The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker

by Leanna Renee Hieber

  Alexandra’s eyes sparkled. “Has he now. And what on earth is the occasion?”

  Michael beamed. “Why—he’s getting married!”

  Percy had fabricated a convincing enough story of the night prior, and she distracted Marianna with titillating details of Alexi’s first kiss that possible gaps in the plot were entirely forgotten. Side by side in the dining hall, their giddiness was tempered only by the unknown.

  “You’ll have an estate,” Marianna murmured. “Is it far?”

  “I shan’t be closeted away. I’m to stay at Athens in some capacity. He promised. Though his home isn’t far, and I want you to visit.”

  “Oh. Good then.” Marianna brightened. “I’ve been trying to be so happy for you while ignoring how terribly sad I am at the thought of you going away.”

  “You have Edward.”

  “While I love him desperately, he’s no replacement for your company.”

  Percy was moved. “Those are the sweetest words anyone has ever—”

  “I doubt that,” Marianna interrupted, grinning. “Surely you’ve heard sweeter things of late. From him, of all people. It does amaze. He’s so cold…until he looks at you.”

  “I know, it’s very disconcerting. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Footsteps sounded behind them. The dormitory chaperone, Miss Jennings, a squat, unpleasant, mousy-haired woman, stood over them looking terribly uncomfortable. “Miss Parker…a…gentleman is at the door for you.”

  “A particular gentleman, Miss Jennings?” Percy asked.

  “Er, yes. Professor Rychman, miss. But why a professor would be calling on a student in the evening—”

  “Ah, yes, my fiancé. Thank you kindly, I was expecting him.”

  The surprise turning to horror upon the woman’s face was worth a fortune, and Marianna masked a guffaw by sputtering into her teacup. Percy threw her thick cloak about her shoulders, kissed Marianna’s forehead and graciously swept past the chaperone, running to open the door to her striking beloved.

  He’d straightened his appearance, replacing his tattered clothes with a new, elegantly tailored black frock coat and pressed trousers, as well as a fresh crimson cravat and charcoal waistcoat. His mop of black hair was carefully combed and his arms were clasped behind his back. “Good evening,” he murmured, presenting a cluster of roses. He shot a disdainful glance at Miss Jennings, who scowled from the doorway but quickly disappeared.

  Percy gasped and giggled. “How beautiful,” she breathed, taking them in her arms and allowing their perfume to wash over her. “Thank you.”

  “As we were not afforded a proper courtship, I thought there ought to be a few niceties somewhere in the midst of our mad affair. Come, take my arm, dear girl, there’s something we must do.”

  “Of course.” Percy slid her arm into his.

  Roses on one arm, Alexi on the other, Percy felt like a princess as they entered Apollo Hall and ascended to his office. “A tutorial, at this hour, Professor?” she asked, entirely unsure of what he had planned. He was, at times, an unpredictable man, a quality that had its delights.

  Alexi gave her a scorching look. “Of sorts,” he purred.

  He swept her into his vast office teeming with books and fine furnishings, closed the door behind him. Percy raised her eyebrow at the sound of the clicking lock. He plucked the roses from her arms, tossed them on a nearby bookshelf and waved his hand to set a fire roaring in the fireplace and his desk’s candelabra ablaze. Then, scooping Percy into his arms, he carried her behind his desk and sat her upon it. She stared with wide eyes, her breath short and her body afire.

  He loomed, placing one hand on either side of her, and leaned in. “You see, my dear Miss Parker,” he began in a businesslike tone edged with a growl. He pressed his forehead to hers. “Until I indulge a moment or two of the fantasies that began to accost me when you first came here to call, I’ll never again find this room the haven of academic productivity it once was. I’ll be driven entirely to distraction until I purge a few less-than-scholarly impulses from my blood.”

  All Percy could manage was an odd, gleeful sound that became a gasp when he descended upon her with a rain of kisses, his teeth fumbling at the lace around her throat, his hands pawing past layers of skirts to gain the purchase against her flesh as he laid her back upon the desk’s wide marble top, its contents having been suspiciously cleared sometime prior. “At last,” he murmured, “the insurmountable barrier between us lies in ruin.”

  “Indeed. And shall I, too, soon lie in ruin?” Percy asked, not bothering to choose between a nervous or lustful tone since she felt both so strongly.

  Alexi pursed his lips, staring down at her in consternation. “No, darling, I’ll give you the courtesy of a proper bed. I maintain you wed a gentleman. I did, after all, control myself during our lessons here. For the most part.”

  “There was that kiss.” Percy giggled. “You threw me against the bookshelf.”

  “Ah, yes, there was that.” He smirked. “How did that go, again?” He lifted and spun her. Her breath fled as he pressed her against the shelves for reenactment.

  “Yes, that was it,” she finally gasped, as he carried her again to the desk. “Alexi, were you really thinking such things during our tutorials? You seemed so cold!”

  “I began to unhinge the moment I demanded you reveal yourself, the moment you took off your scarf, your gloves, your glasses, all your shrouds, and stood bravely before me, diamond blue eyes piercing my soul.”

  Percy frowned. “You looked at me in surprise, then.”

  Alexi leaned closer. “You were a revelation.”

  Tears rimmed her eyes and she looked away, terrified that when he saw the whole of her on their wedding night—her whole, ghostly, naked flesh—he would be repulsed. She pulled him near, a hungry kiss to stave off her fear.

  Alexi eventually pulled back, adjusting his clothes, his breathing ragged. “Do put yourself back together, darling. Seeing you all disheveled threatens to take the gentleman right out of me. Pull your cloak tight, dear, I see I’ve mauled your sleeve.”

  “Miss Jennings will call the police.” Percy chuckled, rising to sit.

  He helped her to her feet, cinching her cloak. “Tomorrow you shall be mine,” he promised softly. Thrills worked up Percy’s spine.

  “Who will marry us?”

  “Michael. He’s clergy, after all. Church of England. Do you mind terribly that he’s not Catholic?”

  “Just don’t tell Reverend Mother.”

  Leading her to the threshold, Alexi swept his lips against her ear. “Thank you for this indulgence.” When Percy brought his hand to her lips and kissed the centre of his palm, he growled, his fingertips dragging along her cheek. “You can’t possibly know how I need you.”

  “Oh, I’ve some idea,” she replied.

  A tearing sound drew them from their clutch. They turned to the centre of the room to find a large, open black rectangle before them, a door much like the portal Percy had opened at the Van Courtland residence. In an instant, blue fire leaped from Alexi’s hands. Percy still marveled at the sight. He approached the portal. Nothing came out. There was no immediate sound, other than water, but as they inched closer, Percy heard it: distant screaming. Incessant screaming. And the chant, again, chilling Percy’s blood.

  “Lucy-Ducy wore a nice dress, Lucy-Ducy made a great mess…”

  “Percy, stay back.”

  Percy moved behind Alexi as he approached, unable to keep from poking her head around his arm to see. Deep in the darkness, a thick cluster of shadow moved. There was a flash of red eyes in the distance, and the sight triggered instinctual panic within her. Percy clamped down on a scream and felt something sizzle upon her body. As her fists balled, the door snapped shut, and Percy’s eyes were drawn to her chest, where the phoenix pendant flared red against her body glowing white. Alexi turned, his eyes wide.

  “Well…” Percy murmured, watching her light fade as the door closed. “It seems I’ve no
control of when portals open, but Michael must be right: whatever woke in me now reacts to danger. Did you see those eyes?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “The red eyes. You didn’t see them?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Percy’s stomach churned. She recognized those eyes from her vision of the cave, when Phoenix burned. Oh, God, if something were to happen to Alexi…The very thought sent her into a furious, righteous rage, and it was only Alexi’s surprise that alerted her she was radiant once again.

  “Percy!”

  “Oh.” She looked down at her sternum, where a ball of white light again gathered. It dimmed. “See, it’s defensive. I was just worrying about something happening to you, and it must have triggered my…light. Tell me you’ve some scientific term to offer, I sound utterly daft.”

  Alexi shook his head.

  “It’s comforting, I suppose, that I have a defense.”

  Her beloved scowled. “Perhaps, but I don’t like doors simply opening up without warning or cause. Particularly not in our intimate moments. And whose were those red eyes?”

