Chapter Thirty
Theodore
Someone's watching. Someone's always watching: Uriel or my mother or the boy. But here and watching, that's new. Except here isn't here, because I'm not here. It's an expert fabrication, this house and these people, but I've been fooled too many times to be made a fool of again.
The dimpling between Rosalie's brows is almost convincing, as is the weight of her finger pressing my chin up and the way her mouth twists around benign words. She's saying something, what—
"I hate you. I hate you."
Oh. Right.
She's trying to draw a reaction from me, but I've been berated before. I've played this role before. I'm good at it. At holding my tongue and my temper. Lashing out would only cause me pain, as the chains redirect—
The chains. I glance at my wrists and see metal, bare skin, metal, bare skin—
Rosalie presses her finger against my throat, demanding my attention, but she's not louder than the souls screaming within me. A thousand hands tug me down, trying to use me to launch themselves back into the realm of the living. Or maybe they just want me to hear them, to listen. Or maybe they're trying to kill me the way everything else is trying to kill me. And it has killed me. It did kill me.
Instinct calls shadows to surround me, licking at Rosalie's knees. As the floor below us is obscured by swirling darkness, a phantom pain shoots through me, warning me to contain. To stay in control. My mother's hand, that pain, my mother's voice. I don't listen. I never have. Perhaps I should—
I let the shadows engulf me, leaving Rose reaching as if for a distant memory.
It's quieter here, in the space between spaces. The pressure in my head and on my chest unfurls enough for me to exhale. I stretch my limbs and consider, briefly, never emerging. I am a coward. I have been a coward. But what difference does it make? The people nearest me will suffer whether I'm present or not. In here, at least, I can breathe. I can think without being hounded by…
No, they're here too. Whispering, always, or screaming, sometimes. Am I not allowed one moment of peace?
I emerge into sunlight. I'm under the oak tree at the back of the property, shaded by the retreating shadows and the leaves whispering in the wind. I squint, raising my hand to my forehead to shield my eyes. Cool air nips at my arms, my unbound arms. This is—
Real? It can't be, because someone's running towards me in a full sprint, the same someone who was watching from the stairs. He isn't here. He can't be.
I count the years backwards in my head as he approaches, though I know exactly how long it's been. He was a toddler when I saw him last, and now he's a boy. Growing, not grown, as his pants are a touch too short, and his face still clings to the roundness of prepubescence. His eyes are wide and teary from the wind, and his hair flops from one side to the other with every step.
"Theodore!" he calls, breathless.
I tense, bracing my muscles and readying myself for an embrace or an ambush. He stops a few feet from me, crossing his arms and panting. He's holding a crumbled piece of paper.
"You…" He pauses, trying to catch his breath. "Are you alright? I saw… Well, I don't know what I saw. But you're back. Do you… Do you remember me? I'm—"
"Mon petit," I whisper, struggling against the energy that surges upward, just short of breaking skin. "What are you doing here?"
He says, "I live here."
"No, you don't. You live with your grandparents."
"For a while, sure. But they kicked me out, and I came back here. I…" He shifts, offering me the paper. "I was waiting for you. I didn't expect it to take so long."
I glance at the paper without reaching for it. A drawing, one by his own hand in a different lifetime. Morrigan must've gone through my room to find it. She must've been told of its significance and handed it to this imposter. And Azmaveth let her. My promise to Rosalie wavers. Not shattering, not yet, but there are other ways I can harm him. "No."
"… No?"
"I'm not doing this." A bit of energy slips from where I've been holding it, skittering over my arms. Liam flinches but doesn't step back. "As if you can punish me more than I've punished myself. You're wasting your time."
"I…" His lower lip quivers. "I don't understand."
Energy pulses towards me, pinging wordlessly to warn me of Marcella's approach, or whoever is wearing Marcella's skin. It does feel like her, a testament to how thorough my mother is. Over Liam's head, I catch sight of her and Rosalie— not running, but walking towards us quick enough to make Rose struggle for breath. She's cradling her injured wrist.
