Apollo
House of Lords had taken more time than expected. Apollo and his father returned to the house at a quarter to midnight, exhaustion knocking at Apollo’s temple.
Warren and V’Yockovitch together were a tiring pair, and Apollo and the Duke of Kami had been forced to offer counterarguments to the majority of the topics they’d brought to light. In the end, the feelings of their fellow members appeared divided, stuck in a tie.
Shutting the entry door behind him, Apollo’s father scurried off to bed. Apollo rubbed at the front of his shirt, then brushed his hair back. His limbs felt heavier by the minute. Ambling down the hallway, he headed toward the stairs in the back as the flickering light from the family room illuminated a square on the wall.
Apollo traveled past the door, peeking inside.
Thatcher and Jinx were incredibly fixated on their game of chess. The two were seated on the floor, the board spread out on a low coffee table. The hearth burned with licking flames behind them. Jinx was wrapped in a blanket, moving a pawn up the board. Thatcher’s brows pinched together, almost forming a unibrow, his hands thoughtfully covering his mouth.
Apollo leaned against the door frame, resting his hands in his pockets while enjoying the sight.
“Watching us from there is just creepy, Polly,” Jinx commented, her back toward him.
Amazement at the reminder of her keen senses caused a jump in his pulse.
“And watching from a closer vantage wouldn’t be?” Apollo fully entered the room, shrugging off his suit jacket and perching it on the coat hanger. He situated himself on the couch behind Thatcher.
“Hey, Pol,” Thatcher said, giving a troubled shake of his head. “I think she’s better at chess than you. She’s got me completely cornered.”
Apollo analyzed the pieces, then looked up at her, who gave him a relaxed, innocent wave. He replied silently with a squint of a glare. Tension cradled his stomach, which was now cramping, folding his insides. Had he forgotten to eat today?
Thatcher was correct. There was no possible way for him to win. In two moves, Jinx locked in her victory: “Check.”
Thatcher’s head fell, groaning. “That is it. I’m taking that sore loss as the Virtues telling me to go to sleep.”
Jinx cooed from her seat, giving him a look of false pity. At the door, his brother turned, lifting a finger to Apollo. “Do beat her for me, will you?”
Apollo rolled his sleeves up to the middle of his forearms, veins pumping. “I always love a good competition.”
At that, Thatcher resigned to his own room, leaving him and Jinx alone. Wood popped and crackled in the fireplace. Apollo descended to the ground, helping Jinx fix the board.
In comfortable silence, they both set up their sides of the board.
“Do you want to go first?” She snuggled into her blanket, cocooning herself deeper.
“No. You won the last game; it’s proper sportsmanship for you to go first.” Apollo leaned his elbows on his knees, his spine using the couch as support.
Jinx moved a pawn forward. Apollo scanned the board, then followed suit. As she reached for her piece, Apollo interjected, “How was your day?”
She froze, retracting her arm. A frigid, calculating stare stabbed his soul. She could see the corners of his lips twitching upwards. Her neck pitched backwards, hesitant. “What are you doing?”
Apollo acted completely innocent. He kept his composure, meeting her with the same expressionless face he always wore so well. “Can I not ask how your day was?”
“You can. The problem is that you don’t.” Jinx cracked her fingers, scrutinizing him with her calculating emerald eyes. “You’re trying to distract me with small talk.”
Apollo checked his pocket watch. “I would not think a great mind like yours could get so distracted with small talk.”
Jinx piped up, spirit brightening her face. Her mouth opened just slightly, then transformed into a confused smirk. She moved another piece forward. “You are correct; small talk does not distract me.”
Apollo continued, “So then, how was your day?”
“Good.” Jinx sat up straighter, alert as if trying to catch him doing something sneaky. “How was yours?”
“Good. Though the assembly at the House of Lords took longer than expected.” An apology lingered on his tongue, never quite taking flight.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
He knocked a pawn of hers, taking it hostage. “Warren’s working on a contraption to completely exterminate the Cursed. He said he’s almost done with it, but he needs more funding, which is why he came to the House. He guarantees the end of the Cursed. I want to get Thatcher out of that lab with him. I just don’t know how to do it without making Warren suspicious.”
A tremor of fear peppered Jinx’s skin. A world without Cursed, without magic. “What did your father say?”
“He disagrees, but the House is pretty split. We haven’t ruled on his funding yet.”
“You won’t let mass genocide actually happen, will you?” Jinx bit her lower lip. If that were to happen, everything she’d worked for would be for nothing. And Jinx would die, as would countless others.
A serious expression overtook Apollo’s features. “I will not. I promise.”
Spiteful, Jinx took two of his chess pieces while also making an anticipated advance. After, she fished inside her corset and put the pin of a flower and an address on the table in front of him. “What do you know of this?”
Apollo inspected the pin by the stem; it was a white six-petalled flower circling a pink pistil. He knew flowers held a variety of meanings. Dried blood was embedded in its crevices. A waft of a strong scent hit his nose: cheap cologne. It must have come from a lower-class family. A name was engraved on the back: A.D. Marianna. A faint bell of recognition chimed in his brain. “The check from the alley.” He put two and two together. “It’s the same name. Where did you get this?”
