by Renee Peters
For all that the coven lived as a family, there were those among them blazing independent trails. Mathias paused to tend his pipe but soon enough the sound of quiet conversation was flowing between them.
Chapter 8
Rain plinked lightly on the windows of Anowen Castle’s library. After the safety of the sunset, Joanna had arrived with her stolen collection tucked inside of her crate to be returned.
The smell of old paper, leather, and the polish that oiled the bookcases to a shine filled both levels of the library. In between the bookcases where the windows had been built, alternating sections of cushioned reading nooks and writing desks occupied the walls. There were less reading nooks on the second level, where the wraparound balcony was almost entirely filled with bookshelves.
Joanna began to unpack her crate on the library cart, wordless, as if she had not already attracted the attention of the two other occupants in the library. The louder sound of Eden’s wooden recorder played a merry tune across their weave and Raewyn’s lyre was plucking through a distracted melody from the sitting room attached to the library that she used for an office.
Quietly drifting up the iron-wrought, spiral staircase, Joanna kept her crate balanced on her hip as she reached for a ladder to lean against a case of books that might as well have been branded.
Unlike the rest of the collection, the topmost shelves of that bookcase housed well-worn tomes — their leather titles faded or torn.
“Did you write in any of these, Jo?” Eden’s voice called cheerily from below, and it was all Joanna could do not to wince. Her habit of annotating the margins of her favorite titles had not done her any favors in the librarian’s domain.
“Non,” she answered, still facing the bookcase as she climbed, “But if we were to find another copy of the Songs of Experience, it would not displease me to have one for my shelf….”
“At the rate you go, you may as well just copy the books by hand and do what you like,” Eden chirped.
“If I’m to buy a spare copy of every book that might take your fancy Jo, we’d almost be certain to run through Anowen’s fortune,” Raewyn’s voice lifted from the shelter of her office, growing nearer for her approach.
The French queen flickered a look over her shoulder to find the librarian standing in her office doorway. A hand was settled on the fullness of her hip and when Raewyn pinned Joanna with a look, the blonde had the grace to blush.
“It is only how I love them,” Joanna murmured, but her voice felt small in her throat and she stepped off her ladder without claiming a book. Instead, she walked to the balcony’s edge, glancing away from Raewyn to find Eden examining the books she had left on the librarian's cart.
Eden in a feather-covered cap. Not only feather covered, but pasted in layers of dingy, gray pigeon feathers that formed odd lumps across the surface of the hat.
“Ma Columbe, what are you wearing?”
“Sophie’s hat,” the girl answered with a laugh. “She hated it.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Raewyn echoed. “Pigeon feathers are certain to be all the rage in the salons, don’t you know?”
The librarian looked up at Joanna again and her expression gentled somewhat.
“You may take whatever book you like, dear. I am only surprised that you have time to read at all for as much as you must write — will there be a poem in this month’s issue of the Gazette?”
Joanna let her crate settle against her leg on the balcony floor so she could fold her arms over the railing. “Oui, though we are going through my backlist… It has been a little harder to write of late. Reading is easier.”
“Too loud?” Eden asked.
The French queen did not answer.
Instead, the rise of another’s flute song filled the space between her words, and Joanna felt her stomach clenching even before Angelica entered the library.
“Of course it’s too loud,” Angelica mused sweetly and turned a brown-eyed gaze up to Joanna where she stood. “Isn’t it always where you’re concerned, pet?”
Raewyn emerged from her cover like a guardian angel. “We have all been spoiled for the quiet. I can scarcely find the peace to read myself. I would not have thought you’d find any comfort in the music, Angelica.”
“Aye. Don’t you have a prick to bite off with that tooth-lined snatch of yours, Angel?” Eden offered, just as sweetly. "Or something?"
It earned her a steady look from the queen in red as she breezed by them both toward the gaslight lamps. A look swept up to where Joanna watched, before Angelica deliberately reached to turn the lamp up one notch and then another.
The Frenchwoman watched both the queen and the flame with a familiar, uneasy kick.
“I do not, in fact, have any pricks to bite, poppet,” Angelica said. “You might worry for the cobwebs in your own snatch — for as unlikely as it is that Lian shall ever bring you a sister with which to bond.”
“Aye, but still likelier than you ever gettin’ your cellar cleaned by your sire.” Eden scoffed, waving her cap so that feathers went fluttering toward the floorboards. “Bet that heart singin’ just makes you ache that you can’t dig your claws in ‘em.”
“Angelica,” Raewyn interjected, “if you have not come to find a book, you can take your humors outside of the library.”
“Oh, but I have come for a book, Raewyn dear.” Angelica said and dragged a fingernail against the spine of one of the nearer books. “A poetry book. We do not have any on the shelves written by women, do we?”
“You’re really pissin’ me off,” Eden said, removing her cap to set it on a chair. “You think I won’t knock those pretty teeth of yours in and see how long they take to regrow for bein’ a proper bitch?”
“Non.” Joanna leaned down to collect her crate. Without touching the books again, the woman moved toward the stairwell. “Angelica has come intending to upset me. I will be pleased to give the library its peace.”
