When I shut my eyes, I could feel her body in my arms. I could taste her lips, smell plaster and sawdust and paint lingering in her hair, such an earthy scent for a heavenly girl. My skin prickled at the memory of her heels digging into my back as she wrapped her legs tight around me, her hands tugging on my hair, the tender brutality of our love making.
Fiore thought Graham would be the one to find his treasures. He was proud to see his grandson going into politics. It will ready him for what is to come, he said when Graham won his first election. But then Fiore’s mind was slipping, as every living mortal’s mind was doomed to do, if nothing else killed them first.
All mortals…
I wondered about that. I wondered if a boy raised in a human life would be prepared for what is to come.
Then Helena walked in instead. She bought the house. She became the owner of the Arcana and the first map.
She had no idea what she was in for, and I knew if I let her stay, she would be doomed to danger—but how could I tell such a determined girl to leave? How could I say no to those blue eyes, that sweet mouth, and hands that knew their way around a tool box? And she was a Habsburg. My god. What better symbolism than to have a member of the royal witches be the one to destroy the world her ancestors helped to build atop the suffering of those they stepped on?
The world surely did not make women like that when I was last out in it.
For too long, I had been living in a dying world.
I took flight and sailed on the wind until I saw the elegant rooflines of House Adras’ei. Of all the demons in Sinistral, the incubi had the most charming homes. No dark spires or jagged walls for demons who specialized in seduction. House Adras’ei was a romantic house with two towers, many windows, huge canopy beds with embroidered curtains, and—well, all right, just one relatively tame sex dungeon.
Sadly, no one was using that nowadays.
But if Helena was here she would surely have noticed that Adras’ei was only half of a house. There was one wing where there should have two, two towers where there should have been four, a wall of stone that butted right up against half of a door.
About a thousand years ago, the house was broken in half during a terrible battle, and ever since then, the house was divided and so was my family.
Now, House Adras’ei was beginning to crumble into ruin. Furniture covered in cloths to discourage dust. Once-beautiful gardens growing wild. I didn’t have the power to make it a home. I was a ghost here too. But I did have company.
When I walked into the hall, I could see the other half of the hall. I could peer into Etherium.
I always visited my sister, once a week, at this time.
Ethereals. The humans called them angels or goddesses or deities. Marisa was just my sister, the light to my dark, with iridescent wings like a butterfly and thick hair so blonde it was really almost white. It fell to her knees, and she brushed and braided it every day. The lightness of her wings and hair was tempered by her black gowns and her loneliness. Marisa was like an angel waiting for her own fall.
“Byron…” She ran as close to me as she could. We were separated by the faint ripple of the fabric between worlds, like a thin pane of glass. “How fare things with the girl? Has she figured out what to do?”
“I’m hopeful. Fiore’s grandson has returned, and they’re working together now. He’s a pretty good detective, and she seems fearless. I think she might be willing to take the risks that the Sons of Pandora never could. But…if I lost her in the process…”
“Oh, no, Byron, you won’t! You must not lose heart now. Let her give you power and you will protect her.”
“Well, it’s true, she did open the dream gate, and it was worth all the waiting…”
“Ah ha…I’m sure of that. You have a glow about you. I haven’t seen that in years! You’re falling in love with her.”
“And I can’t tell her what I am…”
“But you will,” Marisa said. “And I’m sure she’ll love you all the more for it. You deserve some happiness.”
I shot her a look of frustration. “But for now, I’m just a ghost.”
“There is hope for you yet.” She smiled.
But sometimes that hope seemed very slim.
“And then, if she develops feelings for Graham…I realize we must be around the same age now. I don’t think there’s any chance for me.”
“There is,” Marisa said. “Graham is the grandson of an incubus. No match for you!”
“True… But he is very alive. And it seems the council might be on our trail again. I told her that this quest might be dangerous, but I haven’t told her to stop. You’re the only counsel I have these days. If I was focused only on information, I would say Helena would be the perfect person to open this Pandora’s Box, but…she could die. It would be my fault. So maybe I’d rather have Graham do it.”
“Oh, poor Graham! So willing to let him get killed!” She shook her head a little. “I think you have become all demon these days.”
“Graham seems like a good enough guy,” I admitted. “But he isn’t her.”
“So far you have been pushing her to do it, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I think that says it all. Let her fire fuel you, but don’t let it frighten you into underestimating her…or
