Feast of Sparks

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

St. SebastianPresent day

Death is a part of life.

A miserable rain has started up since I carried a sobbing Poe back to the house and called the police. As I stand at the edge of the trees and watch the officers swarm the muddy ruins, I can hardly believe that this is the same thorn chapel we f****d and bled in last night. Last night, by the light of candles and fire, it had been a place of magic and mystery and depthless time, like a well in the heart of the woods, but not a well of water. A well of timeless . . . something.

But today, it’s small and tired and grim. The cops swish around in bright yellow coats taking pictures and unwinding rolls of plastic tape; every now and again, one will come up to ask Auden a question, and since he’s standing next to me, I can hear his cold answers. Cold like the day, cold like the wet, brown grass, and the shivering, naked trees.

If a hiker were hiking through, he’d take one look at the muddy scar where the altar used to be, the total absence of anything beautiful, and he’d keep walking.

I’m at home, though, in the grim and quiet places of the world, and there’s something about the bleakness of the thorn chapel that comforts me right now. Like it knows it yielded death up to us and refuses to desecrate the moment with garish displays of sunshine or spring.

A sober clutch of reality after the heady magic of the night before. A winter scene for winter bones.

Death is a part of life.

“You’re angry with me,” I say finally, turning to face the man I’ve been in love with for eight years. He’s in a chunky, shawl-necked sweater, dark green trousers, and a gray wool coat—a look only he could pull off—and even with mud caked around his Hunter boots and his hair going wavy in the rain, he looks amazing.

Damn him.

“You’re angry with me,” I repeat.

“I’m not,” he says.

“You are.”

He makes an exasperated sound, turning to me in a flapping of wool and squelch of mud. “Has it occurred to you that maybe I’m upset because they’ve just found a body on my family’s property? Because the body belongs to Proserpina’s mother? Because they won’t let me—or you—be with her while they interview her, and so she’s alone right now, and I can’t—I can’t—”

He shoves a hand into his hair—then, finding it wet from the rain, he makes a noise of disgust and jams both his hands into his coat pockets.

“I’m upset about all of that too,” I say quietly. “But you were already angry this morning when I came to find you.” And he had been. After seeing Proserpina settled on the window seat we all thought of as Rebecca’s, and having Rebecca and Delphine tend to her, I went to Auden’s office to tell him what had happened. He’d been working as he often did on weekends, bent over his drawing tablet while his double monitors flickered with screensavers of floor plans and elevations. He’d looked up at me when I entered, and even before I said a word, I saw hurt and fury brimming in his eyes like lakes of fire.

And I could guess why, even though I didn’t have time then to confront him about it.

Auden turns back to face the police officers, but nothing can hide the tensing of his jaw and the sudden rigidity in his stance. He knows I’m right, he knows I know that he is angry with me, and I think maybe he can’t decide if he wants to chide me or hide the skin right off my arse right now.

“You know about Proserpina and me,” I say.

He utters a low oath and turns all the way away from me, taking a few steps in the opposite direction, before turning back. “We’re not talking about this now.”

“Then when do you want to talk about it?” I ask. “Because you and I both know that when we go back to the house, Poe is going to be our first priority, and I’m not going to let you make her feel even worse while she’s going through this—”

“I should give you all those belt marks I promised you once upon a time,” he says tightly, “just for suggesting that. I would never make her feel bad because she shared a bed with someone, and especially not on this morning. Especially not after last night.”

My greedy mind grabs at the word belt, at the word marks, and takes its time assimilating the rest. “You once said you’d die on the spot if Proserpina chose me.”

He flinches.

“Well. Did you?”

I expect more anger. I expect him to retreat into that untouchable prince act, to deliver some scathing rejoinder that will have me clench-jawed all day. But instead he meets my gaze and says, “Yes, St. Sebastian. I did.”

He walks away to join the sergeant on the scene, leaving me alone to the watchful company of the trees and my own rainy thoughts.