  “I…couldn’t be sure,” Percy said, daring not to voice her supposition, shoving panic aside. She fully intended to revel in the throes of love, not panic. “Now, where were we?” She moved to kiss Alexi with such passion that he had to draw back lest her innocence truly be stripped.

  Staring up at him, a random thought suddenly struck Percy, and she cocked her head. “If I’m indeed some part of the goddess Persephone, for I’m no actual deity, shouldn’t I have warranted another name? Mine isn’t very clever at all, then, is it? Rather obvious, really.”

  Alexi pursed his lips. “Perhaps to jog some ancient memory. None of us were clever about this to begin with.”

  “Yet we found each other in the end.”

  Alexi touched her cheek. “Thank heavens.”

  Escorting her back to Athene Hall, he murmured at her doorstep, “Until tomorrow, my darling. Try and rest.”

  “You do the same,” she replied.

  “I’ll do my best,” Alexi replied unconvincingly. They did not seem able to release hands, lingering until their reverie was broken by the front door being thrown wide.

  “Now, I do not care if you two are engaged or not, Professor Rychman,” Miss Jennings scoffed, her face flushed and pinched, “but I’ll not have such an example set on my front steps. Oh, the shame! You’ll have the whole faculty thinking they could have a wife of a student whenever they please.”

  “Calm yourself,” Alexi began mildly. “Miss Parker was sent to me by Fate. You ungrateful commoners. I shall mate Prophecy, Miss Jennings, as we control the dead lest spirits wholly unseat the sanity of banal persons such as yourself. Miss Parker’s a goddess of a girl, fit to make my wife, and I will do with her as I please.”

  Percy gasped, staring up at Alexi. His eyes, blazing with cerulean fire, mesmerized the chaperone before he turned to Percy and said, “I’ve always wanted to tell the truth. She won’t remember a word, and it felt lovely to say. Now, then.” He indulged a languorous, wholly uncivil kiss, then ushered two dazed females back into the hall.

  Left at last in her room, Percy stared out her window at passing spirits. They bade her rest, but her eyes settled instead upon a hanging still life, a ripe pomegranate at its centre. She’d turned the painting to the wall when she first arrived at Athens, and she didn’t remember turning it back. She flipped it to the wall one last time, needing no reminder of that mythological fruit, which once bound a goddess to an underworld fate.

  Beatrice followed the Groundskeeper to the seals, keeping to the shadows, unnoticed. It was easy, considering the chaos and noise. The Whisper-world was a hissing, echoing, miserable labyrinth.

  She watched as he heaved and turned each stone pin with great strain. This seal was a gritty, moist cylinder, hardly distinguishable from other rock but for the small trickle of blood that poured forth. When opened, the fissure would leak the miasma of death into a fixed point in the mortal realm. Here in the Whisper-world, distances were odd, as was time. However, expediency and progress did seem to have pace. The Groundskeeper’s work was coming along; Beatrice followed behind to reroute it. After a pin was loosened, the Groundskeeper always ambled back to reconstruct his love.

  Beatrice moved to the stone and kept her boot clear of pooling crimson. She thought of the faltering goddess, her divinity rotting and withering under the fist of Darkness, how the form she bore had bled as she laid down the foundations for Beatrice to now finish, coupling hers and her lover’s energy toward their goal. Perhaps this pool was even her blood, refusing to dry. A relic.

  She pressed the locket. Hallowed Phoenix fire sparkled in her hand, leaped onto and nestled in the wet stone, kissing the blood dry, creating a pulsing rectangle of possibility where before was only rough stone and the sour air of danger: the portal was rerouted to familiar, friendly bricks.

  Beatrice took a deep breath. Though she tried to put on a brave face, her heart had not stopped pounding since she died. So much for eternal rest. She wished to feel in better hands. The current Guard…It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, but when she’d broken into their breakfast and examined them, the table was rife with obstacles; she saw mortal frailty cloud each and every gaze. Every single one of them ached for something, was unsettled by something, felt guilty, trapped, unappreciated or unrequited. How keenly she felt their flaws. Prophecy balanced on the edge of a knife, and there was no divinity to ease her mind; that divinity died when the goddess gave herself to the world. The blue fire now held in her hand, this fractal remnant of Phoenix, was all that remained for Beatrice. It would take her someplace new, the next phase of her quest. She hoped when she opened her eyes she would see something comforting.

