As always, she was perfect, mesmerizing, demanding.
“Sienna!” I called. The syllables of her name echoed, touched every corner of the massive Queen Anne like probing fingers. A soft sound, almost like a kiss, answered, followed by heavy silence.
My sister was here, feeding, trying to mask herself.
With a thunderous flap of wings, I soared to the upper stair landing, then pulled my wings tight against my back as I stalked down the hallway. Head tilted back, nostrils flared, I drank in the scents that drifted through the massive house. Coffee from this morning, shoe polish in a cupboard, wild peony on the dining-room table, starch on a laundered shirt, sweat dripping from a brow, lavender soap on the kitchen counter—
I stopped.
Sweat. Human sweat.
A nearby door stood almost closed, open a mere hand’s breadth. I peered inside. Something moved, a flash of arm and legs and then I caught the sweet fragrance of harvest, of fresh dreams. For half a second I closed my eyes, analyzed the flavor.
“Bad dreams,” River whispered at my side.
“Aye,” I answered.
We could both see her then, standing in the slivered opening—Sienna, almost drunk from harvest, her mouth still wet.
“Go away,” she said, her voice low as a growl, a territorial glimmer turning her golden eyes dark.
“We’ve been banished,” I told her.
“Because of what you and River did,” she answered. “I’m not leaving.” Without moving, with just a whispered chant, the door slammed shut.
“She’s got the human that belongs to Ash in there, that doctor with the nightmares,” River said.
“Aye, she does.”
River flinched when I started to laugh, a thick booming sound that ricocheted down the hallway, that bled down the stairs and made the windows rattle. Then I cast a ravenous glare at him. “I’m not leaving either! What do you say we have a light meal?”
River answered with a snicker and an eager nod.
Then the two of us headed down the hallway, toward Driscoll’s room.
Chapter 42
Bittersweet
Ash:
There in a grotto laced with the song of black-chinned sparrows, we placed the body. I sang the funeral poems, head bowed, hands crossed on my chest, wings tight against my back, my voice in braided harmony with the voice of my sister. But even as I sang I could hear the empty melody, the missing notes.
The harmony that belonged to Lily.
Death always brought her back. The days after her murder had been the worst. Once the sun rose, it had baked the sky, sent white-hot shards of light to sizzle the ground. It was never the fact that I couldn’t walk in the light.
It was that I was alone.
Measured in meaningless hours, this human eternity had dripped past, heartbeat by heartbeat, and the green shelter of the forest always seemed too far away. There in the dark spaces between the tree trunks, I could sometimes find peace—though not often. I would stand on the craggy hill, always leaving space for her beside me; I would speak as if waiting for her to finish my sentences, would wait longing for the full moon. And then when it finally came, I would realize that even the perfect, magic night would not bring her back.
My own curse held me here.
My revenge.
Not sweet, not even bittersweet.
And then one night of blinding moon promise, I had stumbled into another bedroom, discovered a human woman with dreams like milk and honey. This one could not see the world—her eyes had never looked upon green fields or blue skies—so she never really saw me as the beast I was. I would kneel beside her bed while she slept, clinging to the visions she brought, harvesting each of them with gentle care, never taking too much, always leaving enough for her.
So we could both have hope.
But then, like a moth, I had flown too close to the flame.
A year after I began visiting this woman, Elspeth was born, a child of two worlds, a child with wings singed by my sin. I couldn’t leave my babe to be discovered by the other humans. She was too young to mask her Darkling features. The humans would have killed the child and persecuted the mother.
So I stole the babe and gave it to my sister, Sage.
Then the mother had withdrawn from me, barring her windows and doors. I didn’t know how the loss of the child had tormented her, or I would have broken every rule, would have forced my way inside. I never expected that she would take her own life a few weeks later.
I would have found a way to rescue her—that is the story that I tell myself, over and over.
After that, I vowed that I would never let a closed door or window stand in my way again.
Chapter 43
The Boy with the Music
Elspeth: