by Kallysten
“I know you’re upset,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry the life you knew is about to change forever. But don’t be mad at us. We didn’t decide to send you to this world, or to hide the truth from you, or to bring you back to make sure you wouldn’t plot to take over the throne. Aedan and I are the only ones you can count on right now. Being mad at us won’t make your life any easier.”
He retreated to the top of the staircase; she had a feeling that, if she hadn’t run out from under his nose before, he would have given her even more space. Troubled, she entered the bathroom and transferred her necessities to the bag. She didn’t know what that other place was like, but she doubted she’d find her favorite shampoo there.
She finally closed the bag. The sound of the zipper had never seemed so final. Before leaving, she took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. With flyaways that had escaped from her ponytail framing her face every which way, she looked nothing like the princess and potential ruler Brad claimed she was. She raised a hand to comb her hair behind her ears, but froze when she saw the dried blood still staining her fingers.
Anabel’s blood.
In her search for her present and then in her packing, she had forgotten all about the blood on her hand. Shaking hard, she turned on the water in the sink and washed her fingers, rubbing frantically until her skin felt raw and no more pink swirled down the drain. After she shut off the water again, she pressed her wet hands to her face and took another look at herself. The panic lingering in her eyes made her look even less like a ruler than a moment earlier. Maybe all that king needed was to see her to decide she wasn’t a threat to him.
She dried her face and hands, picked up her bag, and finally left the bathroom. When she reached Brad in the hallway, she didn’t say anything, but he smiled softly when he took the bag from her and swung the strap over his shoulder. He led the way back down to the kitchen. As they reached the bottom of the staircase, Vivien tried very hard not to look toward the front room.
When Brad gestured toward the door the same way he had when summoning his magic earlier, Vivien held her breath, expecting another show of lights. But while the doorway did glow, the effect was much more subtle, as though sunlight were pouring in on a bright summer day. She could still see through.
Aedan was standing in the driveway, apparently ready to come in. He nodded once, his gaze directed at Brad when he said, “Thirty.” He then walked through the doorway, but rather than entering the house, he disappeared in a flash of light. Vivien gasped. Even after what Brad had showed her, she could barely believe what was going on. Was this what that other man had done in the front room?
“Where... What happened? Where is he? Thirty what?”
Brad offered her a small smile. “Thirty seconds. He went ahead to check that the shields on the castle are still secure.” His lips moved silently for a few seconds, then he held his hand out to Vivien. “Are you ready to go back home?”
“I am home,” she protested, but even to her own ears the words sounded weak.
She took his hand, clinging to the very tips of his fingers, and let him pull her into the light.
CHAPTER SIX
Roseberry Jam
A strange sensation coursed through Vivien’s body, like tiny slivers of ice pressing everywhere against her skin. Before it could become painful or even uncomfortable, she stumbled out of the doorway. Brad released her hand and caught her waist instead, holding her steady for a few seconds before he let go and took a half step back.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “I should have warned you. I didn’t realize it’d been so long you’d have forgotten about Passing Through.”
“Passing through?” Vivien repeated. “Through what?”
If Brad answered, Vivien never heard him. She was too busy staring around her. She had walked through the door of her house, and instead of stepping outside, she had entered a round room paved in gray and black stones laid out to resemble the tattoo on Brad’s wrist: three spirals linked together by organic-looking tendrils. She looked up; the ceiling was maybe fifteen feet high, with lozenge-shaped windows at the very top letting in a faint light. The walls were stone like the floor, with arabesques of gray stones surrounding the room in a continuous spiral.
“What is this place?”
“This has been your family’s estate for centuries. You were born here. It is your home. Come, please.”
He opened the door for her and led her down a long stone corridor. Here, too, narrow openings at the very top of the walls let light in without allowing direct sunlight to shine through. Judging by how dark the corridor seemed, Vivien figured it was either very early in the morning, or close to sunset.
At the end of the hallway, a heavy wooden door stood slightly ajar. Just as they reached it, it swung open to reveal Aedan on the other side.
“The shields are still up,” he said curtly. “No trace of anyone but us being here since last time.”
Brad nodded. “Good.” He then glanced at Vivien. “Are you hungry?”
Vivien opened her mouth to say no; with everything that was going on, how could she even think about eating? Before she could say anything, however, she was surprised to realize that she wasn’t only hungry, she was famished.
Aedan took the duffel bag from Brad and turned on his heel, disappearing before they had even passed the door. Brad led Vivien through long, nearly identical corridors. Every twenty yards or so, candles were affixed to the wall. Every time they entered a new corridor, Brad’s right hand made a sweeping motion, and flames came to life, throwing dancing shadows over the stones.
Was he showing off for her or merely providing light? Either way, she decided not to mention it. They finally reached their destination. As soon as Brad lit the candles hanging from a candelabra in the center of the room, Vivien realized it was a kitchen, with a high table in the middle of the room, cooking utensils and knives hanging from hooks on the wall, a stone basin with an old-fashioned hand pump, and a fireplace with some sort of grill above the empty hearth. Somehow, the fact that even here, wherever she was, a kitchen still looked like a kitchen made Vivien feel a little better.
“I’m afraid tonight’s meal will be all about improvisation,” Brad said as he opened a cupboard and pulled out a large, round bread, a clay jar covered with cloth, and two smaller ones. “We didn’t expect to bring you here now. I’ll go find more food in the morning. Fresh food.”
At his urging, Vivien sat at the table and watched him set a plate and utensils in front of her, uncover the jars, and pump water into a metal cup for her. He then stood there, rubbing his wrist with his thumb, observing her so intently that Vivien began feeling a little uncomfortable.
“Aren’t you going to eat with me?” she asked, trying to loosen the knot in her shoulders with a small shrug.
Brad blinked slowly, as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “It wouldn’t be—”
If he said ‘proper’ again, Vivien thought she might snap.
“Brad, I followed you God only knows where after you told me a crazy story about magic and princesses in hiding. The least you can do is sit down and eat with me.”
After a beat, he set a second plate on the table, drew a chair, and sat on her right. When she didn’t reach for any food, he picked up the bread and cut two thick slices. He cut the crust off one before offering it to Vivien. It gave her pause, reminding her of the countless times Anabel had done this for her when she had been just a child. Shaking the thought away, she tore a bit from it, and after tasting it, she could only look at Brad in confusion.
“Don’t you like it?” he asked when he noticed.
“It’s very good. Like it was freshly baked. I thought you said there was no fresh food here.”
A half smile tugged at his lips. “The Quickening keeps whatever is in that cupboard fresh. Better than a fridge. I put these in the last time I was here. Try dipping the bread into the ferbec.”
He demonstrated by ripping a small piece of bre
ad and dipping it into the largest jar. When he pulled the bread out again, it was coated in a reddish sauce with green flakes. It reminded Vivien of tomato sauce, but when she tried for herself, it tasted a little like the hummus Anabel always kept in the fridge, although it had a looser texture. She wondered if Anabel liked hummus so much because it reminded her of this ‘ferbec,’ whatever it was.
Vivien ate with gusto, enjoying the flavors of both the bread and dipping sauce. For dessert, Brad cut a thinner slice of bread, spread something that looked like butter over it, then added some kind of fruit jam from the last jar. When he offered it to Vivien, she was struck by how familiar the smell of it was, with the slight smoke scent of the wood-fire baked bread mixing with the rich sweetness of the fruit. She took a bite, and that same sense of familiarity only increased tenfold.
“I’ll get more appropriate food for you tomorrow,” Brad said; of all things, he seemed contrite.
“More appropriate?” she repeated. “What’s wrong with this? It’s delicious.”
“It’s a child’s treat. That’s what my mother used to give us as snack when we were small children.” He tilted his head, his eyebrows rising ever so slightly when he asked, “Do you remember?”
She swiped a bit of jam that was running down the side of the bread and licked her thumb, looking at Brad in confusion. “Do I remember what? The jam? I don’t know. It tastes familiar. What is it, berries?”
“Roseberries.” The answer came not from Brad, but from Aedan on the kitchen threshold. “It used to be your favorite, Dame Vivien.”
Vivien couldn’t have said what irked her most: the title Aedan bestowed upon her, or his assertion that he knew what foods she enjoyed.
“How would you know what I like?” she asked, barely refraining to scoff.
“I know because more than once Bradan and I went to the lake to pick roseberries for you.”
Vivien almost choked on her next swallow. Her eyes watering, she set the bread on her plate and picked up her napkin to cover her mouth as she coughed.
“You what?” she finally said in a strangled voice.
Brad threw Aedan a quick look before he answered. “We were raised in this house, too. Our mother was your nanny. We used to play together as children.”
If Vivien’s confusion had started to abate, it returned full force as she stared at both brothers in turn. They’d been raised together? In this house? She’d had a nanny? Why couldn’t she remember any of it?
“You were very young,” Brad said as though he could understand her confusion. “It’s normal if you don’t remember.”
Picking up the bread and jam again, Vivien took another small bite. No, she couldn’t remember any of it. But at the same time... The more she tasted the roseberry jam, the more familiar it seemed, as though the memory were lurking just out of reach. Could it be that her body was remembering when her mind didn’t? What about the way Brad had sliced off the crust, a ritual Vivien had insisted on as a little girl? How could he have known that?
She started to feel a little self-conscious as they both watched her eat, and in the end she asked Aedan, “Aren’t you eating? There’s plenty of food left.”
A thin, humorless smile stretched on his lips. “I will eat, Dame Vivien, but not this food.” He turned to Brad and added, “Will you be all right if I go hunting now? I won’t be long.”
Brad nodded at once. “Of course. Be careful.”
Aedan’s smile, this time, was wider, warmer. He walked around the table, patting Brad’s shoulder twice as he passed behind him, then giving Vivien a little bow before he left through a door that opened into the night. He closed the door behind him, but seconds later Vivien was opening it again to peek outside. She was disappointed when she couldn’t see much. She couldn’t even see Aedan anymore. Night had fallen, and the sky was pitch dark, with no moon or stars to lighten it.
