Page 71 of Holly & Hemlock
I think of all the chains, all the patterns, all the ways this could go wrong. But here, in the hot, golden circle of the fire, I can see only the future—the three of us, bound not by the curse, not by the hunger of the house, but by our own, chosen want.
The fire dies down, but the room stays warm. We drift in and out of sleep, sometimes all at once, sometimes in shifts. The last time I drift off, it’s with Lane spooned around myback, Larkin curled against my chest, his breath sweet with whiskey and night.
I think of Anwen, of the holly and the hemlock, of all the women before me who tried to escape and failed. I think of Maeve, and Whitby, and the way the house always gets what it wants.
But this time, it is what I want, too.
I close my eyes, savoring the weight of them, the heat, the ache between my legs and the fullness in my heart.
21
Anwen
Icome to consciousness slowly, as if resurfacing through lake water. My cheek is pressed to the wool of a borrowed blanket, damp where my own breath has soaked it. The weight on my hip is Lane’s hand, heavy and unrelenting even in sleep. My thigh is spliced with the length of Larkin’s, his knee hooked around as if in the throes of a slow-motion struggle.
I don’t move at first. There is a peace in this tangle, a sense that if I stay absolutely still, the world might never restart. Lane’s palm twitches, his thumb drawing a single, involuntary circle at the crest of my pelvis.
Larkin’s breath is on my neck, so faint that it must be a trick of the drafts through the library’s ancient vents. Both men are asleep, deep as the roots of the orchard, and in their faces I see the version of them that has nothing to do with me—boys grown to men, but still fragile as anything living. Larkin’s lashes cast a shadow that breaks and reforms with every slow exhale. Lane’s jaw is slack, his lips parted, the scar beneath his eye paler than the rest of his winter-burnt skin.
I realize I am holding my own breath, afraid that anymovement will collapse this small, accidental eternity. But the world is always breaking, and my body is a poor custodian. I blink, and with the movement comes a flood of memory—the night before, the table, the storm of bodies and voices, the wordless understanding that passed among us when we understood the house was waiting for its next command.
The realization that I love these men hits me hard, harder than anything else the house has thrown at me. I cannot let them go. I cannot abandon them.
There is a solution to all of this, one that does not involve sacrifice. The thought occurs to me with the clarity of fever breaking—why should the house dictate the pattern? Why should suffering be the coin that buys anyone’s freedom? I think of the folio I left in the Blue Room, the story of Anwen and her hunger, the blessing gone wrong that was only meant to hold fast what was loved. There has to be a way to unmake a curse without feeding it another heart.
The thought is enough to spark a physical reaction. I shift, and Lane’s arm tightens, then falls away. Larkin stirs, his leg sliding from mine with a drowsy reluctance.
I rise carefully, my limbs prickling as blood returns. The air is raw and alive against my bare feet. I look down at them—two things grown soft and calloused in all the wrong places. I flex my toes, and the rug beneath is cold, rough, almost medicinal.
Lane turns onto his back, exposing the soft curve of his throat. For a second, he looks impossibly young. I want to touch him, to memorize the contrast between the man who can move mountains and the boy who once ran wild in these halls.
Larkin’s hand is curled near his chest, the fingers elegant even in surrender. I study the constellation of freckles on hiswrist, the way his nails are perfectly trimmed, the faint blue vein that marks him as human and not just the sum of his affectations.
I could stay here, cataloguing the minute particulars of the men who have become my world, but the house is hungry and the dawn waits for no one.
I gather the edges of the blanket and fold it, the act as careful as a burial. My dress from the night before is slumped over the nearest armchair, silk collapsed into the shape of nothing. I slip it on, shivering as the cold fabric latches to my skin. I do not bother with shoes; the house is awake, and every step I take is a conversation with its bones.
The corridor outside is a tunnel of freeze and silence. My breath fogs before me, the condensation collecting on the wood paneling in tiny, perfect ovals. I try not to think about the hours between now and sunrise, about what the house will do when it senses my intention. I think only of the Blue Room, of the locked drawer where Larkin and I stashed the folio and its secrets.
Every step is a deliberate act of will. My feet are numb by the time I reach the stair, the runner cold and unforgiving. I mount the steps, one at a time, each creak a reminder that I am moving through a space that has never belonged to me, and may never fully yield.
At the top of the stairs, the Blue Room is as I left it—neat, chilly, infused with the faint scent of lavender and old paint. The light here is more generous, pooling in the corners and illuminating the dust in slow, spiraling columns.
I cross to the desk, and there it is, the folio. Heavy, inked, alive with the memory of a thousand failed attempts to undo what Anwen had wrought. I cradle it in my arms.
I pause, listening for the house’s reaction. But there is only the hush, the waiting, the sense that for thefirst time, the walls are not closing in, but listening—eager, maybe, for a different story.
I press the book to my chest and turn back to the corridor. My feet leave faint prints on the boards, a breadcrumb trail of heat and hope.
The library has changed in the short time I was gone. The embers are not so much dying as plotting, the logs rearranged into new hieroglyphs by the weight of heat and entropy. The men are awake, or waking.
Lane sits upright, blanket puddled around his hips, the shape of his chest a brutal silhouette in the light from the window. Larkin is less composed, sprawled on the rug, hair wild, one hand clutching at the empty air as if he’s been fighting off ghosts in his sleep. He blinks at me, confusion smudged across his face, then pushes himself upright with a graceless twist.
Neither man speaks. The silence is not companionable, but expectant.
I do not waste time. I kneel before the hearth, fanning the cinders until a vein of red pulses to life. The act is primal, ugly; my hands come away smudged with soot, the grit collecting in the cracks of my knuckles. I stack a few small logs, coaxing them into submission, the heat blooming so quickly I wonder if the house is helping.
When I open the folio, the crackle of the spine is a gunshot. Lane and Larkin both jerk at the sound—Lane, a small flinch; Larkin, a full-body jolt as if his nervous system is wired straight to the architecture.
