James walked back to the davenport against the wall but did not sit. He touched the tips of his fingers to the sheet of paper there instead, staring down at it with his mouth pulled into a line.
Rhys drifted over, the sonata surrounding him soaring stronger and stronger, trying to lift him off his feet. Without Zoe as his anchor, this room was growing too difficult to maintain. The corners were already melting into the walls of the Soho assembly hall, high and tall, that decor of mauve and rose and cream. Crystal chandeliers burning in hot rainbows above him.
He clenched his teeth, resisting it, bending over to skim the letter upon the desk.
Sirs,
We have discovered a nest. Within it, an egg, one of our own. Two eagles alone may strike well. They are only sparrows who guard the nest.
Rhys scowled at the penned words. A code, childishly simple, but it shot a spear of unlikely frost through him nonetheless—frost, when he was already cold to the core all the time. He pressed his palm flat to the paper and saw again the effect he had upon the living world: nothing. Nothing changed. Paper, quill and ink and letters, all the same, with or without him.
The chandeliers grew more vibrant. The prisms of color, dancing right there on the back of his hand.
'Then you'll need to get her out of here before we go down there,' said the boy, his voice scarcely audible now beneath the rising notes. 'You won't want her in Paris when all hell breaks loose.'
'No,' agreed Hayden, and picked up his letter, smashing Rhys's arm into splinters of smoke; he could not re-form them. He was cracking and cracking and cracking, his entire body wisping apart. 'No, you're right. I need to get her out of Paris before the operation begins.'
'Good luck with her,' grunted Sandu, lifting a leg to pull off his boot.
Aye,Rhys echoed silently, letting go of the parlor and the
Chapter Fourteen
She refused to cook.
Zoe stared down at the spoon she'd dipped into the stew Hayden and the dragon-boy had concocted, watching the greasy mess of it drip, one splash at a time, back into the boil of the pot. It smelled rancid; they must have had it simmering for days. There had been beef in there once. Some onions or leeks. What it had reduced to now, however, she could not say.
She dropped the spoon back to a counter. She turned around and took in once again the cellar kitchen, the dusty cupboard holding one solitary egg and a bottle of grayish oil, the half-eaten loaf of bread. What appeared to be tarragon growing sickly green upon the shelf of the window.
There was a tin of very fine Ceylon by the water basin. Boiling water was not the same as cooking, she reasoned, and the fire was already going. Tea would be bracing.
Wine would be better, but there wasn't any, not that she had found. So. Tea.
While the water heated she sat upon the bench by the servants' table. The sole illumination in the kitchen came from the fire in the hearth; it maintained a constant, meager little glow, tarnished light all along the folds of her dress. She kept her gaze willfully upon her hands, her fingers bare of rings, and tried not to notice the rising darkness of a shadow leg, trim and muscled in brown breeches, appearing very near hers.
'Pray do not speak,' she said, very low.
He didn't. After a few minutes he did shift on the bench; the water on the fire was bubbling into soft little pops.
She pushed back without glancing at him. She dumped a measure of Ceylon into the ceramic teapot that had been set next to the tin, poured in the water, and capped the pot. Then she sat again, taking the bench opposite his.
'I hope you're not going to eat what ever's in that kettle,' said the shadow. 'It smells like glue.' Zoe lifted her eyes to his.
From across the table, Rhys sent her his most bland smile. 'I'm sorr—
'Stop talking.'
'I merely wished to express my—'
'Stop. Talking.'
He leaned back a little with his hands flat upon the table, looking wounded. 'Zee.'
She stood again and left the kitchen.
The rear stairs led to a landing just by the backroom; she found herself opening the door, stepping out into the contained dusk of the backyard garden.
Hayden and the black-haired boy remained in the house. She felt them there, still in the parlor, probably, trying to decide what to do with her.
She could leave. She could head back to Tuileries. They'd likely not track her there for days, if at all. Paris was enormous, far bigger than she'd ever even conceived. It could take them weeks to catch her scent.
Instead she plunked down upon the rear steps, common as a scullery maid, her skirts ruched between her knees, listening to the gemstones they'd buried in the dirt. Diamonds, little ones, larger ones, blue and pink and clear and yellow. They tinkled with song, lifting into light, pretty melodies now that she was so near.
The ghost of Rhys slid over one and it didn't change its tune in the slightest degree. Even diamonds were immune to him.
Only she saw him. Only she had to look upon his face and witness the emotion that burned behind his winter-pale eyes.
'Are you well pleased?' Zoe whispered. 'Delighted at the turn of events?'
'Are you?' he countered, and settled upon the dying grass at her feet.
She looked away, up to the translucent purplish-blue heights of the evening sky. The stars peeking out from between the buildings marking the horizon.
'He's alive,' said Rhys, indifferent.
'He was happy to see you. I think you surprised him, that's all.'
Her eyes had begun to tear; she would not blink against the blue.
'We should go home,' the ghost said. 'It's time now. He's safe. We need to head home.'
For an instant she thought he was speaking of the palace. But when she looked down at him he was plucking at a blade of dried grass, his fingers pulling at it over and over, his hair falling in waves of deep brown along his face and over his shoulders.
'Darkfrith,' she said.
'Yes.'
She watched him trying to pinch the grass. 'I can't imagine that. I can't imagine going back there.'
'It's where we belong, Zee.' 'Hayden is my home.'
'Oh?' His tone sharpened. 'Well, your home that is Hayden evidently also wishes you to return to Darkfrith. A double endorsement, rather.'
The diamonds were picking up volume with the twilight; sweet, airy music that swirled about her with the sighing of the breeze.
'Is this what it will be like there?' she asked quietly. 'You and I, forever and ever?'
He glanced up at her. 'What d'you mean?'
She leaned forward with her hands clasped between her knees, intent. 'Will you haunt me forever?'
His jaw tightened; the evening breeze took the catkins of an alder directly behind him and shivered the leaves. She could see it. Through the gloom and him. Right through him.
'Because I really don't think I deserve that,' Zoe went on. 'I never wished you any true ill in life. I wish you only peace in death. Why won't you leave me be?'
'I ...' He shook his head, a blossoming of smoke. 'Wait. What are you saying?'
'I can't exist with you here. Always here. I can't be expected to live my life like that. It's not right. You shouldn't be my shade, Rhys. I don't know where we go after we—I don't know what comes after our deaths. But