I snatch the paper from Liam's hands and tear it up, letting the scraps fall to my feet. "This is pathetic. Truly, you think I'd fall for this? You speak of teaching lessons; haven't you learned that one? Short of extinguishing me yourself, there's nothing you can do to hurt me."
Marcella stops beside Liam and rests her hand between his shoulder blades. Rosalie settles behind them, glaring at me like she'd strike me down herself if she was given the order from my mother.
"I don't think the kid needs to be traumatized any more than he is," Marcella says, "but if that's your goal, congratulations. You've actually accomplished something."
I focus on my breathing instead of the energy pressing against my skin from the inside. I wasn't exactly telling the truth about her not being able to hurt me. The pressure—
Marcella cocks her head and gestures for the two mortals to step back. They do, and she follows, backpedaling until she's far enough away that she has to yell. "Go on, then. Explode, or whatever."
My lip curls into a snarl.
At my hesitation, Marcella grabs Rosalie's elbow. Rose yelps, a sound of surprise but not of pain. I gasp with her as a soul kicks upward. Marcella raises the injured wrist above Rose's head. "You lashed out before, and it didn't hurt. You're not in chains."
"You're lying!" I press my palms against my eyes, but it does nothing to soothe the energy pushing out from the inside of my skull or the screams echoing within. The wind picks up, whipping around me, threatening a tornado— of which I'm the eye. "Take me back. I don't… I can't do this."
"When I first came here," she yells over the roar of wind, "there was a mug of hot chocolate outside my door every night. For a month straight, I found it out there, steaming. We both pretended it was Anya's doing."
She never drank it. In the morning, I'd find it cold and untouched. I replaced it anyway. Morrigan couldn't have known. Even Azmaveth doesn't know. To my left, lightning strikes and leaves behind blackened grass. I slide my hands to my temples, keeping my eyes screwed shut.
"Two marshmallows," she shouts. "Whipped cream. You made it yourself, didn't you?"
"Stop."
"This is real! You and me, Theodore. That was our deal, so quit fucking around and let go."
Souls burst from me like a wave looming at its peak, approaching the shore, and then crashing down, water surging against water. The air around me ripples with light and heat. My body sways, then falls. My knees hit the ground, but I'm so far from myself that the impact registers only as an afterthought, a minor occurrence overshadowed by the energy that rushes through me and out of me. I open my mouth to scream or gasp or cry, but no sound escapes.
After the initial crash comes the spray. In a wide radius around me, grass is sapped of life, dimming from green to yellow to brown. The oak tree groans, aging a hundred years in an instant, but it stays upright. I am in the center of the circle, and I am the circle, everywhere in the circle. I can sense Rose and Marcella and Liam as if I were standing beside them, just beyond the reach of my outburst.
Rose lurches forward as if to rush towards me, but Marcella wraps an arm around her waist and hefts her back before she can cross the threshold of my destruction. Because I'm not only drawing color from the grass; I'm drawing out its life essence, and if she were to come closer, I'd take hers, too.
I could expand the zone of impact, I realize. I could push it to engulf all three of them, and the buildings housing Azmaveth's workers, and Azmaveth, wherever he is. I don't, but I could, and Marcella doesn't know it. If she did, she'd run. All of them would. Unless—
Unless they knew I'd keep myself from such greed. Which I do, with effort.
The awareness isn't overwhelming. As the energy escapes, my mind clears like a dinner knife wiped clean. For a moment, I can see every beat of every memory I hold within me, and this… This is what I was made for. A vessel, one who kneels at the altar of lives past and doesn't let them fade into obscurity. The one who remembers.
Mortae didn't always exist, but my mother isn't and has never been a Mortae. She was created to house these memories, to listen to stories that had no mouth to share them. What sacrifice, I think, to suffer the way I've suffered so that no one is forgotten. She contains so many souls, so many people, and they must speak to her the way mine speak to me.
