That night, Viola sat with her legs crossed and her body slanted—seemingly both uncomfortable yet natural—on the opposite side of the room she referred to as her parlor.
The wingback couches and chairs were Victorian and made of walnut and ivory cloth. It was after dinner, and I ran my fingers along the edge and felt the scrolls carved into the body of a chaise.
“I bet it’s Norse Woods Coven messing with time,” she said in a disapproving tone, folding the newspaper and setting it down at her side. “Magic is not child’s play. Whatever they’re doing in those woods must stop. They need to leave it to us.” She paused and looked at me with worry gathering on her face. “Do you not like your wine, Adora?”—Alice stepped into the room— “Alice, bring Adora something lighter. Perhaps a Riesling would do.”
“This is fine,” I assured her.
“You have yet to drink it.”
“I said it’s fine.”
She returned her gaze to Alice. “Then bring a tray for Adora to set her drink on.” She snapped her finger and cut her smile back to me. “What do you think of the seating arrangement? Gabriel finally moved the couches from the attic, and we’re still debating their placement. Aren’t these pieces lovely?”
I was sitting across from my future mother-in-law and fiancé days after having sex with a strangely handsome and wounded man I was hiding on Bone Island. Another week had passed since Lena’s death, and she was not mentioned in the obituaries. On top of this, Shadows were hunting, people were dying, and she was worried about furniture placement.
But I suppose I wasn’t any better, considering my recent affair.
While I was drinking sherry wine in a parlor, the sleep deprivation was only getting worse in Weeping Hollow. Some were staring at clocks and seeing things, and some were throwing punches and busting jaws.
My stomach churned, suddenly ashamed of myself for escaping to Bone Island. What kind of a person did this make me?
“Adora?”
My attention snapped into place.
The furniture. “It’s ... unique,” I said, running my hand across the stiff fabric. It hadn’t been broken into. Not enough love had seeped into the stitching. “And uncomfortable.”
“It’s Victorian,” said Viola defensively. “Historic and shipped across the Atlantic. It was crafted in the seventeenth century by our ancestors.”
She didn’t want an honest answer. She only wanted me to agree with her.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“I’m sure, considering the way Ivy raised you.” I bit my tongue to fight a caustic remark, and she continued, “Did you know they had once called the chair you’re sitting on a fainting chair?”
My brow peaked. “For when men drink too much whiskey?”
Viola scoffed.
Cyrus’s mouth quirked on its end.
Alice set a small table beside me.
“For women, Adora. Have you ever worn a corset?”
“I’ve never had a reason to, Mrs. Cantini.”
“I will have none of that. You’re family now. Please call me Viola.” She rested her glass on the table and sat with pristine posture. “Corsets were meant to beautify women—a way to reshape their bodies into something more appealing. Sometimes as many as fifty laces pulled so tight it cut blood circulation, especially for the stubby ones. Tight enough that it feels like you can’t breathe. A strong woman with proper genes could do many things in her corset, but the weak would faint by night’s end. Hence the purpose of the fainting couch.”
“This is one theory,” Cyrus muttered into his glass with a chuckle.
I turned my eyes away, resisting the urge to show my annoyance with her.
It was an insult for her to believe a designer such as myself, who had created over a hundred dresses for the Founder’s Day Ball in the last decade, didn’t know a thing about corsets.
“It’s a shame to know it was a woman who introduced it,” I finally said.
Viola raised a brow. “Why is this a shame?”
“Women should embrace their curves. Not cut them off.”
“Well, that’s an ignorant thing to say, coming from someone like you.”
My mouth parted in disbelief. “Someone like me?”
“Mother,” Cyrus warned, eyes navy.
“What? Adora has a perfect figure to match her flawless face. She has nothing to be self-conscious about. She has no idea what it’s like to be a woman who doesn’t feel comfortable in her skin. Take your sister, for instance ...” And she was right as shame filled me.
Cyrus stiffened in his chair. “Let’s not speak of those who aren’t here to defend themselves.” He raised his glass to his mouth. “Besides, the last thing Camora would want to be seen in is a dress.”
