch either of the meals I had prepared for you. It's awfully rude to deny a host the satisfaction of care."
"Don't worry. I'll tell Theo you were very generous."
"Nevertheless, I suspect we'll have deficiencies to answer for once he returns."
"Is that the royal we?"
His expression doesn't change. Though the setting is immaculate enough to make Henry salivate, he paces around the table, straightening silverware and rotating plates.
"You know where he is," I say.
He makes a low sound in his throat. There's so much of Theodore in him— or him in Theodore. "So do you," he murmurs, "or have you not caught on yet?"
I steel myself and follow him around the table, keeping a few steps behind him and rolling my hands into fists. "You invited Morrigan here. Why?"
"To meet you, of course." He tilts his head to glance at me. "It wasn't my doing. I'm just the intermediary."
"You didn't invite me to dinner though."
"We— Marcella thought it best you came of your own volition so that we'll have plausible deniability if the plan gets derailed, though I imagine we'll need it either way."
I'm not dying today. Not here, in a stranger's house. Not in the echo of everything I haven't done, the questions I haven't asked, the routes I haven't dared tread. "Theo will see through it. He'll blame you anyway."
This draws a tiny smile from him. "That's what I told Marcella. She's determined to convince him. He is stubborn though, isn't he?"
I say nothing, still trailing him.
"Marcella thinks he'll strike me down if you're harmed. He's certainly capable. Ever since the last time Morrigan swept him away, he's been insatiable. I thought he was acting from petty vengeance, but Marcella claims it's more severe than that. A promise, she says, though the one holding him to it is the one he consumed. And to think it was only his second soul." Azmaveth clicks his tongue, speaking more to himself than to me. "Well, they are more potent given his heritage. He says he can hear them. What torture that must be."
I stop, watching him continue to circle the table. "How long ago was the last time?"
His brows furrow. "I'm not sure, as I'm no longer a slave to the sands of the hourglass."
A yawning pit opens in my gut, expanding with every coincidence I've ignored, every question I let Theo leave unanswered. "How long?"
He sighs and grabs a fork, holding it to the light to inspect it for smudges. "Five— no, six years now."
A swallow lodges itself in my throat. Sweat beads on the back of my neck, though the room is suddenly freezing. I reach for the back of a chair to steady myself but grab only air. "Who… Do you know who it was?"
Azmaveth shrugs. "Nobody important. He was young, if my memory serves me."
"A boy," I whisper. "A teenager."
"Yes." He sets the fork down. "Theodore was distraught that morning. It took Marie hours to bleach the blood from the bathtub after he washed— Are you feeling alright?"
My arms wrap around my stomach as I fold over and gag. Vomit splashes onto the plates and table, coating the wood with bile and saliva. There's nothing in my stomach but acid and— is it guilt or anger? They taste the same, burning my throat.
Cool, steady fingers sweep the hair off my neck and cheeks, twisting it gently and holding it at the base of my skull while my stomach continues to spasm. In my peripheral, shadows gather in the corner.
"Compose yourself," Azmaveth murmurs, his lips near my ear.
Five seconds. For five seconds, I allow myself to shiver and heave. Tears blur the ruined table, but I blink them away. I should've known. Theo lied to me, but is it not his nature? He's proven himself dishonest again and again, so who can I blame but myself? Was he the one who comforted me, or was it Andrew? Is there a barrier between them, a being and not being, a mechanism and its pilot? Or is it murkier than that, a melding of the man I know and the boy I loved? The boy I loved and the man who—
"If she's sick before the food is served," a feminine voice lilts from the shadowed corner, "perhaps you need to replace your cook. Again."
Azmaveth slides away from me, releasing my hair. "I wasn't expecting you so early."
"Am I unwelcome?"
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and straighten, forcing myself to look towards the voice.
She's not beautiful the way I expected Death to be, nor are her features as gaunt as Azmaveth's. Black hair curls just past her shoulders, a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin. Her cheeks aren't sunken, and the fullness of them suggests youth. They stretch as a smile forms, lips curling in a way that makes me draw in a tiny gasp.
