Page 26 of The Shadows Beyond
“Don’t move,” Julien whispered, as his thumb ghosted upwards across Cinn’s cheek to catch the lash. He allowed his knuckle to brush over Cinn’s eyebrow bar before sweeping the lash onto the back of his hand. He raised it to Cinn’s lips. “Make a wish.”
And still with that unbreakable eye contact, Cinn blew, his full lips pressing together in a manner surely,surely, deliberately sensual.
“What are you doing?” Came a gruff voice.
Cinn recoiled from Julien, pushing himself into the corner of the bench as Elliot stormed into the garden, leaving the kitchen door swinging wide open.
Julien sighed. Why could he never have nice things without a price? “Smoking. Want one?”
“No thanks. I thought we were here to try to reach Béatrice.” Elliot’s unsmiling gaze settled on Cinn, and did not waver.
“We are. You were late.”
Elliot could read every slight nuance of Julien’s expressions, and so he communicated a crystal clear: Why the hell are you making a scene? Pull yourself together.
Because she was an angel sent from heaven, Darcy materialised in the doorway, shouting, “How many times have I told you not to leave this door open? Well? Are you coming in? I’ve got everything we need.”
seven
Cinn
Now that it was time to begin, the panic set in.
If someone had told Cinn just a week ago that he’d sign up to deliberately fall intothe dark place,the place he lived in fear of most days of his life, he’d have laughed in utter disbelief.
The shadowrealm.
It had a proper name now. It was a real place. It wasn’t all a figment of his imagination.
Although, the handful of times something—orsomeone—had returned with him had proven that to him before.
The very first time it had happened, that he’dshadowslipped, was his thirteenth birthday. Two weeks after ‘the river incident’. He’d been trying to wake his mum up from where she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He could still see it now: her pale face partially obscured by greasy hair, hand outstretched towards the empty wine bottle on the floor.
She’d promised him pancakes.
Pancakes from that diner down the road. They’d never been able to afford them before, but she’d promised him because it was hisbirthday.
So he’d shook her. Gently at first, then violently.
The more he shook her, and the more she failed to wake up, the more unsteady his breaths became, until he was sure he was about to suffocate.
The light in the room faded, even though it was the middle of the day, and then, all of a sudden, he wasn’t in his living room at all.
Cinn only very briefly slipped into the shadowrealm, that first time. He’d found himself in a kitchen, a similar shape to their own. It even had the same sink and the same cream cabinets. He met an old man there. A rather nice old man. He’d given Cinn his newspaper, and Cinn read it, even though it was twenty years out of date and there were lots of complicated words he didn’t even attempt to read. He sat at the old man’s breakfast table with him until he decided he should probably try to get home, which is when he jumped off the stool, fell through the man’s kitchen floor, and promptly awoke in his own flat.
If only all his trips had been that peaceful.
He already knew that today’s certainly wouldn’t be.
Cinn followed Julien through the cottage, halting when Julien paused outside of a door.
“Hold on.”
Julien slipped inside the room, and returned with a framed photograph, a double portrait. Cinn’s focus shot straight to a younger-looking Julien. In the photo, his mouth was open in a wide grin, white teeth gleaming as he beamed at the photographer. His arm was slung around a girl with the exact same shade of blonde hair as his own—albeit slightly curlier. She was pretty.Béatricewas pretty.
“It will help to hold her image in your mind.”
Cinn nodded and gently took the photo from Julien. The Julien he saw before him today was so starkly different from the Julien in the picture, and he couldn’t help but pity him. Though he was fairly sure Julien wouldnotwant that.
