“I led her to the grave and the roses,” Thorn answered, wary of how much he disclosed. “She saw the message. The storm chased her into the chapel, where I’d planted the wristband and the tubing of blood.”
Erik nodded, calling Ange over with a flick of his fingers so Thorn could finish feeding his fish without distraction. “All of that was in keeping with the plan. So, you improvised, as any good performer. I am curious how the sighting happened. You’re not usually that careless.”
“Ange filled the baptismal with water. Rune fell in and panicked. She was going to drown.”
Watching her sink, like a deadweight, had shaken him to the core. It was too similar to their nightly interactions. He’d always wondered what horrible event had spawned such torments in her dreams. Earlier, when he shared his memories with her—a connection only possible with two pieces of one soul—he’d taken some of her own. After all this time, he’d finally seen the old woman who had tried to drown her. He was shocked to have recognized her. She was the same one who Erik had visited in a Versailles prison three years ago, and several times since. Thorn always accompanied him, but stood back in the shadows, and could only hear what Erik said as they spoke through telephones with a glass partition between them. Now he was even more curious. The old woman had been instrumental in bringing Rune to them. What was her angle . . . why did she wish to harm Rune, her own granddaughter?
“Then you were right to step in and save her.” Father Erik’s observation dragged Thorn back to his bedroom and their dark conspiring, against his will. “A corpse would do us little good.”
Thorn almost groaned at the irony of the words, considering what was in their cellar.
“How did seeing you affect her?” There was an undertone of almost desperate interest in Erik’s question. Although the urgency wasn’t for Rune, but for someone else, someone Erik had obsessed over and put above every other aspect of his life for more than a century. Every aspect including Thorn.
Thorn grimaced against the acid sting of that knowledge. “She was afraid.” Until I revealed myself as her maestro. After that . . . Thorn’s jaw twitched. “Once she realized I’d helped her, she trusted me.”
Erik huffed. “Trust. A weak and visionary concept, for the lonely and the lost. We’re going to fix her . . . make her better. For that, she’ll only need trust herself.” He reached into his shirt pocket and dragged out two crumpled pieces of paper. “She’s in the perfect frame of mind now. Isolated and miserable, trying to live in a world where she doesn’t fit. These unfinished notes were in the trash in the foyer. She left some boy in a coma back home and somehow feels responsible.”
Thorn’s heartbeat stumbled. “You’ve been visiting the academy? I thought we agreed you shouldn’t venture there without me.”
Erik shrugged. “Just a quick trip up. I was careful to go while most everyone was away.”
Thorn didn’t respond. Erik was stronger than he’d been led to believe, if he could venture into the halls of his tainted past alone.
“The point I was making,” his father said, “is Rune has had her awakening, and lost control in the process. When she comes to us at the club, she will lose control again. And then, when she’s fraught with torment, I’ll offer her comfort and understanding. I’ll become what she’s been seeking for so many years: a father. You’ve already set the stage by earning her gratitude. In my full mask, I can easily step into your shoes without her ever knowing.”
“Our voices sound different . . . she’ll know,” Thorn asserted without thinking.
Erik’s lower lip curled on a scowl. “You spoke to her? What did you say?”
Thorn measured his answer. “I said that she and I are the same.”
Erik chuckled, a lyrical vibration that at first trickled like sweet rain, then bristled the hair along Thorn’s nape as the beauty soured to silence. “Making the first incision with the razor’s edge of sincerity. Well done. I’m apt at mimicry. I can sound enough like you to fool her. Although, I could simply erase you from her mind. She’ll forget ever hearing your voice once she hears mine.”
Thorn’s ears grew hot as that irrefutable truth ignited a flash of envy, no doubt visible to Erik’s discerning eye through the auras he was so adept at reading. Thorn struggled to compose himself.
“So what else is there?” Erik stroked the swan’s velvety red feathers, raking off the dust. “Why do you still seem so shaken?”
Because I’ve shared dream-visions with her for ten years. Because your pigeon is my mirror soul, but I didn’t know until she arrived. Because I touched her. As hard as I tried not to, I couldn’t resist. Our heart chakras have connected, and I’m helping her master her songs, against everything you asked me to do. I’m making her stronger instead of weaker.