Autumn focused on the dark windows, picturing the river beyond. “I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not a servant.”
“That’s what you need to find out—what you like, where you want to go, how you want to fill your nights. That’s life—if you’re lucky.”
“Instead of possibility, I see only emptiness.”
Especially without—
No, she would not think of him. Tohrment had made it more than clear where their relationship stood.
“There’s something you should probably know,” her daughter said. “About him.”
“Did I speak his name?”
“You don’t have to. Listen, he’s—”
“No—no, do not tell me. There is nothing between us.” Dearest Virgin Scribe, that hurt to say. “There never was—so there is nothing I need to know about him—”
“He’s closing up his house—the one he and Wellsie stayed in. He spent all last night packing up stuff, giving her things away, getting the furniture ready to move out—he’s selling the place.”
“Well… good for him.”
“He’s going to come see you.”
Autumn burst up from the chair and went to the windows, her heart thumping in her chest. “How do you know.”
“He told me so just now, when I went to make a report to the king. He said he’s going to apologize.”
Autumn put her hands up to the cold glass, the pads of her fingers going numb quickly. “For what part, I wonder. The insight that he was right about? Or would it be the honesty with which he spoke when he said he felt nothing for me—that I was merely a vehicle to free his beloved? Both are true, and therefore, short of his tone of voice, there is naught to offer apology for.”
“He hurt you.”
“No greater than I have been before.” She retracted her hands and began rubbing them together for warmth. “He and I have crossed paths twice now in our lives—and I can’t say I wish to continue the association. Even though his assessment of my character and my flaws is correct, I need not have that elucidated again, even gilded by syllables of ‘I’m sorry.’ That sort of thing sticks with one well enough the first time.”
There was a length of silence.
“As you know,” Xhex said quietly, “John and I have been having problems. Big ones, the kind of shit I couldn’t live with even though I loved him. I really thought it was all over—what convinced me otherwise was not what he said, but what he did.”
Tohrment’s voice came back:
“There is one difference, my daughter. Your mate is in love with you—and at the end of the day, that means everything. Even if Tohrment lets his
No, she thought. She was done with that.
Time for a new paradigm.
And though Autumn had no idea what it was, she was damn sure going to figure it out.
“Listen, I have to hustle,” Xhex said. “But I’m hoping this won’t take long—I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
Autumn glanced over her shoulder. “Do not rush on my account. I need to get used to being on my own— and I might as well start tonight.”
As Xhex left the cabin, she was careful to lock up behind herself—and wishing she could do more for her mother than just turn a dead bolt: Autumn’s emotional reorientation was extreme, the female’s interior grid turned upside down on itself.
But then, that was what happened to people when they finally got a clear picture of themselves after aeons of sublimation.
Not a happy place. And it was hard to witness. Hard to leave behind—but Autumn was right. There came a time in everyone’s life when they realized that in spite of how hard they’d been running from themselves, everywhere they went, there they were: Addictions and compulsions were nothing but marching bands of distraction, masking truths that were unpleasant, but ultimately undeniable.
The female did need some time to herself. Time to think. Time to discover. Time to forgive… and move on.
And as for Tohrment? There was a part of Xhex that really wanted to take whatever had been said to her mother out of his hide. Except she had been around him, and he was suffering in ways that a bruised jaw couldn’t compete with. Tough to know how much of it was the shit with Autumn and how much was Wellsie—her instinct told her they’d all find out soon enough, however: The Brother had only started by dismantling that house and giving away Wellsie’s clothes.
His end game was pretty damn clear.
Then they’d see just how much he cared about Autumn.
On that note, Xhex dematerialized and headed to the east. She had spent the entire day on Xcor’s home turf, never getting closer than a quarter mile away: The male’s grid had been clear to her as soon as she’d gotten within range, and she’d been careful to get beads on those of his soldiers as well before she’d headed north to the mansion and reported to the king.
And now she was back under the veil of the night, moving slowly through the forest, throwing out her
Closing in on the area where the grids had been concentrated during the daylight hours, she dematerialized at clips of a hundred yards, taking her sweet time, using the pine boughs as cover. Man, shit like this made her really appreciate evergreens, their fluffy branches not just concealing her, but providing a snowless ground cover that hid her footprints as she went from trunk to trunk.
The empty farmhouse she eventually came across was exactly what she would have expected. Made of coarse old stone, it was sturdy and had few windows—the perfect bunker. And of course, the irony was that with its snow-covered roof, and its cheery chimneys, the place looked like something off a Christmas card.
Ho-ho-ho, Season’s Beatings.
As she cased the environs, the van that was parked off to the side seemed to belong somewhere else, an unwelcome shot of the modern in what appeared to be a resolutely antiquated picture. And the same was true for the electrical lines that came in and were anchored at the rear corner.
Xhex ghosted to that back flank. It was impossible to know whether or not the power was live: No lights had been left on, the house dark as the inside of a skull.
The last thing she wanted to do was trigger an alarm.
Except a quick look at the glass of a window had her frowning. No shutters—unless they were on the inside? More important, no steel bars. Then again, the underground would be the priority, wouldn’t it.
Going around, she looked in every window, then dematerialized up to the roof to check the dormers on the third floor.
Totally empty, she thought with another frown. And not well fortified.
Back down on ground level, she took out both her guns, grabbed a deep breath, and…
Re-forming inside the house, she was in full attack mode, her back to the corner of the empty, dusty living room, autoloaders up in front of her.
The first thing she noted was that the air was as cold inside as out. Did they not have heat?
Second thing was… there was no sound of an alarm.
Third: No one appeared from out of nowhere, ready to defend the territory.
Didn’t mean this was a lickety-split sitch, however. What was more likely was that they didn’t give a crap about anything on this floor or above.
With care, she dematerialized over to the doorway of the next room. And the next. The logical location of basement stairs would be the kitchen—and what do you know, she found what she assumed were them right where
