Iron Codex 2 - The Nightmare Garden (20 page)

Dean came and stood next to me at the porthole. “So, your old man. He going to chase me with a shotgun?”

I had to smile. All family unpleasantness aside, I
did
have Dean. He wasn’t gone, and I wasn’t going to have to make the choice my father had. At least, not yet. “Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him about us,” I said. “Anyway, he doesn’t really have a lot of room to talk, what with his little friend over there.”

Valentina smiled at me as she got up and began clearing the tea things. It was a forced smile, and it didn’t reach her eyes. Good. I didn’t like her any more than that smile and those fake pleasantries pretended to like me.

“Maybe you should give your old man a break,” Dean said, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “Sixteen years is a long time to be lonely.”

“I know that,” I said grudgingly. But the fact that Archie must have been lonely didn’t make Valentina’s presence—and my mother’s absence—sting any less. “And it’s not like
he ever made it legal between them. I guess I just thought he cared more than that.” I felt my mouth twist down, and an answering twist in my guts. “He doesn’t even seem that worried that Nerissa’s missing.”

Dean sighed and pressed his lips against my forehead. “You know, my dad was a decent guy,” he said. “But like I said, he and my mother never would’ve worked out. It was better they went back to their own people. Maybe it’s the same for your folks.”

I had to admit, he had a point. Who was to say they’d still be together? My mother was impossible to get along with on her best days, and on her worst she’d scream and throw things at your head. Still, the fact that Archie had never given us a chance to be a family grated on me. “Maybe my father should stop giving the eye to girls who are closer to my age than his,” I grumbled. Dean snorted.

“Oh, come on. She looks all right to me. Hardly an evil stepmother.”

“Oh, I bet she looks good to you,” I told him before I could bite the words back, acid etching them onto my tongue. Jealousy tasted ugly and bitter, like bile and spoiled fruit, but I couldn’t stop the surge.

Dean shook his head. His dark hair brushed across his pale forehead like an ink stain. He looked inhumanly beautiful in moments like this, when the light hit him just so and brought his Erlkin features to the forefront. “Aoife, don’t be that way. You’re not one of those girls, and that’s why I like you.”

“Do me a favor, Dean,” I said. “Don’t tell me what I am and what I’m not. You don’t know me that well yet.”

He drew back from me, hurt replacing the tender look
in his eyes. “I want to, dammit,” he murmured. “But you won’t let me. There’s a wall around you, princess, but I’m not going to stop trying.” He squeezed my hand and then stepped away from me. “I know this is hard,” he said. “And I’m here for you, but you’ve got to stop shoving me back every time I try to get in.”

I searched for the words to tell Dean that I was sorry, and that if anyone was close to me, it was him. He knew things about me that nobody else did, and he wasn’t put off by them. But Archie’s voice drowned out my reply of
I’m sorry
. Which was fine with me, really. Banality like that could never show Dean how I really felt.

“We’re landing, and it’s rough wind!” my father bellowed. “Strap yourself in if you don’t want to be dumped on your ass.” Dean and I both scrambled for seats and safety harnesses. I’d survived one airship crash, on the way to Arkham, and I had no desire to even come close to the experience again.

Valentina sighed as she hurried to an armchair, drawing a pair of leather straps with brass buckles from beneath the cushion. “Archie, your language. Honestly.”

Dean looked over at me and mouthed
You all right
? I nodded as the wind buffeted us. Conrad looked distinctly green around the edges, which I couldn’t help feeling a little smug over. Flying had never been his favorite thing. I saw Cal reach over and squeeze Bethina’s hand as the
Munin
drifted back to earth, and in that moment I envied her. Her life was easy, with someone who loved her unconditionally. Mine was becoming anything but.

The Frozen Shores

T
HE
C
ROSLEY HOUSE
was a great white thing, clothed the whole way around in porches, all the way up to the third floor, like lace wrapped around bleached bones. It sat on a spit of land poking into the Atlantic, and on the rocky point beyond sat a lighthouse, its crimson band of paint the only color in the winter landscape.

