by Lindsey Byrd
Aurora kept shaking her head in disbelief. “There are fires around the city, crystals—Lady Zakaria said.”
“Yes, but fire lines can be broken. Crystals . . . temporarily removed. Someone could help. Someone on the other side.”
“Who would help a wraith?” Aurora asked.
“Someone who knew who it was,” Kera answered. She tried to think. Think about everything Aurora had told her. It wasn’t the poor who were getting sick. Not the whole country. Two cities had been affected: Ship’s Landing and Willowisric. The rich— No. Not just the rich, but anyone who could prove that it wasn’t a normal illness; all the doctors and physicians who’d tried curing it had died.
Kera had walked the streets of the city, seen how houses that had gone to prosperous families after the revolution were now up for sale as frightened residents fled. Many banks had started to take over mortgages but—
“How many people were asked by the banks about their homes prior to the plague?” Kera asked Raslidor. The griffon nodded their head.
“All of them.”
All of them. Of course. “When they left, the banks received ownership of the houses . . .” Kera told Aurora. “It’s what they were trying to do with the Ivory Gate.”
Aurora shook her head. “No . . . no, that doesn’t make any sense, why would the bankers be working with a wraith?”
“It’s not all of the banks,” Kera replied. The puzzle was forming itself in her mind. Pieces clicking back into place. Clarity overcoming obscurity. The men who had come to her door over and over had been attempting to convince her to sell the Ivory Gate prior to any signs of impending default. Prior to any signs of trouble. While it was true she had a finite amount of money to pay for her home, she had yet to miss a single payment.
Their interference at first could be excused as almost helpful or kind. They were “looking out” for her because she wouldn’t be able to continue managing on her own. Everyone acted like they’d been trying to do their best by her, but she found their interest to be contradictory to proper behavior. Especially as she was Morpheus Montgomery’s widow. He’d created their banking system. They should have given her proper respect for her station.
Instead . . . they had pushed.
“Wraiths aren’t known for their planning,” Aurora argued as Kera tried to find the next link in the chain. “They seek vengeance. Life. Why would a wraith do any of this?”
“For vengeance,” Raslidor replied. “For life.”
“Vengeance against whom? Who exactly would want to team up with bankers to take revenge against . . . people who own houses?” Then, seeming to have no end of questions, Aurora asked, “And what would a wraith want with a house anyway?”
Think, Kera commanded herself. Think. Who had wanted the houses first? If it was vengeance, then whoever the wraith had been before death, he had wanted the homes and felt slighted by them. He had felt personally affronted that the homes hadn’t been his. Who had made enemies of whom? Not only that, but who had access to both Willowisric and Ship’s Landing?
It struck like lightning. “Henry Travers.” Kera breathed out the name with full confidence. Aurora snapped her head about to stare at her. Her mouth closed with an audible click. “Henry Travers died in debtor’s prison after speculating with money that didn’t exist. He wanted to buy up the real estate in Ship’s Landing as fast as he could, but he wasn’t managing the inflation properly. He missed his calculations, and Mori needed to step in and stop the financial crisis before it became worse. Mori refused to help him and prosecuted him until he was sent to debtor’s prison, where he died in destitution.”
“Yes,” Raslidor nodded. “He did.”
She felt like a ball rolling downhill, starting off slow, then picking up speed, all her thoughts aligning with perfect clarity. “Henry Travers became a wraith, a powerful one at that. He must have materialized at some point. Made contact with his family in Ship’s Landing. They broke the seal.”
“But why take Faith?” Aurora asked. “We’d been working for them for years, before the plague ever got that bad, why take her now?”
Why indeed. Kera squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to block out anything that could obfuscate the truth. “How much energy would a wraith need to manifest during the day?”
A wave of pleasure ghosted across Kera’s consciousness as Raslidor nodded their great head. “A lot. He would have needed a great deal of energy to remain in that cellar waiting for his prey.”
