Darius actually smiled at him. “No reason, except that you’re nearly dead on your feet. I don’t think you have the strength left to summon enough flame to light a lamp, let alone fight me. I’m not that thing, you know.” He indicated the pile of ash on the stairs with a tilt of his chin.
Thaddeus glared at him. The damnable thing was that he was right. Thaddeus did feel like he was about to collapse.
“Why did you do it?” he asked, finding the wall and sinking down against it, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
“I had to.” Darius took a seat next to him. “Well…maybe that’s not entirely true. I didn’t know what Malachi was really doing. I thought I was part of a great plan to help Subtle Hemlock rule the Greenweald and then I’d be high up…I don’t think you’d understand, being born as you were.”
“I’ve been hearing a lot of that lately. I’m getting tired of it.”
“It’s the truth, though,” Darius replied. “Like it or not, the Greenweald has a class problem. Those born to the nobility have it all, while those of us who aren’t, struggle to find a place.”
“Maybe.” Thaddeus found that he didn’t care. Sure, he was born part of a noble family, into a position that gave him a life of ease. Just look at him. Wasn’t it obvious?
They were silent for a moment. Then Darius spoke again. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“Did you really try to kill Willow?”
Thaddeus snorted. “Try? No. I threatened to, and I would have. You would have, too.”
“No.” There was something in Darius’s voice that caused Thaddeus to open his eyes and look at the other man. “I wouldn’t have.”
He was gazing off into the direction that Willow had led Melanie with a faraway look in his eyes. Ah. Now Thaddeus understood.
“In my defense,” he said, “I only did it because Solomon was coming for me, with a big sword shooting white flames out of it. I didn’t really want to hurt her, I just wanted to get away from him.”
“Never met him,” Darius said. “Heard the stories, of course. I always thought they were probably exaggerated.”
“They aren’t. Trust me. I don’t ever want to see him again.”
“The way things are going, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about it.”
“He has a way of turning up. I can’t imagine I’m that lucky.”
Again, they sat in silence. Thaddeus closed his eyes, but something kept nagging at him. It took him a moment to realize what it was.
“Wait,” he said, lifting his head from the wall. “Why are you even here, and with Willow? How did you know where we were?”
“We didn’t. We didn’t come here for you. We came looking for Jocasta.”
“Why?”
“She’s resistant to mind magic. I can’t get into her head and I don’t think Melanie could either.”
“She couldn’t,” Thaddeus said. “She tried once already.”
Darius nodded. “Malachi is afraid of Mel, you know. One of the only ones he is, although he won’t admit it. And if that’s the case, then Malachi probably can’t affect Jocasta any more than she can. We need her. Maybe we need both of them.”
“To do what?”
“To help us stop him. He’s going to destroy the Greenweald, the lands beyond and then anything else he sets his twisted vision on.”
“All because he was born poor? Seems pretty petty.”
Darius shrugged. “At this point, that’s probably an excuse. But who knows? Regardless, he needs to be stopped and we need someone who can resist him. I thought maybe Jocasta would bring Whispering Pines through and they could occupy the others while I led her to Malachi. Willow will help, and that’s no small thing either.”
“And so you came here and…”
“Watched the two of you start out the door and then turn back. We were coming to help when you burned that thing. Guess we weren’t needed.”
Thaddeus turned toward where Melanie had gone. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I think maybe you came just in time.”
Chapter 65
Celia tried the handle, but the door remained as firmly shut as it was when she first discovered it. She lifted the mask up, fighting her revulsion, and held it out in front of her so that she could see the door through it, not letting it touch her face, or even come close to it.
The door still wouldn’t budge.
Sighing, she lowered the mask and turned away. If the key was wearing the mask, then the door would remain shut, at least until she figured something else out. There was no way she could put it on again. She shuddered at the mere thought of it.
The doors she opened on the way in were as she left them, and nothing interfered as she made her way back outside. Without the hunters, she didn’t believe there was much of anything to discover in the manor. Whatever was going on, the answers were down in the lowest level, behind that door.
Outside, the streets were dark, except for solitary points of light escaping from boarded or covered windows. A few people moved in the deeper shadows, most freezing in place as she passed. How things had changed since she first came here. Now, she was no longer cowering in alleys, trying desperately to hide from the hunters and the regular people of Dunfield.
It all changed with Lyssa, the girl she wasn’t able to help, and her parents, who she could. Although, not the way she was hoping. Celia had no new information for them, other than that the thing masquerading as their daughter was most definitely not her. Without anything else to go on, she didn’t know whether that counted as good news or bad.
Morning