And for centuries, for millennia, she endured it alone. The creation of the first Mortae, of Uriel, wasn't motivated by maliciousness or greed or a desire for power. It was loneliness. She sought to create a being who could understand her— and failed. Because they can't hear, not the way she can. Not the way I can.
In her desperation for companionship, she made me. And then she made me cruel. She stole the people I cared about, trying to make me as lonely as she was so I would only have her— so I would understand her. And I do. But I do not forgive her.
Would she find it a relief, to end her existence at my hand? To know she's passing the burden to someone who can carry it?
The wave recedes, pulling me back to my body and leaving me small but not weak and no less aware than I had been moments ago. The souls aren't quieter, but their cries are less urgent, like an infant babbling after receiving a bottle. Soothed, at least for a time.
I raise my head to catch Rosalie's eye but stay kneeling on the dead grass. Half-hidden behind Marcella, her arm is around Liam, pulling him into her side. She's staring with wide eyes. Any anger has faded in the wake of my own outburst, but I know her better than to believe she let it go. She doesn't give up anything that easily.
Marcella cocks her head at me. I peck at her thoughts, trying to twist them into coherency, but she's focused on the destruction surrounding us and not the question at hand. Clever to distract herself so she doesn't provide incriminating information, but it only confirms that she's guilty of something.
I stand, invigorated by the new knowledge I possess and the fresh clarity of my mind, and say quietly, "Her soul?"
Only Marcella can hear because she's shuffling through my thoughts, too. Her lips thin. Equally as quiet, she asks, "Elias?"
I avert my eyes. If there ever was an illusion of righteousness, it's been smeared with blood. I'm as guilty as she is, and I've lost enough friends. My nod is a white flag waved. Hers is a weapon laid down. We won't seek the killing blow, though we know where to find it. Not now, not here, and definitely not in front of the mortals.
"Let's show Rosalie where the first aid kit is," Marcella says to Liam. She turns away from me, ushering both of them back towards the house. "You remember, right?"
Liam nods and glances back at me. "But…"
"Oh, don't worry." Over her shoulder, she shoots me a knowing look. "He'll be at dinner."
I spend the second half of the morning and all of the afternoon wandering the grounds. Though Marcella didn't forbid me from following them back to the main house, she didn't request my presence either, which is fine with me. Being outdoors soothes the lingering ache around my wrists. Though I was only gone for seven days, nine hours, and fourteen minutes, the wind on my face and the cobblestones beneath my feet feel both immeasurably older and brand new.
Elias is gone, and Gemma, too. No wonder the world has shifted. Have I?
My feet take me to the most familiar of the cottages near the back of the estate. The red tricycle is still lying on the ground out front. Beside the door, there's a small collection of flowers in various stages of decay, half-burnt candles, and handwritten notes. It's not often that people promised to Azmaveth reach an untimely end, especially if they're innocent the way Anya was. The memorial stirs a familiar emotion in my gut, but I shove it down before it can overwhelm my good sense. I'm not here to mourn.
The front door is unlocked. I push inside. Azmaveth must've had someone come in here to clear out any food that would rot, but the interior is otherwise untouched. Liam's toys are scattered on the floor between the television and the couch, and there are so many of them that I have to watch my feet lest I step on them and shatter the aged plastic. The sofa cushions are still indented from the nights Anya and Liam spent cuddling on it.
I was there sometimes, too. It was the closest to a family that I had since—
Well, that's not true. Because family is too simple a term for what Gemma and Elias were to me.
The remote is propped against the arm of the sofa, half-buried in the crease of the cushion. I pull it out and kick off my shoes, settling on the couch. There's a throw blanket over the back that smells like dust. I wrap it around myself and turn the television on.
It's still on the VHS input from the last time Liam was watching one of his recorded cartoons. The one with the magician. He didn't rewind it, so I don't either.
It's a short episode. The tape clicks, and the screen sputters to a flickering black. After a while, it lights in a deep blue as if to say, that's all, you can stop watching now, that's how the story ends, why are you still here, it won't change just because you're still here.