Jinx picked herself up, sitting beside Apollo. She lowered her voice to a whisper, and the hair on his neck stood on end. “I overheard three men talking about an assembly that’s taking place on the Autumnal Equinox. One of them smacked the other to keep him quiet. The pin must have some meaning because of how agitated he’d been when I took it, and A.D. Marianna must be behind it.”
“And how did you get this pin from the man, as well as this address?” Apollo was hesitant, knowing that her methods of prying information were most likely immoral.
“That is not important.”
Apollo gracefully seized her hand, showing her the details he’d noticed upon walking in. “Hm. And it has nothing to do with the dried blood under your fingernails?” The base of his spine clenched, his stomach contracting. What was going on?
“I’d say no, but that’d be going against the rules of our deal since I’m not supposed to lie.” She ripped her touch from his as if it burned her. “Are you going to keep playing?”
Apollo moved another piece. “There is something more you are not telling me. It’s in the slant of your lip.”
Jinx leaned over to take her turn. “This conference will be about getting rid of the Cursed entirely.”
It sounded similar to what Warren had talked about in the House of Lords, with his ideas of eradicating the Cursed. There must be a connection there; Apollo was sure of it. Would Warren be showcasing his machine at this conference? Make Somnium a hunting ground for those who were different?
“Let’s finish this conversation for now. We’ll pick it up tomorrow,” he said. “There is a link between what I heard today in the House and this assembly; I’m certain of it. I’m not so sure of the pin. May I keep it? I want to study it a bit more.”
Jinx agreed and handed it over, returning to her side of the board. Apollo put the pin away and went to take his turn. Both played on in silence, trying to learn each other’s traits and tells. The bells of the clock gonged twice; it was two in the morning.
Jinx knocked over Apollo’s queen. He predicted the various routes this game could take. He could make a win in three elementary moves, but he was also aware that Jinx knew she could intercept it. What proved to be most difficult was disturbing her attention. He tried asking her questions and confusing her about the game, but his efforts were in vain.
There was one tactic he still had yet to try, however. “Remember last week when Fey called your eyes ‘undeniably beautiful?’”
“Yes.”
“I think she was wrong.”
She lifted her gaze, latching onto his own. “You think my eyes are plain?”
“No.” He chewed the inside of his cheek, drawing blood, stopping himself from grinning. “They’re divine. You’d make the Virtues jealous.”
This was the first time Apollo truly watched Jinx turn to stone. It was a pure reaction, a miscalculated crack in her façade.
“You are right. It’s not small talk that distracts you. It’s flattery.” He careened closer. “I win.” He revealed the board to her with wide arms before sinking into the thick couch. Apollo snaked out a cigarette and lit it, pleased with himself for playing the queen’s gambit. “You made it too easy.”
Jinx stood up from the opposite side of the table with a deadly calm. Coming to his side and caging him in with a single arm, she lowered her glare. “You cheated.”
“Don’t be mad at me for slipping up.” He deadpanned. “I was just playing the game.”
Apollo enjoyed this, being under her cinched scowl. Her face was now inches away from his own, and he noticed that she was missing traces of a scent.
They remained in a new challenge now, holding each other’s stare. Every so often, he drew in a drag of his cigarette. Her scowl transformed into a satisfied grin. Apollo was off-put. Why was she smiling?
With two fingers, Jinx pinched the cigarette from Apollo’s lips, drawing in a puff for herself. She blanched. “Disgusting. You smoke this?”
Apollo ignored the flutter in his veins, the heat kissing the tip of his ears. Jinx smudged the end of it on the ashtray beside him before standing up, leaving him alone and disappearing into her chambers.
Her withdrawal left his skin warm. Warmer than he’d ever experienced. His pulse reached the tips of his fingers. Apollo shrugged off the sensations, uninterested in dissecting their meaning.
His gaze turned instead to the chessboard they had been previously playing upon. The winning system on the board looked completely different to how he thought the game had finished. Instead of featuring the formation he’d left behind, the chess board had been rearranged into the fool’s mate.
Had the game they played been a farce? When had she changed the board?
Apollo shot up from his seat, knowing that Jinx couldn’t have made it to her room already. He beelined for the hallway. “What did you…do?” The words died on his tongue as he found the space empty.
Apollo scratched the back of his head. Damn this woman. It was too late to ponder if he’d actually won or she’d been leading him to think he won when, in reality, it’d been the opposite.
Exhausted once again, his mind and body ached for his bed, yearning for nothing more than a good night’s rest.
Apollo grabbed his stray coat—
Just then, a throbbing whipped his center. He fell to his knees, holding his middle. A torturing ache lashed up and down his spine. Apollo grunted, his composure thinning to a thread.
The silver ring on his finger burned a furious red. The nightmare inside him pressed against his skin, screaming to be let out. The mounting pressure of being ripped from the inside out lingered all around him, Apollo’s temples now straining to the point of explosion.
Then, it abruptly halted, cutting off the unbearable thrashing.
On the ground, holding himself up by his palms, Apollo panted. This pain grows into an excruciating convulsion.
He growled at the demon, “Was it you?” Apollo would rather throw himself off a bridge than talk to the thing inside of him. But he did anyway. His body was begging for clarity.
No.
Apollo breathed.
This was the Vessel. See why we need to destroy it now, Apollo Voclaine?
The ancient voice scorched Apollo’s brain. There were two things Apollo now knew: The Vessel was clearly tied somehow to the demon that lived inside of him, and it hurt like Akuji had ripped his soul in two.