Page 77 of A Door in the Dark
It was the kind of dismissal she’d expected from him. He offered a final look before circling around her, aiming for the hallway that led to where Theo was being treated. Ren considered letting him go, keeping her head down for now, but she’d waited too long for this moment to let it pass by.
“Not even a discussion with your future daughter-in-law?”
Those words wiped the smugness off his face. She enjoyed the unsettled expression that crept up instead. “Excuse me?”
“Oh. My sincerest apologies. I thought you already knew.”
It was a pleasure to drink in his confusion. She could see him struggling to form a response. Ren held out one arm. There was a distant scrape of stone wings. Vega had nestled out of sight, up in the rafters of the great domed ceiling. She landed now with a flourish on Ren’s wrist.
“Theo and I are bonded.”
Landwin Brood seemed to see her for the first time. His eyes narrowed at the sight of Vega perched so comfortably there. She knew he was an intelligent man. Smart enough to see what his son had done, and all the implications it had on their future. Ren drove the dagger home.
“It will be such an honor to join your house.”
He took a single, threatening step forward, but his words were cut off by the groan of a door. Down the hallway, one of the medics emerged. Ren saw an afterglow of golden light from whatever spells they were performing to keep Theo alive. A pair of surgeons followed. The witnesses forced Landwin to bite his tongue. The brief flash of anger in his expression was smoothed over by that same polish Theo had summoned so many times in the woods.
“Your son is awake,” the medic called. “If you want to see him.”
Landwin spared Ren a look. “I can’t wait to learn more about you.”
And then he was walking. The surgeons stepped aside. He entered that magic-brightened room and slammed the door shut behind him. The others took that as their cue to leave as well.
“Good work,” the medic said to Ren. “It wasn’t pretty magic, but it saved his life.”
Ren nodded. She was still too shaken up by her first encounter with Landwin Brood to respond. She stood there, staring at the closed door to the operatory, until pain laced down her forearm. Vega’s claws had dug into her skin. A spot of blood showed through the fabric. Ren watched the darkness spread in a circle.
It was a good reminder. There would be blood. She may have struck first, but Landwin Brood was well protected. His house was flush with assets. Destroying him would require great sacrifice. It already had. After a moment she shooed Vega into the air.
Carefully she rolled both sleeves.
“Learn everything you can about me, Landwin Brood. It won’t save you.”
42
Ren was pacing her mother’s apartment.
A letter had just arrived, bearing the Broods’ family seal. Her mother had made tea. She’d returned to the corner of their living room and was sipping silently. Ren’s own cup had stopped steaming some time ago. Her mother did not push her to open the letter, though Ren could see her peeking out from behind the book she was reading every few seconds.
It had been three days since they’d survived the fight on the bridge and ported back to Balmerick. Ren had been denied all access to Theo. Even if the explanation was reasonable—the Broods’ house doctor ordered no visitors for the sake of proper rest—Ren knew the real reason they wanted Theo isolated. The Broods wanted time to convince him of his mistake. While their bond was fresh and new and relatively painless to have removed. They knew it would only grow stronger with time.
She’d allowed herself to believe they were failing, because she could feel Theo’s mounting frustration. It was a sixth sense that her body was trying to process and accept as a normal, functioning piece of who she was. A sound just out of earshot. A flicker of movement at the corner of the eye that vanished if you turned to look directly at it. She’d felt brief flashes of impatience and exhaustion and heartache. But in the hours before the letter arrived, she’d felt a single emotion humming across their link: dread.
What did the letter say? What was Theo so fearful of that it dominated his every thought? Ren continued pacing until it became unbearable. She let out a breath, snatched the letter from the table, and ripped open the seal. The letter unfolded. Her eyes skipped down the page. It was an old study trick that allowed her to read faster than most students. Pinpointing key phrases and allowing her mind to fill in the rest with logical guesswork.
“And?” her mother asked. “What does it say?”
“It’s an invitation.”
Now Ren understood Theo’s dread. She’d drawn first blood. Maybe she’d been too bold in her first meeting with Landwin Brood. Now he struck back. It was not the death blow she’d expected. He was not forcing his son to sever their bond. It was far more cunning. Ren knew that it was her fault. She’d made a mistake.
“They’ve scheduled Clyde’s funeral.”
“The Winters boy?”
“Yes. It’s at the same time as Timmons’ and the others’.”
Her one request. She’d asked that the two funerals be scheduled at separate times, hoping to be present for both. Landwin must have learned of that request, and now he wielded it against her. Clyde’s funeral would be in Safe Harbor’s great monastery—located in the Upper Quarter—as befitted his station. It would also be the first event that Theo publicly attended since returning home. An event he was personally inviting her to attend. I would have you at my side while I mourn my best friend, the letter read.
