Page 66 of Devour the Dark

“I can hear my father’s voice in this room. Do you know his favorite saying?”

We don’t, so we say nothing.

“’You are the bane of my existence.” He bows his head again. “From the moment I was born, he twisted my name into an insult.”

“Your name?” I ask, desperate to possess it but terrified of the implications. He’s hidden his name for a reason. Because I suspect he doesn’t like it. Possessing it would mean holding a part of him he’d rather not share. The intimacy of that fact is one that cannot be denied.

His eyes pop open and it takes him a beat to focus on me. “Bane,” he answers. “Our mother fancied herself a poet. She loved Edgar Allan Poe. Bane. Vane. And Lane. The rhyming three.” He laughs, but it’s thick with emotion. “Can you take me to my room?”

“Of course,” I say, trying not to react to the fact that he’s shared his true name. The thing he’s protected above all else. “Which way?”

“There’s a back staircase just beyond this hallway.”

“Come.” I gesture for him to put his arm around me, and Wendy positions herself on the other side. His weight is heavy on us both, but we move forward, desperate for something that will help him.

Out of the library, the noise of the party filters down the hall.

“Left,” Roc says and we move, the din fading as we slip further into the house.

We find the stairwell tucked between a pantry and a storeroom. It’s narrow, unadorned, meant for servants. We make our way up the first flight, unsteady, bumping into one another. We readjust on the first landing, then make our way up the second.

“Here,” Roc says. “To the right.”

The scones have been lit on the second floor, but only every other, making the hall dim, just enough to see our steps.

It’s quieter up here, colder even. Roc directs us down the hall, then down another, until we’re in the back of the house and approaching a set of closed double doors.

Roc pulls away from us and pushes the doors in.

I’m greeted with the overwhelming smell of him.

Spice and musk and bourbon.

I didn’t realize it until this moment just how much the presence of him, the sight and smells and touch of him, has embedded itself into my skin.

I’m covered in goosebumps, and it’s not the cold.

He goes to the barren fireplace. It’s a monstrous thing, as tall as he is and twice as wide, the mantle a carved piece of marble depicting a raven’s head, the beak wide open, cawing at those who stand before it.

Roc moves around the fireplace like he knows what he’s doing, making a pile of kindling on the grate. He strikes a long match, the end wicking to life. The kindling catches easily, and then he’s stacking logs around it, nurturing the flame until the fire burns to life.

Heat immediately fills the room.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his back still to us.

“For what?” Wendy asks.

“I shouldn’t have brought you both here. This is my mess to clean up.”

I’ve never heard him sound so…defeated.

I want to do something. I want to reassure him. I want to fix him.

But all of this is so new, still so raw. I don’t know how to care for anyone, most of all myself.

Poor form, Captain.

I am failing him.

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