“He attacked Faith so he had the strength to manifest inside our home . . . and as a member of his own household, it would help throw off any suspicion as to why his family wasn’t affected.”
“But they gave me the map!” Aurora shouted. “They told me to come here!”
“Guilt?” Kera offered. “For having put you in such a position?”
Aurora’s expression turned enraged, furious and bloodthirsty. Her skin was darkening by the minute, her cheeks flushing purple as her anger grew to an insurmountable level.
“And all this time,” Kera spat. “He’s been killing people to get back what he thought was his.”
“The Ivory Gate was built after his death,” Aurora told her, but Kera was already past that.
“But Morpheus was the one who let him die. He was the one who turned his back on Travers because the man was a scoundrel and a thief!” Kera’s voice rose. She was almost shouting. For weeks she’d watched her children suffer, and it had been because one horrible man had decided to make an empire by trying to reclaim life after his flame had flickered out.
There had been a shroud on Mori’s page, a hasty flourish as he attempted to find the source of the plague. And Kera couldn’t help but ask, “Did he know?” Raslidor cocked their head to the side. “Did he know it was Travers? Or at the very least, a wraith causing the plague?”
“He knew when he died,” Raslidor replied. They stood up, stretching out their long limbs and arching their back so they could sit in a more comfortable position, towering over Kera and Aurora both. “Your husband requested a meeting with Brennan Wild to show him what he knew. He chose the spot he thought best. The most likely place for the wraith to appear. Outside the city walls, with his intended target in plain sight and no one the wiser. Your husband fired his gun.”
“In the sky!” Kera snapped. “He never shot Wild. He hadn’t even been close!”
“Yes. But the sound of a gun causes a man to fright. And Wild reacted at the noise. Intent, Lady Montgomery, is what we listen to. And Wild’s intention was not to murder Morpheus Montgomery. He had been startled when your husband drew his weapon, and he shot without realizing he wasn’t Morpheus Montgomery’s target. Morpheus Montgomery fired his gun when he saw a wraith above Wild’s body. With the sun cast in the opposite direction and all eyes on your husband, he was the only one who saw it. A wraith bearing a resemblance to Henry Travers, made whole from the life he’d stolen not long ago. He shot the wraith immediately, and in turn, Wild shot your husband, believing to have been fired upon. The wraith vanished, and your husband suspected that with it—so too would the plague end.
“Your husband’s bullet did aim true; he grievously wounded Travers, but mortal weapons are not enough to kill a wraith. It only made Travers’s appetite stronger. It made it so his need to steal the life of others grew. Your . . . plague . . . began in earnest after your husband’s death, and it’s precisely because of his death it was allowed to happen. Travers lost the ability to appear mostly human . . . and he wanted it back. He wanted his life back.”
Kera squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to ration her breaths. She tried to come to terms with the raging hatred she had felt for Brennan Wild from the moment she discovered he had killed her husband, and redirect it at something else. Anyone else. Henry Travers.
The entire Travers family had been assisting Travers with his scheme to act on those he perceived had wronged him. They had relished the money they felt was owed to them, and had encouraged wanton despair and dest
ruction due to their avarice. Kera squeezed Aurora’s hand, and clenched her opposite in a tight fist.
Rage, unbridled and unrestrained, circulated through her bloodstream. “If my husband’s bullet could injure him, why didn’t it kill him entirely?”
“It injured the vessel, but not the spirit. It made the wraith need to reform itself, but could not release it from its existence . . . something you naturally seem to have quite a talent for already, Lady Montgomery. Spirits can only cross over when you bring them peace or force them to move on. A manmade bullet can injure the physical body of the wraith, but not stop his wrath.”
“And while he was haunting those who slighted him, his family and their associates were making a profit off of everyone,” Aurora said. Her teeth ground down so loud Kera heard them pop.
“But why didn’t he come for us sooner?” Kera asked. “My husband’s been dead for a year, why only attack my child now?”
“Henry Travers ensured your husband’s death, Lady Montgomery,” Raslidor said. “For a time that was enough. His greed turned him to other ventures, other avenues. He could regain his strength until you were in a position to fall into the same trap he’d sprung on the others. All he needed was to wait and to grow stronger day by day. He had an eternity to wait for you. It was of no consequence for him not to hurry.”
Kera closed her eyes again, desperately drawing out her battle plans. She made lists in her mind, categorized them so everything was in order. She could see now the trajectory she needed to take. The course of action that was going to lead her forward. But first, she was going to need help.
When she opened her eyes, it was to Raslidor bending their head low to the ground once more, almost in a bow. “I will help you, Lady Montgomery. I will take you where you need to go.”
“Go?” Aurora asked. She turned to look at Kera. “Go where?”
“To see Overseer Brennan Wild,” Kera replied. “At his home in Hame Argyll.” Now, more than ever, it was clear that they needed to talk.
Unlike her husband, who had done nothing but loathe the ground Brennan Wild walked on from the moment they stepped into the political arena together, Kera hadn’t hated him until the day she discovered he had killed her husband. Prior to that, she had spent the majority of her time mitigating the potential fallout between every personal encounter Morpheus had with the man. They’d attended Wild’s parties, where she’d held her husband in check and kept him from being too absurd whenever their tempers started to flare over something meaningless and inconsequential.
It hadn’t stopped Mori from ruining his own reputation each time they attended, but it at least kept the peace during those moments. Wild, Kera found, had always been a man of complex ambiguities. He liked playing the pauper farmer, and liked to believe himself a member of “the people” rather than the aristocracy to which he’d been born.
His opinions, though convoluted and often hypocritical, were understandable from his own paradigm. Mori knew why Wild felt the way he did on every issue they argued about; Mori just could never agree with the man. They hated each other, pure and simple. A shame, because had they been able to overcome their obvious grandstanding, they could have done so much more for their country than either of their individual efforts had managed to eke out.
Despite knowing Wild had revealed Mori’s affair, Kera hadn’t let his actions color her feelings until the moment he tried to paint her husband as an assassin. Her husband’s relationship with Wild might have been contentious, but Mori wasn’t a murderer. Wild had lied, or he hadn’t understood, or he’d intended to mislead the people. Perhaps he had even tried to have Mori killed from the beginning. Kera hadn’t known, and she hadn’t cared. She just knew that he’d lied. And he was rewarded by still maintaining control over the Overwatch while she was left to reap the consequences of her husband’s action.
Her hatred had grown from there.
“Perhaps speaking to the overseer . . . isn’t the best idea?” Aurora offered as they left their children, walking until they were far out of sight, so they could bathe in peace.
Faith and Aiden were both awake now. Faith had walked a few steps too, balancing latent dizziness and a lingering weariness with the sheer determination to move on her own. She smiled so prettily that Kera knew she took after her mother, and she played with Aiden as though they had done so for years. She’d held out her hands and Aiden had toddled to her. She began showing Aiden how to make daisy chains out of the flowers in the woods.
Both children had been amazed at the sight of the griffon, and Aiden had dutifully informed the beast that they were all right even if they really didn’t look much like a duck. Kera had hissed for him to apologize, but Raslidor laughed brightly at Aiden’s assessment and thanked him for his compliment, strangely worded as it might have been. Both children were sluggish from sleeping for so long, and hungry. Kera and Aurora had watched as their children ate most of the food on hand, and Kera was contended by the thought that they even had appetites to speak of. Faith and Aiden seemed energized the whole while, talking and laughing as normal children should. Kera burned the image into her mind. She didn’t want to see their children die because Henry Travers wanted to punish her family over a financial dispute. Travers had already lived his life, he didn’t get to have theirs.
Raslidor had spoken cheerfully in Kera’s mind, ripping it ruthlessly from its pique so as to inform her that they could keep an eye on the children while she and Aurora cleaned up. “You will, of course, be given perfect privacy while you bathe.” It was an offer they both accepted, escaping down to the lake with only a few hugs to their children as a goodbye.