“I’m only speaking the truth, Cyrus, and do not remind me.” Viola cleared her throat and fixed her sour expression before returning to me. “Every woman should own one, no matter what shape she is. I can purchase whatever fabrics, wires, and ribbons you’ll need to make one for the announcement.”
“I appreciate the offer, but I have to decline,” I said to her. “No matter my shape, I wear my dresses. I don’t let my dresses wear me.”
I also thought it to be the same for scars.
After all, there were only ever two options. We could either wear our scars with dignity to tell the world where we’d come from and that we survived, or let these heavy things wear us.
I thought of Stone then, and the look on his face before I’d left.
Why must he slip into everything?
“Speaking of, how is mine coming along? The ball is only four weeks away, and aside from completing all the dresses, there is still so much to do with planning for the event. Each time I try to visit, Alice says you’ve closed yourself off in the room to work, but I don’t hear the machine running. What on earth could you possibly be doing all day? The Founders Day Ball will be here before we know it, and then the wedding …”
My body stiffened. I was desperate to change the subject. “We have plenty of time for that. I think there are more important matters to discuss.”
Viola peaked a brow. “Such as?”
I narrowed my gaze. “What is the news with Lena? Freddy in the Mourning is missing, and without his morning show, all we have to rely on is The Daily Hollow. I didn’t see her name in the obituary, and I couldn’t imagine the cruelty of keeping a young woman in a cell for almost two weeks.”
Cyrus’s eyes slid to her as well, curious.
Viola went quiet.
I continued, “Has anyone checked in on her? Her execution was supposed to happen a week ago, and there has been no mention of it. Unless something else has happened to her.” Were they keeping her death a secret from the coven? What else could they be hiding?
“Lena’s body has been offered to the balance,” she said matter-of-factly.
Cyrus cocked a brow. “Without a ceremony?”
“When did this happen?” I didn’t recall seeing smoke.
Viola smoothed her dress down her lap. “Augustine and I both agreed that this town has experienced too much death these past few weeks. So, he held a private ceremony.”
“But what about her mother?” My gaze flew to Cyrus then back to Viola.
“While the situation is of no concern to you, Mrs. Murphy is aware.”
I narrowed my eyes and gulped wine until my glass was empty.
“That’s enough politics for one night,” Cyrus stated, noticing my growing agitation. “Alice, would you mind refilling our glasses?” He sat back in his chair. “My mother will be retiring.”
“I suppose it is getting late.” Viola stood and left her empty glass behind. “I will see you in the morning for breakfast,” she said, laying a hand on Cyrus’s shoulder as she floated to the towering French doors. “And I expect you, as well, Adora.”
Alice refilled Cyrus’s glass and glared at me with a warning in her eyes as she filled mine—as if she couldn’t believe my outburst. She walked across the room’s threshold, closed the French doors, and left Cyrus and me alone.
It was quiet for a moment as we stared at each other from across the room. His eyes were a shade I’d never seen before. A steel blue.
“This other theory I’ve learned,” Cyrus began, swirling amber liquid in his freshly poured glass, “as to why the fainting couch is indeed called the fainting couch, is for when women with female hysteria lose their minds.” He took another gulp and set his glass down before standing. “Insomnia, sleepwalking, anxiety ... everything you’ve been experiencing lately.” Cyrus crossed the room toward me, pressed slacks hanging off his hips, the top few buttons on his black dress shirt undone, and sleeves rolled to the elbows. “This style was crafted to provide comfort for long periods while performing a pelvic massage. Or, in our case, thrusting my fingers inside you and pulling the crazy out like an orgasmic exorcism.”
My hand flew to my mouth when a laugh belted from my lips.
These were words I’d never heard Cyrus say—a side of him I’d never seen before. “Cyrus, I—” I said on a gasp, but the rest of my sentence stopped short when he laid his hands on my knees and crouched down, laying his gaze upon me.
“I’m not Kane, Adora. I can’t get inside your head and make you do anything. Even if I could, I would never do that to you. I would rather it come naturally.”
