Berto’s eyelids opened. He screamed and struggled to sit upright. “The ring,” he said, alternating between patting at his chest and clutching at the dress’s flimsy sleeves. “Did you bring the ring?”
“This one?” Bas asked. He steadied my brother-in-law before showing him the emerald and gold band jammed onto his little finger.
Berto nodded, wild-eyed and insistent. “Get it to the girls. The ring is the key they will be looking for. The ring is the key.”
“What does it open, Berto?” I asked. “A door? A box?”
His ribcage expanded, his belly went concave, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. Moira in her ghostly attire fussed at her husband and insisted my apprentice cover Berto to the chin with the blanket.
“That’s our cue,” Alabastair said, stepping away from the bed.
“That’s our cue to what?”
“It’s after midnight, time for us to leave.”
This couldn’t be it.
I had things to say to my sister, like how much I missed her wisdom.
There were things I wanted to know, like how to be a better aunt to her three daughters.
“Mari, come.”
Alabastair led me into the hall. Sorrow welled up from the soles of my feet and the depths of my heart. I pressed my forehead to the closed door and whispered sisterly endearments to the one ghost I wanted most to see.
Chapter 12
“You have to let them follow their destiny, Maritza.” The witch turned to face me, keeping her hands behind her hips and her back pressed to the slab of wood barring her from where Heriberto and Moira were reuniting. “And now we have to figure out ours,” I added.
“Kiss me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Kiss me.”
I ran a finger across the delicate line of her jaw and down the side of her neck. Her pulse fluttered in the little hollow between her collar bones.
“Which one of me should deliver that kiss?” I asked, from the depths of the hooded cape into which I’d retreated. “Alabastair, the necromancer who lets the dead find solace under his skin? Alabastair the Portal Keeper, sent here to search for doorways that have gone missing?”
Mari’s gaze wavered. I kept an arm’s length of space between us and pressed on. “Or do you want Bas, the man who would go to his knees for you? Or should it be your Demesne, the one you might spend the rest of your life with, who should do the honors?”
I was acutely aware of the couple in the room behind the closed door and at least some of what they were experiencing. I could feel Moira’s love and desire for Heriberto coursing underneath my skin in places where her ghost had left behind tatters of its presence. The witch’s manner of death was a mystery and it wasn’t one that would be solved this night. The two of them had a journey to complete.
Maritza and I had barely begun ours.
We had signed paperwork—expected by the council that oversaw apprenticeships—complete with official wax seals, ribbons, and stamps.
We had Malvyn’s toast and three examples of what a Demesne-bound relationship looked like: connected and supportive with room to be adoring parents; fiery, combative, and ultimately, loving; and one in which magic played a role even after death.
Out of all of those options, I was drawn most toward the stability and abiding love and respect I witnessed between James and Malvyn.
Reading my thoughts, Maritza said, “Ours won’t be like any of theirs.” She let go of the metal handle and took my hands in hers. I doubted she could see my eyes, though her gaze never left my face. “There are facets to each of those couples and what they have, that you and I will never see. It will be the same with us.
“Publicly, I will be perceived and treated as your mentor. When you assume the role of Portal Keeper, I hope you will bring me along. We share infinitely curious minds and I quiver inside when I think of the possibilities of what we might discover, together.”
Maritza’s words were a balm to my heart.
“When the Demesne calls, we listen. And in private,” she said, switching her tone, “we choose how we are to interact. If we have need of the release inherent in role-playing, we review our boundaries and our safe words, and choose our implements together.”
I pushed away the hood and gazed into Maritza’s eyes. “You know?” I asked, coveting the reassurance I felt pouring forth from her.
She nodded. “The Demesne invites us to reveal our needs and desires, Alabastair. All of them, without fear of judgement.”
I dropped to my knees and kissed the tops of her hands. “Sometimes, I need to be restrained, Maritza. I crave the release of being bound.”
“And I have the occasional need to wield the rope.”
I sank my forehead to her wrists. Mari tugged, and brought me to my feet. “And sometimes, my dear Alabastair, sometimes we get to be simply Bas and Mari, on the couch, watching a movie, bickering about the amount of butter we put on our popcorn.”
As she spoke, Maritza withdrew her hands from mine. She unbuttoned the shirt she was wearing—my shirt—and let it drop to the carpeted floor. She followed that with unrolling her leggings and adding them to the pile. The last items she removed were the miniature weapons dangling from her earlobes.
“I will take you caped, naked, and anything in between,” she murmured. “You choose, Bas. You choose who kisses me but please, for the love of dead things, choose fast.”
I undid the button at my throat with one hand. “Your room or mine?” I asked.
“Yours.”
Hours later, Maritza’s muted voice coming from across the room assured me I was no longer dreaming.
“Maritza?” I cleared my throat and tried calling her again. The bed dipped.
“Yes, Alabastair?”
My eyelids opened to reveal a room lit by muted light. A grinning Mistress of Needles perched herself next to me. I lifted my head and looked down the length of my body. I was robed in a long,