“Seeing Wild is exactly the best idea,” Kera told Aurora, pulling at the strings of her blouse and tugging it off her shoulders. If she was going to talk to the Overseer of Absalon, she was going to look presentable. As much as she wanted to just appear as she was now, she had a firm understanding of propriety. Even if Brennan Wild shouldn’t be worth the effort. “And if he doesn’t like what I have to say, then I shall make him like it.”
Aurora nodded her head, tugging her own clothes off, settling them not far away. “Montgomerys and your pig-headedness,” she accused.
“You love us for it,” Kera said. She dipped a toe into the water. It wasn’t too cold. It felt refreshing, actually. With her feet sliding through sand, she let herself sink deep into the water. She relaxed into it, relishing the feeling of being surrounded by the lake. It was a cool liquid embrace that settled her to her core. The tide of her mind was at peace.
“I do,” Aurora replied after a moment, watching Kera as she drifted back farther in the lake. Kera stayed afloat with a few strokes of her arms, and she tried to work out why Aurora’s voice sounded so strange. It was almost dark and husky. But before she could understand it, Aurora joined her in the water. She slipped under and then kicked up off the sandy bottom. Head cresting, damp and beautiful. Her dark hair lay plastered to her cheeks, curls straightening into awkward waves as they were dragged down by the water. Kera bit her lip, treading as she watched Aurora blink droplets from her lashes. Aurora tucked her hair back behind her ears and found her footing.
Words, words, words.
So many to choose from. Infinite in their possibilities. Kera swam closer until she was within arm’s reach of Aurora. She knew they should be washing. They didn’t have much time. But the children were being cared for, Raslidor would keep them safe, and they had precious few moments to speak to one another without any prying eyes or ears. No one was around, save their eavesdropping griffon who already knew everything they could be thinking anyway.
Words were hard, but Kera found two at least. “Thank you.”
Her body was warm despite the cool water that rose up to her shoulders. It teased her collarbones with the slightest breath of air. Kera reached her hand toward Aurora. She wanted to touch, but this was far more intimate than anything they’d done before. She waited, hand extended, her heart beating far too fast as she hop
ed for a positive response.
She had been caught, long ago, like a fish on a line, drawn to Aurora against her will, and now entirely at Aurora’s mercy. She would either be taken forever or set back to sea.
Aurora met her eyes. Then she surged. She took her hand, reeled her in. Pulling her until there was no doubting or obfuscation.
Their lips met.
Aurora’s hands were in her hair, on her hip, guiding her body close. Kera’s eyes fluttered closed. She lost her footing in the sand, but Aurora never let her fall. Aurora embraced her, restraining her with no intentions of letting her go.
Aurora’s breasts felt strange and foreign against Kera’s. She wasn’t used to the feeling, not like this. But she wanted it to go on, wanted to touch them how she knew she liked her own to be touched. Her mouth parted just a little, and Aurora’s hand tightened in her hair. Her tongue dove between her lips, and Kera was pulled in closer and closer.
So close that Kera half wondered if she would slip through Aurora’s flesh. Join her body and soul, nestle and live in the sacred space around Aurora’s heart. She lost her footing again, and Aurora reached down and cupped her under her bottom, urging her upward so her legs stood on nothing at all, but her arms were wrapped around Aurora’s shoulders, and her thighs spread around Aurora’s waist.
She was weightless in the water. Strangely, it reminded her of the first time she’d ever kissed a boy. Blushing as he stole a kiss she hadn’t meant to give and rushing home to tell her sisters what happened. Gale had threatened to show him a thing or two, but Ciara had been sly and curious. Did you like it? she had asked. And all Kera could think about was wanting to feel it more.
More, more, more.
Aurora’s lips didn’t leave hers. They stayed affixed. Moving. Pulsating. The hand in her hair guided Kera’s actions. Guiding with an open mouth that encouraged her exploration. Their limbs were intertwined and Kera’s body burned.