  Beatrice found herself floating above a plot of soil in a York graveyard, a place she recognized, a place of shadows and wind. It was not what she hoped. Her lonely, weighted heart pounded harder with complex memories of grave digging. Her transparent hand grazed and swept across a familiar tombstone. A smaller, grimmer marker lay next to it.

  She spoke softly to the stone, caressing it though she could not touch. “Since I’ve not seen your ghost, my only comfort is that you’ve surely found peace. May Ibrahim and I join you soon, and we’ll all embrace in that Great Beyond.” Sensation was an echo, yet she acted as though she could still participate in rituals of the flesh. Tears streamed down her phantom cheeks, surprising her. She missed Ibrahim. She missed her Guard. She missed sweet Iris Parker, this young mother dead before she could appreciate her unique baby. And to her surprise, she also missed the goddess, difficult as their relationship had been. Though she was a woman skeptical of prayer, Beatrice needed divinity. Thus she prayed over her friend’s grave that their myriad sacrifices would not be in vain.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The stunning light of morning was jolting. The day would eventually bring the night, and Percy thrilled with desire and trepidation. She knew nothing of intimacy, save the kisses and caresses Alexi had shared. A new education awaited.

  She glided downstairs to the dining room, where an urn of hot water was kept for the restless or studious. Readying a cup of tea, she chose the spiced blend, for it reminded her of the scent of Alexi: clove and leather-bound books.

  A rustle behind her proved to be Marianna, her eyes a bit groggy but her excitement palpable. “And how doth the bride to be?”

  “Nervous.”

  “Of course. May Edward come?”

  “Of course.”

  The girls sipped their tea, took hands and silently watched the sunrise. Only a hasty tread behind them eventually roused their comfortable quiet, the disdainful Miss Jennings, again with news. “Miss Parker. More company for you. Two French ladies.” She grimaced. “Bearing a rather large box.”

  “Oh, do let them in.” Percy turned to Marianna. “I believe it’s my wedding dress!”

  The two girls hurried to the door where Josephine and a tiny woman whose bl
ack curls alone could be seen through the window. “Hello, Percy dear,” Josephine called as they entered. “This is Madame Sue, a sorceress of the trade.”

  Percy made introductions to Marianna as they moved the garment box upstairs and into her room, Madame Sue streaming fabrics dramatically from her own apparel.

  “And how do you know Percy, Mademoiselle Belledoux?” Marianna asked, clearly admiring Josephine’s gown.

  “I’m a friend of the professor”—Josephine smiled—“and thus, of Miss Percy.”

  “And I am the hired help,” Madame Sue volunteered, adjusting the corsage of pearl-tipped straight pins stuck to the lapel of her sweeping robe.

  “The best seamstress on the isle, I tell you,” Josephine said.

  The box safely upon Percy’s bed, Madame Sue did the honours. Everyone, save madame, gasped. Inside the box lay the most beautiful assemblage of light blue satin, lace and sparkling silver thread that modern fashion could imagine. Percy lovingly scooped up the thickly corseted bodice. The plunging neckline was lined across the bosom with thin, starched lace and silver-and-seed-pearl-embroidered ivy. Out tumbled three-quarters sleeves from which lengthening layers of pale blue lace fell in bells. Full skirts were doubled and cinched with a pearl-strung cord. A curl of satin had been arranged at the small of the back, like a rose, which bustled the train before sweeping downward.

  “Oh, madame,” Percy breathed. Marianna’s hand would not leave her mouth.

  “Pleased?”

  “More than I can possibly express. You are an exquisite talent.”

  “Thank you. Step in, let us make sure it fits. I adjust, then I sleep.”

  “I’m terribly sorry for the rush, madame,” Percy said.

  “No matter, people must marry when the fit seizes them, I suppose. You aren’t expecting, are you?”

  “No!” Percy cried, blushing as she was helped into the dress.

  “Good.” Madame yanked hard upon the corset strings, and Percy felt her ribs bend and her breath fly. “Ah. Fits well, this.”