"Your presence is not only appreciated but encouraged," Azmaveth says. "Should we move to the sitting room? I'll have this mess cleaned."
She looks like Theo, or Theo looks like her. Even without knowing their relationship, seeing the two of them side-by-side would've been a dead giveaway. A dead… I cackle at my own joke, earning frowns from the two immortals.
Her eyes are the unyielding black I've only seen from Theo a few times. They trace down my body and then back up, lingering on my unwashed clothes and vomit-strewn hair. Have her eyes ever been blue, or gray? Has she ever been amused in her…
Life, I almost think. That's not the right word, but I don't know the right word. There's so much I don't know.
I pull out the chair closest to me and settle into it without looking away from Morrigan, ignoring Azmaveth clearing his throat in protest. The stink of vomit painting the plates nearly makes me gag, but I swallow it down and offer a smile instead.
Morrigan raises a brow, glancing over my shoulder. "I thought fatherhood would've strengthened your stomach, though I suppose you didn't get that far."
I didn't think it was possible for Azmaveth to still further, but he does. The tension between them is so palpable I can nearly taste it, or maybe that's the puke lining the back of my tongue.
"Not quite," is his clipped answer.
"Oh, don't be so dour." She reaches for a chair, gripping the back but not moving to sit. "I get enough of that from my own blood. Leave us."
I don't turn to watch him obey, but Morrigan's gaze tracks his exit. Once he's gone, she leans forward, bracing her weight on the chair, and says, "I was told you were injured, not ill."
A long-dormant panic snaps awake within me as the animal I am realizes there's no chance to flee. A manic urge to claw and bite, to make myself large and sharp and poisonous, grips me. I may not be able to hurt her physically, but I won't go gently.
More alert than I've been in my life, muscles tensing to strike, almost delirious with attentiveness, I ask, "What do you want?"
She inclines her head— god, they look alike— and frowns. "I should be asking you that question. Your succubus is the one who requested I come, though she isn't here to greet me herself."
She knew. Marcella knew about Andrew, she's known the whole time, she didn't tell me why didn't she tell me why doesn't anyone ever tell me—
I shove the nagging thoughts down, tucking them away to process at a more convenient time: when I have Theo to question and a pillow to scream into.
"Marcella isn't mine," I say.
"Of course she is, or you're hers, but I've heard my son is dearer to you." She settles into her seat at last, not flinching at the stench. "You have an abandoned lamb look about you. He does adore being worshiped." She shakes her head. "I'm curious, what is it about him that draws in mortals?"
What answer does she expect? That he manipulated me into believing him— believing in him? That he handles truth like a loaded weapon, storing it in a locked cabinet away from minds too feeble to comprehend that he, of course, is the righteous one? That he's doing the right thing, the kind thing by allowing me to live in a fantasy where there's a stark line between good and evil, and he's on the proper side? That he found me as half of a human being and molded the other half to suit him, and he used the facade of a person I'd dive to the bottom of the Atlantic for, a person he murdered, to do it?
"I don't know," I say.
"You don't know," she echoes, bemused. "You're here to petition for his return, because let's not pretend this isn't a petition, and you don't know why you're doing it."
Nobody important. There's only one reason Marcella would set this up, only one thing I can give Death that she can't. "You want my soul."
"What I want is for my insolent boy to see sense. What I want is for him to stop resisting the lessons I've been trying to teach him for centuries. For him to see his potential and reach for it instead of insisting on decaying the way you will, the way you all will. What I want," she hisses in a flash of temper that's covered as quickly as it appears, "is for him to kill you himself so that he might finally learn." She leans back in her chair and shrugs. "But if you're offering, I won't refuse."
"Why?"
She blinks. Andrew would've whooped at me rendering Death speechless.
"Why me? Why my soul?" I won't make the mistake of not asking again, not when the opportunity lays itself in front of me. "Why come here? Why do any of this? Why force him? Why not just leave him alone?"
The narrowing of her eyes is answer enough. His potential. Before she can speak, I blurt, "You love him."
She folds her hands together atop the table, avoiding the vomit by inches. "He's my son."