My gaze slid between his eyes. “Cyrus, your eyes are almost gray.”
“Because I want to fuck you.”
I blinked. And then I swallowed.
Cyrus’s hands coiled around my calves, and my pulse was racing.
“But there’s other things I want to do to you first,” he said, eyes on me as his heated palms inched up my calf beneath my dress.
“I-I-think you’re drunk,” I tried to get out.
He was so subtly shaking his head, waiting for me to stop him, and I was waiting for him to concede.
“You and I have been blind-drunk alone together many times,” he said. “I know when to control myself. And when to finally let go.”
He’d never touched me like this. He’d never talked to me like this.
Even so, in my mind I could see Ivy, and the crestfallen look on her face.
I could see Stone in the cave.
I could see Stone looking into my eyes.
I could see Stone in the lighthouse window, watching me.
Cyrus reached the sensitive skin of my thighs, and he ran his fingertips higher with a slanted grin. “You’re so stubborn, and you think I’m playing.” His fingers traced the outline of my panties across my skin. His other hand came over my lower back, and he pulled me closer to him, to the edge of the couch. My knees spread on their own as his crouched body came between them. “This is not a game, Adora,” he murmured, dipping a thumb under the hem. My breath cut short when the pad of it grazed me. “I want to take care of my fiancé. I’m afraid your hysteria will bleed into town, and I can’t have people thinking you’re crazy.”
My palms slapped on top of his to stop him.
“I’m not crazy!” My defense exploded out of me.
Standing, I hid my fingers, tucking them into my fists and springing them loose against my chest, unsure if even I believe it.
Cyrus hung his head, his elbow digging into a bent knee. “That came out entirely wrong.” He then looked up at me, lashes so dark it looked like black eyeliner permanently rimmed the cobalt oceans in his eyes. “I’m not the enemy here, Adora. You will be my wife,” he reiterated slowly. “I’m just trying to protect you.”
“By performing an idea introduced in the nineteenth century?” I shook my head in disbelief. “Do you know who I thought about the entire time you were touching me?” His eyes closed, and he exhaled a heavy breath. “Yeah, I thought of Ivy, and it made me sick to my stomach.”
Cyrus’s perfect mouth set in a hard line, eyes darkening by the second.
I didn’t give him a chance to respond before I retreated to my bedroom.
Only a half hour had passed when there was a light knock on the door.
Alice stood up from her rocking chair and disappeared from my peripheral vision as I stared out the open window.
The milky glow of the rotating beam sliced through darkness as if it were another world away. It called out to me, illuminating my beloved black sea and the icy island. The beam touched me when it circled. It cast ribbons of gray and white, snowflakes drifting and floating like what paper confetti would do when tossed up into the night.
I thought about Stone and what he could be doing at this hour. I suppose he could be sleeping soundly before a fire. But when I closed my eyes, all I saw was the portrait of him standing in front of the window, looking out across the midnight sea, thinking of me.
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said low from behind. “You should know that the idea of you and me together makes sense to me.”
I turned slightly and felt the warmth of his body on my back.
At my side, his fingers gently brushed my hand.
“I miss you,” he said, and I could smell the sherry wine in his warm breath.
I kept my gaze fixed on the lighthouse.
“Do you want to know who I think about every day?” He paused to wait for a response, and when I said nothing, his finger tapped mine. “I used to not go a day without you, and now that we’re both under the same roof, I hardly see you at all. I’m the one going crazy, Adora. If you don’t want me as your lover, keep me as your friend. I’ll do whatever you want, but not this. I refuse to settle for nothing.”
After a few moments, he walked away.
Whispers drifted from the doorway to my ears.
Still, I refused to acknowledge them.
They thought I couldn’t hear them.
I always heard them, and I didn’t care.
“It’s every night,” Alice whispered back. “She just stands there at the window.”
Cyrus’s voice was low and careful. “She’s homesick.”
“It’s more than that, sir. She doesn’t work. She hardly sleeps. She doesn’t eat. All she does is stare out this window like something is out there. Something beyond the cliffs.”