I stare at the blue screen until the sunlight pouring through the windows dims to an evening orange. Then, I refold and replace the throw blanket, set the remote back where I found it, and head to the main house.
Marcella beats me to dinner. Azmaveth is seated at the head of the table, and Marcella is in her usual spot. The food hasn't been served yet; Az would never be so rude as to start the meal without everyone present. There are empty plates in front of them with shined silverware delicately placed and a folded napkin propped beside the setting. I ignore their eyes tracking me as I move to my own seat across from Marcella.
"You're late," Az says, trying for familiarity. He gestures to some unseen server, and a man who is not Anya shuffles out of the kitchen with the meal. I look to my right instead of at the man and notice a fourth place setting beside me.
The food is served in silence. Once we're properly alone again, I lean back in my chair and fold my hands on the table. "Where is Rose?"
Azmaveth picks up his fork and knife, beginning to cut into the meal. Herb-roasted lamb, like they're mocking me. "Upstairs."
"Upstairs where?"
"My room," Marcella says, to which I raise a brow. "I assumed she wanted to stay in yours, but she declined."
Declined? "Has she eaten?"
Az says, "She was offered a meal."
"She ate this morning," Marcella adds.
"What meal?"
"Does it matter?"
I glare at her.
"Eggs," Marcella sighs. "Potatoes."
"No vegetables?"
"I'm not a nutrition expert," she snaps. "She was well-cared for while you were gone. She's cared for now."
I slam my fist against the table, sending the silverware clattering. Both of them flinch at the flash of temper. "Then who hit her?"
If my goal was to startle honesty from her, I'm unsuccessful. She focuses on the meal instead of letting her thoughts stray to the events leading to Rose's arrival at the estate. Az isn't half as adept at taming his thoughts, but Marcella has kept him ignorant.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice the bruise?" I ask, laying my napkin across my lap, playing at civility. "Or did you hope it would fade before I returned?"
Marcella says, "I did what I had to do to get her here— to get you here."
"Which was what, exactly?" I turn to Azmaveth. "And why is Liam here?"
Az sets down his fork and knife, dabs the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and settles his hands in his lap. When he turns to me, there's a familiar reproach in the lines of his frown. Even with the souls Gemma and Elias collected, even with the others I've scavenged and stored, Az is more powerful than I am. He's one of three beings who are, the other two being my mother and Uriel.
"The child is here," Az says, "because he's as stubborn as you are. Would you rather I send him back to be cared for by mortals who can't understand him? Would you rather I let him endanger himself trying to get your attention?"
Instead of asking for information, I snatch it from Azmaveth's mind. A mutilated animal, a switch knife in a backpack, a similarly-aged child being led through brush… Guilt surges up my throat, but I force it back down. "You're corralling people I care about. Keeping them all in one location so it's easier to strike when my mother orders it."
Az fixes me with a look, and suddenly it's eighty years ago, and he's kneeling on a tiled floor, the only kind face I've seen in a month, offering me a hand. He read to me, once. He fought for me, once. Not in the way Marcella fights, but with a smooth tongue and promises made to my mother. Promises to keep me detained and obedient. I was grateful for him back then. He plucked me from Morrigan's palm and gave me a soft place to land. Freedom, or as much of it as he could provide.
It doesn't change anything. But it matters, doesn't it?
Az murmurs, "I'm not your enemy."
I stare down at the table Anya died on as if to refute his claim. "I heard a story once. An old story, about a man trying to protect someone who didn't want to be saved. And his wife— well, not much is known about her except that she was beautiful, and she was having a baby."
"Theodore," Marcella warns.
"But childbirth is dangerous," I continue, "and especially back then. He lost both of them, didn't he?"
Az narrows his eyes but says nothing.
"My mother, generous as she is, offered him a choice: his soul to save one of them. Who do you think he picked?" I stand and lean towards him, bracing my palms on the table. "Who would you pick, Az?"
He turns away from me, staring instead at the empty seat with a place set.
Marcella says, "Knock it off."
