Page 24 of A Touch of Brimstone

Is she serious? Moments ago, she was requesting permission to kill me or sever my finger; now she wanted me as a dinner date. Nothing about this world was acceptable.

Stunned into momentary silence, I just gawked at her. All the fear, frustration, confusion, and annoyance at being pulled into this abhorrent situation erupted.

“No, you sociopathic bitch. I do not want to eat with you. What is wrong with you?”

Unaffected by my outburst, her face remained chillingly pleasant as she gave Dominic another smile and quick peck on the cheek. “If she changes her mind, you will direct her to the dining room, won’t you?”

“Of course,” he said, returning her pleasant smile.

Our long silence was fraught with tension as I stared at him. Reaching into his pocket, he removed my ring and handed it to me. “My sister has a directness to her nature,” he attempted to explain.

“The word ‘directness’ is reserved for people who are blunt and unintentionally rude, not for a person asking their brother for permission to murder or dismember someone.”

“Her enjoyment leans toward darker elements. She finds a certain pleasure in murder and torture. She’s quite good at them both,” he said mildly, as if he’d just disclosed something mundane, like her favorite color was yellow. I wondered how different these siblings were. Was he okay with these behaviors but just didn’t really enjoy them to the extent she did?

“What you call ‘darker elements’ is known to us mere humans as state’s evidence,” I tossed out before closing my eyes, inhaling the air, and letting the calm of being in a library wash over me. It was the only thing that kept me somewhat grounded.

When my eyes opened, Dominic was close and staring down at me. Too close.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked.

“You just described enjoying torture as darker elements of amusement. How should I feel about that?”

He studied my lips, his face expressionless. Neither one of us spoke, just stood in the tension-filled silence. His eyes turned expectant as he waited for an answer.

“No.” That wasn’t entirely true but close enough. Even if I felt it, admitting it to him—to myself—would change the balance. For some peculiar reason, I needed that. “I’m afraid of the woman who offered me food after glibly suggesting killing me or cutting off my finger,” I admitted.

His voice was low, rough, unyielding. “She’ll never touch you as long as I wish for you to be safe,” he assured me as his eyes roved slowly over my face. “Nor will the others. The consequences would be too great.”

With that, he was moving with a relaxed stride as if he’d offered me some comfort.

He returned to the spellbook room’s door and looked back at me. I guessed I wasn’t going to get a please or will you follow me.

8

Back in the spellbook room, I was unsuccessfully trying to get used to the atmosphere and becoming increasingly curious why it didn’t bother Dominic. Did magic appeal to only magic? Could this room sense that I didn’t belong and its eeriness was repellent, trying to force me to leave? It was working; I didn’t want to be there.

Leisurely moving from shelf to shelf, I examined the books while feeling the full weight of Dominic’s attention.

“What should I do here?” I asked.

“These books hold the strongest and most arcane magic known. Something in here should work.”

I heard the hesitation in his voice and turned to him. “What else?” I asked.

“You’ll be able to find it better than I can.”

Lifting my finger, I said, “Because of this?”

He nodded.

Of course. It all came back to the markings on my finger. It was the beginning and the end.

“What do I do?” I asked again.

“Touch the books, go through the spells, and see if you feel anything. I believe antagonistic spells will respond to it.”

“Spells that want to undo what’s in place.”

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