“Are there no stars in this place?” she asked, unable to keep the longing out of her words.
“There are.”
Brad sounded very close, and when she turned, Vivien found him standing a mere step behind her.
“I have set a shield over the house and yard,” he continued. “So that no one can get in who isn’t Aedan, you, or me. Unfortunately, it blocks the sight of the stars.”
Vivien looked out into the night. Maybe it would be different tomorrow. Maybe when she saw the yard or got a better look at the house, she would remember being there before. Maybe.
“Would you like me to show you to your room now?” Brad offered.
Vivien had a dozen, a hundred questions, but after everything that had happened, everything she had been told and shown, her mind felt too heavy for anything more than sleep. After she rested, she’d be ready to get answers to everything that still seemed odd.
Again, she followed Brad down long corridors. The house seemed humongous, more like a mansion than simple house. Brad had called it a castle. They climbed a stone staircase to the second floor and finally reached their destination.
Brad opened the door to a dark room. He preceded her inside, and as she followed, she caught the end of his hand gesture as he once again used his magic to light the candles around the room and the fire in the fireplace. Like the rest of the house, the floor was inlaid with wide, light-colored square stones.
Two large rugs softened the feel of it: one long enough to extend all around the four-poster bed across from the fireplace; the second smaller, set in front of a chest of drawers to the right of the window. Both rugs had a thick, heavy look to them, with organic green and tan hues.
The stone walls were bare, save for the same gray-stone pattern that was repeated through every room Vivien had seen so far. The bed looked welcoming, with a pale green comforter and pillows, and when she saw it, Vivien’s body yearned for sleep. On the left wall, near the fireplace, a door was ajar, though the room beyond it was dark. Her duffel bag was near the door.
In a strange way, the room felt familiar. The colors, the patterns of the heavy curtains, even the softness of the comforter when Vivien ran her hand over the bed—all teased at the edges of her memory. Whatever doubts had clung to her subconscious faded away as she slowly understood where she was.
“This...” She had to swallow hard before she could continue. “This was my room, wasn’t it?”
Brad gave her a curious look. “When you were a child, yes. Do you remember?”
Vivien tried to hold on to those feelings, press them together like clay, and force them to coalesce into actual memories, but she couldn’t make the vague impressions any clearer.
“I’m not sure,” she said, shrugging uncomfortably. “It all feels...familiar. But I don’t actually recall being here.”
She could hear the frustration in her own voice. Brad patted her arm a little awkwardly.
“I know much has happened,” he said when she looked at him. “And it’s a lot to take in all at once. But please, know this one thing. You are safe. We will do anything to keep you safe.”
His last words rang with a deep intensity that felt like a blanket settling on her shoulders. She offered him a small smile that quickly slipped into a grimace.
“Anything as long as it’s proper, you mean.” God, but that conversation felt like it had taken place weeks earlier, not merely that morning.
With a stricken expression, Brad took a step back and lowered his gaze. “I didn’t... I didn’t mean to offend you. You have to understand—”
“But I do understand,” she cut in quietly. “All this time I thought you were running with me because you liked me, but you were just doing your job.”
When he looked up again, his eyes held the same intensity he had voiced when talking of keeping her safe. “This—protecting you—is the cause I chose to dedicate my life to. It was never just a job. And it never will be now that I know the woman you’ve become.”
Had Vivien still been looking for signs, she would have taken those words as more proof that he was interested in her
. She knew better now, though.
She only wished her heart would catch up with her mind.
Brad held her gaze a little longer before he took a step back and offered her a stiff, formal bow, much like Aedan’s in the kitchen.
“I’ll leave you to get some rest. If you need anything, Aedan and I are just across the hall.”
Vivien watched him shut the heavy wooden door behind him with a light creak and wondered at what point she would stop expecting this dream—or maybe it was a nightmare?—to end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Between Dreams and Memories
Vivien’s laugh bounced through the hallway, echoed by two more far behind her. Her feet thumped on the carpet. She wouldn’t let them catch her, not this time. She ran down the steps. She wasn’t supposed to run in the staircase, but Merel wasn’t there to scold her. When she reached the bottom step, she slowed down. She could already hear her mommy speaking. She had the prettiest voice, but she sounded sad.
Vivien stopped right outside the library, peeking in. Her mommy was in front of the fireplace, her back to Vivien, her head down as she looked into the flames. Merel and Lasdan were standing together on one side of the room. Stefen was in a chair on the other side, away from the window, where the room was darkest. He noticed Vivien right away like he always did; no one could sneak up on him. But he only flashed her a smile and a wink before looking at Vivien’s mommy again. On the other side, Lasdan glanced at her for just a second.
“She’ll be safer there,” Vivien’s mommy was saying.
“You both would be,” Stefen said. “But you know you can’t leave, dearest love. She would have to go without you.”
He looked at Merel then, and Vivien didn’t like how unhappy her nanny suddenly looked.
“I can’t go to the Otherworld,” Merel said, looking from Vivien’s mommy to Lasdan. “Our boys...”