"You brought her back," I say. "You chose your wife over your child, and she killed you for it. Didn't she?"
Az swallows and says nothing for a long moment. Then, quietly: "You're more like your mother than you realize."
I ready myself to lunge at him, but movement in the arch leading to the foyer steals my attention. Rose steps into view. Her bandaged wrist hangs at her side, and the bruise on her forehead is almost faded and mostly hidden by her hair. Her eyes dart between me and Az, mouth a thin line.
"Well," she says, "what's this, then?"
I settle back into my seat.
"Dinner," Marcella says smoothly, gesturing for Rose to sit beside me. She does but angles her body away from mine. The distance is so slight that I might not have noticed if I wasn't attuned to her every movement.
Rose crosses her arms, tucking her bandaged wrist against her stomach. "It's a nice change of pace, coming to your rescue instead of the opposite. You made it sound more urgent than it looks."
"Someone has to yank his leash." Marcella sits back, inspecting her nails. "You're the best at it. Don't let it inflate your ego too much," she adds. "I don't envy the position you're in."
"We're all in a fine position," Rose says. "Peace. That was the goal, wasn't it?"
All three of them look to me. Marcella raises a brow, which is enough to spark the realization that—
You knew I'd never let Morrigan have her soul, I say into Marcella's mind.
Marcella doesn't shrug, but her shoulders twitch like she's fighting the urge. Only one way to get it now.
Because if I kill my mother, the debt transfers to me. Crafty witch.
Rude, Marcella shoots back.
Rose leans over her empty plate towards Az. "Why do you keep so much food?"
Az blinks. "… Pardon?"
"They're chatting, so I figure we should too. Why is your pantry so stocked? Sure, the people here have to eat, but do you really need so much?"
I narrow my eyes at Marcella. You have a plan, I assume.
Of course I do, she says into my mind. Unless you'd rather sit on your hands and live out your domestic fantasy.
I would. It doesn't matter.
"Better to have a surplus," Azmaveth says. "As I understand it, food is essential to human survival, though one wouldn't be able to tell if they studied your habits."
My attention snaps to Az. "Watch your tone."
Rose leans back. "The last time he felt that I was disrespected, he ruined a dinner party. Should we see if history repeats? You're probably sturdier than Henry."
In my head, Marcella muses, Uriel is the closest to Morrigan in terms of souls consumed. If you extinguish him, you might stand half a chance against her.
I frown. Azmaveth is an option, too. He's nearly as powerful.
Yes, but we like Az. She pauses but doesn't withdraw, sending wordless ripples of energy into my mind. Then, This will put Rose in danger. If Morrigan finds out…
She won't. And, if I play my part well enough, neither will Rose.
Dinner devolves into murmured conversations, mostly between Azmaveth and Rose. Her inquiries are tactful, meaning to put Az on the defensive and forcing him to justify his lifestyle. I'd be impressed if I wasn't so worried about the fact that she won't look at me. More than once, I try to steal her attention with a quip, but she deflects, opting to converse with Marcella or Az instead.
I suppose I deserve the cold treatment. But knowing I'm being properly punished and accepting the punishment are two different beasts, and by the time our plates are cleared, I'm properly seething.
She heads upstairs. I follow behind her like a shadow, tempted to tug at her thoughts. Since she asked me not to, and since I've already angered her enough, I stop myself, but not without effort. A traitorous condemnation slips through my mind: How dare she abuse this power over me? How dare she have power over me at all?
The boy's soul kicks at me, so I loose a bit of energy onto the handrails of the stairs. It skitters against the coated wood but doesn't sear. I used to expend small amounts of energy and be free from the weight of souls crushing against my skin for hours, even days. Now though, the moment the sparks leave my fingers, the reservoir is refilled, urging me to expel again. If this is how Morrigan feels, no wonder she's so liberal with her punishments.
Rose stops in the hall between my bedroom and Marcella's. Both doors are open, but my attention settles on the closed door at the end of the hall. Was Anya taken there? Or was she caught off-guard, stolen during her shift and made to suffer while her son watched?
