And crumbles.
Brontë tucks me beneath his chin as stone crashes around us. I cling to him, and he clings to me. His shoulders take the brunt of the collapse. When the last broken piece tumbles to the ground, Jezebel chuffs. It sounds like a condescending,Humans.
I blink down at the angel who fell apart reading her book.
And laugh.
Brontë stares at me in wonder before belting the most radiant guffaw I’ve ever heard. His laughter is the sound of birdsong during a summer sunset: harmonious and warm and promising a night full of stars.
Thunder rumbles furiously overhead, and our laughter slowly trickles to silence. I’m all too aware of how dangerously close we are: our arms around each other, my cheek plastered to his chest. His scent wraps me in its bittersweet embrace, his warmth thawing the frost in my marrow.
My thoughts inevitably spiral to the past: his healing lips on my cheek, his grounding arm on my shoulders. I backtrack to when he saved my life, twice. Ruminate on when he comforted me at the academy. Skip our visit to Voodoo & Velvet that didn’t end as well as it began. Circle to whatever that moment was we shared at Morgenstern Manor, a look of pure want on his face as he held mine in the palm of his hand.
Hot and cold. Push and pull.
Whoever said women are indecisive surely never crossed paths with men in their thirties.
“Brontë?”
“Hm?”
“You can let go now.”
“If I do, are you going to fall for me again?”
My unamused scowl carves decades into my cheeks. “Brontë.”
“That face.” He chuckles, releasing his hold and thumbing his lighter as I snatch my knife from the snow. “So, what have I missed?”
I shake my head once. “You need to leave.”
“Why? Whatever news you have now will save Emi the time later.”
“We had a deal, remember? You’re breaking it by being here.”
The residual laughter in his gaze dissipates, swallowed as if by a black hole. He fishes a cigar from his jacket and lights it, breathing gray smoke through his nostrils. “I’m tired of sitting on my ass and doing nothing. I can’t fucking sleep. I can’t talk to Dantë because he’s too busy grieving over a woman who may or may not be deadat Leviathan’s hands. Quinn is obviously off the table. Virgil doesn’t need this shit on her plate. I have no one else, Poppy.No one.”
He may as well have just thrown himself on his knees and begged.
The sky bellows, lightning arcing as ice begins to fall. My lungs expel a long sigh as I gesture to the Aurelius family crypt.
“Let’s get inside,monsieur.It’s a long story.”
COMET
Brontë
“Interesting tale,” I say, lighting the last rusted sconce inside the mausoleum as Poppy perches on St. Aurelius’s massive sarcophagus. Jezebel remains by the door, already snoring. “I’m confused, though, as to why the coordinates were meant to lead Nikolai here if there’s nothing waiting but bones. Where is Leviathan’s welcome wagon?”
Poppy puffs on her vape and flicks her knife back and forth in thought, the silence filled by the sleet slamming outside. “Delay in arrival due to inclement weather?”
I chuckle, stubbing my cigar on a shelved Aurelius skull crowned with rotted flowers. “I suppose we waited too long to scope this place out. The invitation most likely came with an unspoken expiration date.”
“Mhm. Speaking of the invitation that was inmypossession and not yours, how did you know where this place is?”
“Nikolai mentioned an old cemetery outside the city. It didn't take many brain cells to find it on a map.”
Her baby blues taper on me like she thinks I’m full of shit.