"But you hurt him. You're hurting him now."
With a warning in her tone, she says again, "He's my son."
"You murder his friends. You force him to—"
She snaps to my side, leaving a burst of shadows in her wake. Her hand hovers over my throat, fingers curling but not quite touching me. "I could snap your neck," she says into my ear, sending a jolt down my spine. "I could steal the breath from your lungs and suffocate you." Her thumb finds my rapid pulse, a twitch away from contact.
Then she's back in her seat. I brush my fingers over my throat and wonder if her outburst was my imagination.
"I came here for a bargain," she says with eerie calm, "not an interrogation. I'll ask once, as I'm not fond of repeating myself. Are you offering?"
Refusing would render me useless. She might kill me for the slight, and given his demure exit, I doubt Azmaveth would stand against her to protect me, even with the promise he made to Marcella.
"What are the terms?" I ask.
She bares her teeth in what could be considered a smile were she not who she is. "They're very generous, especially considering the previous insults you've thrown at me." She waves her hand. "You'll live out the remainder of your natural life as you wish. With my son or without, it matters little to me, though I'm sure he'll insist on your company. One caveat: no children. I'm much too young to be a grandmother."
I don't laugh.
She sighs. "Grow old or throw yourself in front of a bus, whichever suits you. When you die, I'll return to collect."
"You'll leave him alone," I repeat, not quite understanding, "for the rest of my life."
"Yes."
"What's the catch?"
She pauses, drumming her fingers on the table. The upchucked liquid on the plate in front of her vibrates to the rhythm of her tapping. "The traitors will disperse. All rebellious activities will halt. A ceasefire, if you please, as a show of my goodwill."
"I can't control Marcella."
"Perhaps not, but he can." So you better be able to control him, she doesn't say.
"And after I die?"
"We resume. Ideally, my son will be more agreeable. Maybe he'll learn a thing or two from you."
"You're not trying to beat him," I realize. "You're trying to get him on your side."
"He's capable of making the right decision. He just needs guidance."
I exhale and lean back, closing my eyes. The pressure of wood against my skull sets my head throbbing again. "What if I say no?"
"Then I break every bone in your body and bring him here to make a memorial of your mess."
"So I have no other option."
"Death," she says quietly, "is always an option. I figured you'd know that better than anyone."
I press my fingernails into my palms hard enough to draw blood. Of course she knows about Andrew. Everybody knows about Andrew— except for me, apparently. "You'll let him go," I say, then clarify, "You'll bring him here today."
"I'll return him when he's served his punishment. Let's say," she blows out a breath, "two weeks."
My eyes fly open. "No. Today."
"Don't overestimate the weight of your hand, child. It's bad etiquette."
No wonder Marcella hates her. Even though the terms she's laid are, to use her own phrasing, very generous, I can't help but think I'm being cheated. "Three days."
She frowns. "Ten."
"Five."
"One week."
I cross my arms, fists pressing against the sides of my ribs. She won't kill him, but what state will he be in after a full week? Will I be able to face him knowing what he's done— knowing what I've done for him?
"Okay," I say, slouching. "One week."
She stands, walking around the table at a normal pace. I look to my lap instead of watching her, only glancing up when her hand falls on my shoulder.
"Excellent," she says. "So we have a deal?"
I nod.
She prompts, "Aloud."
"Deal," I say.
I expect a gust of wind or a burst of fire or a scroll pulled from air for me to sign in blood, something to mark the significance of the contract. Instead, her fingers tighten over my shoulder, not enough to hurt but enough to make her claim obvious.
She laughs like plates shattering on a kitchen floor. "Well done, child. You should hope you won't be seeing me for a few decades." With a wink, she releases me. "Do try your hardest to keep him out of trouble."
Shadows collect around her, swirling and obscuring her figure. I squint, trying to hold onto her image for just a moment longer, like I could peck at her a little more if only to understand her son. I inhale, readying another question, another plea for his quick return, another piece of myself given up in exchange for a glimpse of a secret.
By the time the air gathers in my lungs, she's gone.