Page 57 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
His smile was sharp with amusement. ‘Not many would recognise it.’
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked, still stunned as I felt the heat of the potion against my palm. The secret to brewing transfiguration potion had been lost for years.
‘William found one of Emmaline’s old potion notes. He thought it could help,’ he replied easily, turning his attention back to his desk, hiding his expression from me.
‘What did she need it for?’ I wondered if he would tell me that truth. Surprisingly, he turned back to me, leaning against his desk with his arms crossed.
‘To become a man. Emmaline had many schemes, but changing form to antagonise our father was her favourite.’ There was a challenge in his eyes that accompanied those words.Testing me. If he thought I’d be offended by beings changing gender and form, he evidently hadn’t read my notes clearly.
His eyes moved almost reluctantly to my desk, the carvings beneath and the person he used to see sitting there. I didn’t know how that must feel, to be reminded every day of what you lost, for this house to bring nothing but that pain, and yet he remained.
‘How did she die?’ The question left me before I could consider the rudeness of asking.
‘In the wars. One of the skirmishes. At least that’s the story that they told.’
The wars. The image of her sunk beneath a muddy battlefield or tossed into a pit as nothing but a rebellious nuisance made me sick, especially because I knew my father would be right there with her.
‘She’s out there somewhere, in an unmarked grave. Lost like all the rest of them.’ There was a depth to the guilt that coated his words. As if the entire war was of his own making, despite him being young when it had begun.
No matter his guilt, we couldn’t change the course of history. No matter how many times I had willed my father to run, to keep running and survive, that wasn’t the story his life was destined to tell.
‘And what was it all for? We didn’t change anything.’ Coldness coated his words, and as he looked into the fire, a hardness came over him that made me realise just why the Council feared him. A ruthlessness that lay beneath. It should have unsettled me, but I was too familiar with the ravenous emotions of grief and rage.
Wondering if he wished for privacy, I moved to leave, only for him to catch my hand – gently – but it was enough to hold me in place.
‘It’s hard to remember it happened when some of us carry it so well … others crumble and then some simply act as if it never happened,’ he whispered, his voice suddenly coarse.
‘I don’t know which one I am,’ I answered, feeling the emotion well in my throat. I’d never had my pain sit before me so vividly.
His eyes were jet black as they considered me, raw with too many emotions. ‘None of them, Croinn. You haven’t stopped fighting.’
Every day. I was fighting every day. It was why exhaustion clung to my bones, why every day felt like a trial all its own.
‘I didn’t realise I was too until you crossed my path.’ His smile was faint, but his eyes remained dark. ‘It reminded me of something I’d forgotten.’
‘Not to leave cursed books open?’
His answering smile was sharp and devious, making my magic rise for a different reason.
‘To fight. I could see the jaws closing around you … saw you standing right in the centre of it, not begging or bargaining for a way out. No. You were looking right at the beast. Daring it to bite.’ That warm and uneven smile came back to his lips. ‘Ready to take down the whole Council despite knowing you’d never win.’
‘I suppose it’s nice to have company in the madness,’ I whispered, accepting my pain and his.
‘I suppose it is.’ He nodded, as he let my fingers go, in a dismissal that hurt worse than any word.
That sting remained as I reached the doorway and took myself off to bed.
Chapter Eighteen
When morning came, I found my way to the kitchen for breakfast only to find a pensive William absorbed in reading a paper, as he absently stirred his tea, brow furrowed in concentration and hair a wild mess around his horns.
‘William?’ I knocked on the tabletop only for him to almost jump a foot in the air, dropping the paper and bashing both his knees on the underside.
‘Bloody saints !’ he cursed, eyes wide with surprise as he bent forward to rub his injured knees. ‘You move like a wraith, Kat !’
‘Are you all right?’ I tried to conceal my laugh.
‘Me? How is Alma?’ He glanced at the doorway behind me as if she was about to make an appearance, eyes scanning the floor in case she’d reverted to her previous form.
