Page 194 of Flirting with Darkness

Or maybe they’d been scared off by his display of animal ferocity.

My limbs ached and with a sigh I agreed to his suggestion that we take a break from training. “For today, anyway.”

The dark look he gave my bandaged arm suggested he wasn’t satisfied with that response, but I pointed out that training was even more important now. “If those dreams can do this”—I held up my arm—“it’s a matter of survival.”

The way he scowled, I thought he was going to battle me on this, but instead he gave a firm nod. “Tonight is our fifteenth night here. Halfway.” Jaw tight, he pulled me close. “We will get through this.”

I placed my hand over his heart and nodded. “We will. I promise it.” With Ari safe and happy, she didn’t need me to save her. But like Faolán had said when we arrived, I needed myself. If I wanted to survive, I needed him too.

At breakfast, Granny eyed my bandages and gasped, clutching her chest. “My dear, what happened?”

I explained about the dream, my tongue tripping over some detail of the kelpie that I just couldn’t pin down. Hadn’t that happened last night, too?

Something I couldn’t say. Something that my thoughts scattered from as soon as I tried.

What was this house doing to us?

Still, I smiled and thanked it when breakfast appeared on the table. It was dangerous, but we were stuck here. I could play along if that kept me on its good side. If its good side meant dangers like the kelpie, what would its bad side mean?

“I’m so sorry, my dear.” Granny shook her head and dabbed her thin lips with a napkin. “I think sometimes this house dreams of things that have come before. And this place has a dark history.”

Behind his huge plate, Faolán straightened and paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “And that is what, exactly?” His eyes flitted to one side, narrowing at the house in accusation.

“You’ve seen it.” Granny tilted her head, eyebrows pulling together. “The balls. The rituals. The strange people who used to come here with their violent desires. There’s a touch of the unseelie about them, I think.”

Faolán’s look darkened. “Hmm. Unseelie.” He said it like someone might say a curse and let his fork clatter back onto his plate with a look of disgust.

I blinked from him to her, waiting for an explanation. Stories, both fictional and historical, told us there were seelie and unseelie fae. The first were powerful, tricksy, and capricious, acting in ways that left mortals confused and groping for meaning.

The second were worse.

“I thought the unseelie had been banished from this world,” I said at last when no explanation came.

“Aye.” Faolán shrugged, and for long seconds I thought that would be his only reply, but then he sighed and loaded his fork with food. “But they lived in these lands before that, side-by-side with us. We’re cousins, after all.”

“And sometimes, they pass between realms.” Granny canted her head and offered me coffee.

Faolán snorted around his mouthful of sausage. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

Her eyes widened as she paused with the pot above my cup, not yet pouring. “When the veil is thin, many things may come to be.”

“Hmm.” He shook his head but otherwise busied himself with his plate.

I pursed my lips, watching them over my coffee. Speaking to fae was like only getting half the conversation. Even Granny’s replies to direct questions felt like they hid twists that I couldn’t see. And Faolán’s answers rarely extended more than a sentence—often nothing more than a single word or just thatsound.

I asked Granny about what other dangers she’d seen in House’s dreams. If we had information, we could prepare. But she only shrugged and explained that she’d never faced the kelpie or any other dangers in her dreams here. I supposed the sapphire-eyed woman wasn’t a threat to her, since she was fae. All the sacrifices I’d seen were of humans.

Faolán gave me an apologetic smile and murmured that it was a good idea to ask.

It didn’t help us, though.

Once I finished my coffee, I excused myself. I couldn’t go for a run today or train, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t take a gentle walk around the house and gardens.

Stuffing another slice of toast in his mouth, Faolán followed.

* * *

We did a circuit of the gardens, stopping short of the forest that surrounded them. Something tugged on my mind… a memory. Something I’d seen out here at night. But I couldn’t quite see it, like trying to look at a single raindrop as it fell.

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