It wasn’t as grand as Graystone, Archie’s huge granite mansion in Arkham, but was imposing in its own way, clinging to the rocks, crouched above the sea as if the house were waiting for something, or someone, to come in from the horizon.

My father set the
Munin
down on the vast expanse of dead, snowy lawn behind the house, amid ice-dripping statues and drooping topiary animals. He looked to Conrad. “Well, that shaved about ten years off my life. You know how to tie down an airship, boy?”

Conrad spread his hands and shook his head, but Dean
took off his straps and jumped out of his seat next to me. “I do.”

“Good man,” Archie said. “Usually it’s just me and Valentina to keep her steady, and it can get hairy with this much wind.” He went down the ladder to the lower deck, and Dean followed.

“Be careful,” I called, before his gleaming raven head disappeared belowdecks.

He turned back and threw me a wink. “You know me, doll.”

I felt the heat start again in my chest. Dean had an effect on me with just a look. I was glad he’d gone back to smiling after I’d snapped at him. Later, I’d have to try to find a way to really apologize.

“We can disembark,” Valentina said, knocking me out of my Dean-induced daze. “I’ll lock the wheel while you kids go inside.” She pressed a brass key into my hand. “That opens the back door.”

I was surprised at how casually she handed over the keys to her home, especially when I’d made it glaringly obvious I didn’t like her. Dean’s voice echoed in my head, reminding me to give her a chance.

But I remembered the emptiness in my guts when I’d seen the ruined madhouse and realized Nerissa was still gone, and I just couldn’t do it. I snatched the key and went ahead of Conrad, Cal and Bethina down the ladder and across the lawn. Up close, the house was even more foreboding, like it had been emptied out and was only a skeleton, a dead insect left on the lawn after warm weather had gone. Salt-rimed windows glared back blankly at me as I crossed the frozen grass, crunching blades under my boots,
and I looked at the vast expanse of empty beach and dune and rock around us. There were no ghoul traps here, nothing to thwart some kind of creature lying in wait for a fresh meal. My shoulder wasn’t throbbing, so I walked on cautiously, but my every nerve sang with alertness, and looking too long at the skeletal house gave me a chill.

“So,” I said to Conrad as we mounted the shallow weather-grayed steps to the wide, faded blue back door. “Valentina is something else.”

“She seems swell,” Bethina piped up. “A real classy lady.” Of course Bethina would think that. She expected the best from people until they showed her otherwise. I wished I could do the same, sometimes, but now I couldn’t help being a little annoyed. Just because Valentina had fancy clothes and good manners didn’t make her good all over.

Conrad sighed and rolled his eyes in consternation at my annoyed expression.

“Aoife, don’t be naive. People in the real world don’t sit around and pine for the rest of their lives when their wives get committed to madhouses. And you know they were never legally married, anyway.”

“Why don’t you strip your own gears, Conrad?” I suggested, glaring at him.

He flung his hands in the air in response to my insult, looking for all the world like someone who had reached the end of his rope.

“I can’t even talk to you these days without getting my head bitten off. I’m done.”

“Fine by me,” I told him. “All you ever do when you open your mouth is try to make me feel stupid.”

“Hey!” Cal shouted, when Conrad opened his mouth
again. “Me and Bethina are freezing. You think maybe we could take the family fight inside?”

I turned away from Conrad. I wasn’t embarrassed for losing my temper this time, but I was infuriated that Conrad seemed to be sticking up for Valentina just to be contrary.

I shoved the key in the lock and opened the rickety wooden door to Valentina’s house, following Cal and Bethina inside, away from Conrad and that disapproving line between his eyes.

The remainder of the afternoon was taken up with my father turning the aether feed to the house on and getting hot water flowing while the rest of us checked the pantry and returned to the
Munin
for provisions. Conrad and Dean carried in wood to stoke the fireplaces; various other household tasks like making up beds and washing plates and cups fell to Valentina, Bethina and me. The work did absolutely nothing to stem the tide of fierce resentment growing in my chest.

