The Infernal Crown: Of Roses and Lies

Chapter 21

I shuddered as if I could fling it off, and kicked back the sheets to rise from the bed.

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I couldn't entirely shake the horror, the gore of my dream as I walked down the dark halls of the manor, the servants, Kallistê and Oberon long asleep. But I had to do something—anything—after that nightmare. If only to avoid sleeping. A bit of paper in one hand and a pen gripped in the other, I carefully traced my steps, noting the windows and doors and exits, occasionally jotting down vague sketches and Xs on the parchment.

It was the best I could do, and to any literate human, my markings would have made no sense. But I couldn't write or read more than my basic letters, and my makeshift map was better than nothing. If I were to remain here for at least until I figured out where to find the Imperial Lords or the black milkweed, it was essential to know the best hiding places, the easiest way out, should things ever go badly for me. I couldn't entirely let go of the instinct.

It was too dim to admire any of the paintings lining the walls, and I didn't dare risk a candle. These past three days, there had been servants in the halls when I'd worked up the nerve to look at the art—and the part of me that spoke with Alistair's voice had laughed at the idea of an ignorant human trying to admire faerie art. Some other time, then, I'd told myself. I would find another day, a quiet hour when no one was around and I had completed my task, to look at them. I had plenty of hours now—a whole lifetime in front of me. Perhaps ... perhaps I'd figure out what I wished to do with it.

I crept down the main staircase, moonlight flooding the marble tiles of the entrance hall. I reached the bottom, my bare feet silent on the cold tiles, and listened. Nothing—no one.

I set my little map on the foyer table and drew a few Xs and circles to signify the doors, the windows, the marble stairs of the front hall. I would become so familiar with the house that I could navigate it even if someone blinded me.

A breeze announced his arrival—and I turned from the table toward the long hall, to the open glass doors to the garden.

I'd forgotten how intimidating he was—forgotten the razor golden talons poking out from his knuckles. His amber eyes glowed in the darkness, fixing on me, and as the doors snicked shut behind him, the scuffing of boots on marble filled the hall. I stood still—not daring to flinch, to move a muscle.

He limped slightly, a hand holding an ... arrow supporting his weight by brushing against the walls, his other hand wrapped across his torso. And in the moonlight, dark, shining stains were left in his wake.

He continued toward me, stealing the air from the entire hall. He was so big that the place felt cramped, like a cage. The scrape of the arrow against the wall, a huff of uneven breathing, the dripping of blood.

Between one step and the next, his talons retracted, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the blinding light caused by moonlight reflecting on his talons. When at last my eyes adjusted to the returning darkness, he was standing in front of me.

Standing, but—not quite there. No sign of the baldric, or his knives. His clothes were in shreds—long, vicious slashes that made me wonder how he wasn't gutted and dead. But the muscled skin peeking out beneath his shirt was smooth, unharmed, save for the faint white lines of scars.

"Did you kill the Baphomet?" My voice was hardly more than a whisper.

"Yes." A dull, empty answer. As if he couldn't be bothered to remember to be pleasant. As if I were at the very, very bottom of a long list of priorities.

"You're hurt," I said even more quietly.

Indeed, his hand was pressing against the right side of his torso, covered in blood, even more splattering on the floor beneath him. He looked at it blankly—as if it took some monumental effort to remember that he even had a hand, and it was covering a punctured wound in his stomach. What effort of will and strength had it taken to kill the Baphomet, to face that wretched menace? How deep had he to dig inside himself –to whatever immortal power and animal that lived there—to kill it?