"Are you alright?" Rose asks with her back to me.
Am I… I swallow my laugh. "Of course."
She turns to me, incredulous— no, furious. Like she sees the lie on my lips. "Goodnight, Theodore."
It's early yet, and I'm not content to let her wilt in Marcella's room until she's summoned again. I reach for her uninjured wrist. She doesn't pull away, which is not a good sign regarding her sense of self-preservation but excellent for my intentions. "We'll head back to Cora's house in the morning, unless you'd like to go now."
She chews on her reply. It's a calculated move, letting her make the decision. Pretending there's a decision to be made. Her question, as they so often do, surprises me: "Will you sleep?"
"I don't know." She nods, probably thinking me evasive, so I amend, "I don't know if I'll be able to. It's… very loud. In…" I gesture towards myself.
She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. "They speak to you? The souls?"
"Constantly." I chance a step towards her. My hand is still wrapped around her wrist, but gentle, like a question instead of a demand. "He looks for you, Rose. Even now, he's…"
I shake my head, unable to find the words for the way he pushes against the front of my skull, insistent. "Every pleasant memory of his is one with you, and I've seen them all. I didn't— I wasn't invading his privacy," I say quickly. "He screams them at me. To convince me that I should be looking for you, too. That I should love you, too."
I've never been one to play fair, always with an ace up my sleeve.
"Do you?" she asks. "Love me?"
It isn't love, this hungering beast in the space between us, but it's close enough that when she searches my face for a trick, she finds sincerity— or what she can excuse as honesty.
"I do. Curse me for it, but I do. I know I've done wrong." I lower my voice and step towards her again, bringing her hand to my chest. "You're right to be angry with me, but be angry beside me. Let me be your shadow until you feel I deserve to stand in the light again."
She flattens her hand against the fabric of my shirt. "Now you're just being dramatic."
I shrug with one shoulder. "Should we leave tonight, mon cœur, or tomorrow?"
There's still a flash of fight in her. Maybe Uriel was right. I am a glutton for punishment. She curls her fingers, gripping the fabric. "No more secrets. Swear it."
It's too easy to bring her thumb to my lips, to make an oath I'll break. I don't just want her soul; I want her heart, and I'll be whoever I need to be to secure it.
I whisper to the pad of her thumb, "I swear."
Something I can't place flashes in her eyes. I'm about to pull it from her mind when she jerks her hand to the side and replaces her thumb with her lips. I'm not proud of the sound that escapes my throat—a whine or a wordless plea—but she gives me little time to recover, pushing me towards my bedroom with impatient, searching hands.
I don't know why she does it. Maybe because she wants to, or because she can, or because she needs something solid beneath her and I'm the closest available option. I graze the top of her thoughts and find the carapace of spite over the soft belly of fear and the gnashing teeth of… possession? Power, or the illusion of it.
Well, she does like to pretend.
Her fingers slide under the hem of my shirt at the same time the backs of my knees hit the bed, but I've recovered enough to lick at the seam of her lips and pull her closer.
Clothing finds hardwood, skin finds skin, and my hands find the softness of her body. I coax sighs from her, gentle, and then lap them from her lips, greedy. I could consume her like this, taking only the sweetest sounds and keeping them at the front of my mind so they drown out the others.
One arm around her waist, holding her upright and still, the other hand drawing a symphony of gasps and moans, I give into my own wretched desire and skim the protective layer of her mortality and her soul within it. Like a bubble eager to be popped, it clings to my caress, but the interior is opaque. I can't even glimpse her memories, not while her soul is promised to another— to the very person I was trying to protect her from.
The traitorous thought returns: How dare she make that deal? How dare she make that choice for me?
Only when her eyes flutter and her mouth drops open, when she's wound and wound— only then do I bury my teeth in her neck and provide the sting she's been anticipating. She breaks around me, trembling, and my name spills from her mouth over and over.
I'm not certain if it's a prayer or a condemnation, but when her eyes again find mine, I realize—
She's not finished with me yet.