She had her inks and her parchment. Enough to make herself write if she found a quiet space for it. Somewhere dark, away from the gaslights that were raised higher for the darkness the rain wrought — and for Angelica’s malice.
“Shite,” Eden said. “Don’t go because she’s bein’ a fuckin’ quim.”
“No, do go,” Angelica offered, flipping a book open. “It is not as if you’ve shown much will or want for anything else of late. Not for publishing your… poetry under your own name… or for playing adventurous with a High Lord. You are better suited for the shadows of the servants’ level, sucking up what validation you can from those little letters your fans send, Mr. Holt — Whatever would you do if they stopped?”
“Angelica —” Raewyn’s voice bore the weight of a warning, and she closed some of the distance toward the queen.
“What’s gotten up your God-be-damned mantrap?” Eden spat.
Joanna did not wait. With little more than a glance paid toward her siblings, the Frenchwoman gathered her crate closer, crossed the room and exited the library doors.
Chapter 9
The winter garden was a tamed wilderness brought indoors. Even before Joanna pushed through its carved oak doors, she could already hear running water and was surrounded by the heavy scent of flowers in the air.
In the shadow of vine-covered trees, the French queen passed along paths that were bordered by flowering plants and bushes, toward the grassy knolls. They seemed designed to invite the spread of blankets for gatherings; though Joanna had never known them used for such.
Despite careful maintenance, in the days of quieter music, the garden was rarely visited. Joanna had never crossed paths with another sibling on those nights she had taken to walking through it alone. It was as close to a walk through nature as she could be afforded in the infancy of her curse.
Tonight, with her heart fluttering, she sought its darkness. Angelica had not followed, and no lamps were burning here. Instead, there was only a pane of glass that formed a domed skylight, opened to let in a view of the moon
and stars above. Joanna needed no more light than that.
She had not needed it since she was turned.
The queen pressed her fingers to her mouth and let them trace lower to her ribbon to hold it and feel the charred ends. The fire that had burned the ribbon was not the same as the one that had claimed the old farm. That fire had claimed her mortal family.
Another turn of her stomach and the woman lowered to a knee. Quietly, she unpacked her crate, flipping it over to use its base for a desk.
She had not uncapped her inkwells before the rising sound of violin music began to echo in her blood.
It did not take Dorian long to find her, this visit. No sooner had he arrived at the castle, than his music was at the door of the gardens and his scent of parchment and the dampness of rain was in the air.
Or she was imagining it. It was unlikely his scent would find her amid the flowers before she could see him. She set the quill down on the crate along with the sealed inkwells.
“From the gloom of the cellars to the darkness of the gardens, Cherie?”
Dorian’s voice lifted from the shadows on the path, though she could make out his form by the silvery light of the moon. “If I did not know better, I might almost think you a creature of the night.”
The tease prompted a brief smile, and she eased a curl behind her ear. “I do not hide my secrets well.” Her hand lowered to the top of the crate and she slid it back toward her side, adjusting her sit into a lean.
“I did not bring a blanket to sit on, Dorian,” she warned in the event he was wearing another nice suit. She knew he was, even before he was in view. Her expression softened. “I only did not wish to be inside.”
He paused in his approach, but then his shadow was looming larger as he crossed onto the grass to climb her knoll. It was only then that she made out the shape of a package in his hands.
“You are troubled tonight?” He asked almost too carefully as his weight and warmth settled down alongside of her. “I am hopeful it is not the family that has set you to flight.”
“Non,” she murmured, and closed her fingers into the fabric of her dress. Peach colored tonight, and no less torn. For as much as she enjoyed the comfort of the worn fabric and style, there had been a part of her that had almost considered asking for a visit from a seamstress since the High Lord's visits had begun. She thumbed a fraying edge in silence.
“It is foolish,” the queen began and lifted a hand to scratch beneath her ear. “I know it is foolish. My imagination runs away with fire. They turned the lights up a little higher tonight for the rain… I keep thinking the flames will jump and catch, and then I… cannot breathe — as if the smoke is there again. Marjolaine and Jakob — my daughter and husband — that is what became of them.”
It had been why her mortal hands had born burn scars before the curse of eternity had smoothed them away. Joanna folded her palms in her lap again, listening to a ripple of darker notes rise in Dorian’s music.
His gaze touched over her expression as she looked up to meet his eyes.
“And here we have damned you to centuries of fire and darkness.” He said quietly.
“Non... It is my weakness that I am afraid of fire… but it has become more bearable.”
“It is not weakness to fear the pain one knows — that is how we learn,” the High Lord said grimly, a muscle tightening in his jaw. “Eternity will have its share of lessons.”
Joanna could not stop herself from reaching, and the brush of the back of her fingers across his jaw did little to relax the tension that had built there. Her music — his music — jumped, and she was almost too casual in returning her hand to her lap, even if she pinched her fingers in her grip to keep them from flying away again.
“I am not afraid of darkness….” she admitted and tried to smile. “Angelica turned up an oil lamp in the library and sent me skittering… I did not retrieve the books I meant.”
She did not speak on the rest of the queen’s venom. For a moment, she was quiet, then she offered a lighter, “Have you seen the books on the top shelf of the library, Dorian?”
His lips twitched wryly in the gloom. “I have not quite made my way past the lowest shelves. I will admit I much rather prefer to be read to — few of my siblings have cared over the centuries to indulge.”
Her smile grew again at the thought, before she curled her lips into a thinner line to rein the expression in. “Then I will. When you wish.”
Silence fell for a moment before his answer came. “I believe I would enjoy that, if you were so inclined.”
“Whatever copies you like. My favorites are on the top shelves.
“You have claimed the books on the top shelves?”
Her arms folded over her knees, and she leaned forward turning her head so she could watch his profile. It was not just his manner of speaking tonight that was too careful. She could see it in his expression where it was lit by the moonlight. Something too much like the Elder he was, more than the slips in the mask she had learned to look forward to in his visits.
“I am not gentle with books,” she offered, finally. “I write in the margins and fold the pages… and crack the spines. I like to live in them. Sometimes I find words I’ve written decades ago and remember. Like leaving footprints on a trail to learn it… I never held one before Anowen.”
She paused. “A bible once, at the church we attended in our parish. The priest was displeased I had touched it. Raewyn is a little displeased with my scrawling. Was. The top shelves are filled with the extra copies she keeps for me to ruin.”
A smile ghosted across his expression then, that softened his edges. “Ah.” It was a breath. “You will not be the first in our family to have earned the fire of our book dragon.” Some rigidity in his posture dissolved as he leaned forward onto his own knees. “Perhaps you might find less trouble to scrawl in this.” He extended the package he was carrying toward her.
“Consider it a shameless bribe.” His lips curved again, but the darkness of his eyes was almost too watchful as he waited for her to uncover it.
Beneath the brown wrapping were two leather-bound journals tied together with a red ribbon. Each had a gilded trim and a leather-worked design of a sprawling oak tree on its cover. She held them in each hand, her thumbs brushing over the edges of the design where she had a grip on the spines.
“They are beautiful,” she breathed, and the breath turned into a delighted laugh that she turned to bury into her shoulder. Then she leaned against him offering a touch of her temple to his arm before straightening again. Stacking the books atop one another, Joanna lifted them to her lips, taking in the scent. The paper was new.
“You might ask me to stand on my head and I would try for you, you know — even before the journals,” the woman murmured from behind the covers. “You need not have made the effort for a bribe.”
Dorian was still watching her, the edges of a smile hovering about his lips for her obvious enjoyment, though the intensity of his look did not diminish.
“Then it is to be hoped they will do the trick.” He found and held her eyes. “What I must ask of you will require a trust that I have not earned, and you must know that I will concede to your wishes and answer in the matter.”
The journals did nothing to protect her from the sense of wariness that fluttered through a treacherous tremolo. She lowered them to her lap.
“Oui? Qu’Est-ce que c’est, mon Seigneur? More difficult than standing on my head?”
He smiled faintly. “That would depend upon your tolerance for my company, I suppose. I have lost my gift for words, Cherie, perhaps because I do not wish to offend.”
She felt his gaze brush over her face and his music reach out from their collective weave as if a tendril to brush across her flutes.
“I am Dorian Vaughn, Heir of House Anowen of the Aegeans — but I am also the Conde de Castile.” His lips ticked in flat deprecation. “A title held among mortals that to survive must seem to produce an heir for future ge
nerations. In short, I am in need of a wife.”
He raised a hand as if to halt words or thoughts on her part before they even began.
“It is not the first time I have had such a need. There are Queens among your sisters who have borne on paper the title of Condesa for a season.” His voice grew quieter. “But it is the first time I am giving consideration to live such a union in the presence of society.”
He paused for a moment then, but only it seemed, to ascertain that she was understanding his words. “I would be pleased, Joanna, if you would consent to take my name for a season, as my Condesa.”
For a moment, she was silent.
“As your wife,” she said.
He exhaled a sound that was almost a laugh. “Yes. In the eyes of the world, you would be my wife.”
Joanna’s face felt hot, and she thrust the books between them for a beat as she tried to settle her song from the tangle it had become.
His fingers curled around the edge of the journal, though he did not pull the barrier away. “I assure you, I would demand no… husbandly rights of you.” The ghost of constraint tightened his voice on the promise. “It would be a marriage in name only.”
“I am a pauper. A French pauper. I cannot dance.”
“You are Immortal. A daughter of Athanasia’s bloodline, and you will be my bride. You will learn, and none will dare to risk my ire for making you anything but welcome.” There was a dark arrogance to his tone, then — the arrogance of an Elder Immortal for the weakness of men.
She lowered the journals enough to meet his gaze over their edge. Her brows were stitched, and her music still a discordant warble.
“I enjoy your company. I have treasured the visits. But… Why, mon Seigneur?” She paused and the next words came out on a spill. “I am not ungrateful, only… I cannot… understand.”
He reached out then, for her fingers and lifted them to his lips in the echo of another kiss. “I am a man who keeps my promises, Joanna.” He murmured. And it seemed for a moment that he would say nothing more. “I should very much like to see you shine, as the star you are.”