Valentina flitted around taking dust catchers from the furniture and asking if everyone had had enough to eat or wanted tea and biscuits, and everything else well-bred young ladies were supposed to check up on when they entertained guests. I didn’t know how she could be so calm in an unprotected house, with no reinforced doors, shutters, or traps—ghouls could burst in at any moment, and then the tea party would be over.

I finally cornered my father when he came back from the basement, cleaning soot from the boiler off his palms. “Are we safe here?”

“Sure,” he said, frowning. “The house is in Valentina’s father’s name. The Proctors have no reason to suspect we’d come here.”

“I meant …” I lowered my voice as Valentina passed, carrying a tray of sandwiches into the dining room. Dean, Conrad and Cal fell on them like, well, starving teenage boys. My stomach grumbled. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a real meal. “Are we safe from, you know …”

Archie raised one eyebrow. “From the Fae? Yes, Aoife.” He put his hand on my shoulder, surprising me, and gave a half smile. “There may not be ghoul traps outside, but the bones of this house were built to protect the people inside. There’s no iron, but that’s not the only way to keep out Fae.” He patted me, in what I’d call a fatherly gesture from anyone else. From him, I wasn’t sure what to call it yet, but it still calmed me. “When we’re settled in, I’ll tell you all about it. It’s stuff you need to know anyway.”

“And Conrad,” I reminded him. Archie’s eyes darkened into an expression I couldn’t identify as he looked past me to where Conrad was shoving roast beef into his mouth.

“Right,” he said. “Conrad. Of course.” He shoved the dirty rag into his back pocket and gave me another of those enigmatic half smiles. “Get some sleep, kid. You look exhausted.”

I was exhausted, so I didn’t argue, just went up to the room Valentina had told me was mine when she was running around playing hostess. I didn’t understand how she could take the time, considering what was going on. Valentina definitely seemed as if she was showing off—her grand house, her skills at hospitality. Wasn’t it enough that she was stunningly beautiful and rich? Did she have to be perfect at everything else too?

I huffed as I flopped backward on the creaky bed, examining the room to which Valentina had exiled me. Maybe
exiled
wasn’t the right word. Removed. I was rooms away from Dean, my brother and my friends, never mind the master suite. Just like at the Academy—stick the charity case up under the rafters and forget about her.

My room was in a corner so small that the ceiling formed a pyramid where the sides of the roof met. The furniture was mismatched and clearly picked from other parts of the house. A chipped mirror over a dressing table told me I was dirty, tired and really in need of a change of clothes. I got back off the carved wooden bed, which was covered with a crazy quilt and a long-forgotten family of porcelain dolls, and went to the wardrobe to look for some clean underthings, at the very least.

Cal and Bethina were still downstairs—I could hear them laughing. They could enjoy Valentina’s house with none of the resentment the place triggered in me. Dean’s whereabouts were a mystery, and if I knew Conrad he was probably hanging off my father and Valentina, determined to play the part of the good son.

If my mother had been safe, I would have tried to give Valentina a chance to be my stepmother and my father a chance to be happy. I would have forced myself to at least be polite to her, even if we’d never be the best of friends.

But the world was turning to ashes, and Archie didn’t seem nearly as concerned with that fact as he did with his pretty blond doll.

I’d feel better if I were clean. That was the only thing I was sure of. I rooted around in the wardrobe and found a robe made of silk so old it crumbled in places under my
hands. It was the only thing remotely resembling nightclothes that fit, though, so I pulled it around me and let the musty, sharp scent envelop my skin.

The bottom of the wardrobe held a stack of old composition books, so old the pages breathed dust when I smoothed one open. Searching the drawers, I found a pencil with a little lead left. My bag and my original journal were gone, but I needed to write. Maybe if I got all these racing, swelling, screaming thoughts out of my head, I’d be able to make a new plan.