Chapter 7

"It's working," Julian whispered after Grismal left us. "You have him wrapped around your finger."

I was about to open my mouth to tell Julian I wasn't acting, but he shushed me. He retrieved my cloak, which had been in the loving care of one of my personal goblins that followed us everywhere.

"Here, put this on," Julian ordered, holding the cloak up for me. My fists were still clenched at my side. He must have seen that none of my rage was, in any way, an act. Yet, he sighed in an irritated fashion as though none of that mattered, only that I got dressed immediately. "We're going to the top side, back to the world of the living. He permitted me to leave Mearnox, so that means I can take you to see your son."

"What?" I hissed. Suddenly, the ghosts of past wrongs fled from my mind. Was Julian going to take me to see Ian? Did he mean it?

"Yes, hurry before the old bag of rocks notices you're missing."

"He'll notice. His servants are everywhere. They hear everything."

"What's Grismal the Dismal going to do? Kill you?" Julian scoffed at the thought. Then he smiled knowingly at me, and his dimples were working overtime. It was the kind of smile he used to flash at women so that they forgot all common sense. "You have changed. The girl I once knew was never afraid of breaking the rules."

I bit my tongue and allowed him to wrap the cloak around my shoulders. Before I could step away from him, Julian took the liberty of fastening the silver chain around my neck. Even the dim light of the palace couldn't hide his ubiquitous fox-like smirk from my sight. His nimble fingers brushed against the hollow of my throat as he did so. His touch was warm and gentle, which was a striking contrast to the sight of his muscular shoulders and arms. I tried to keep my eyes off his tan muscles, which bulged from under the fabric of his tattered robe.

"Ready?" Julian asked and took my upper arm. He saw that I was in a trance of deep thought, so he simply dragged me from the dining room. Even now, despite my age, he was still treating me like some stupid teenage girl he found at a high school dance in Remin. "Off we go."

I didn't protest as he led me out the back door and back toward the caverns. I vaguely recalled that path led out of Mearnox. I told myself I was going along because it was an educational experience. He was showing me the way out of here if I needed it in the future.

All I could think the whole time was how I should have killed him half an hour ago. Now, he was dragging me about like an old doll. Even so, I had to admit. I missed this — being treated like a much younger, more naive me. My husband and I were middle-aged. He would never treat me with such abject disrespect.

Then again, Blake's grip on his left hand had been different since Julian cut off his fingers twenty years ago. Even though his lost fingers had been perfectly reattached, sometimes things just slipped out of his grasp, so much so that Blake tried to avoid using that hand.

"Is leaving Mearnox really so easy?"

"Yes, if I have Grismal's permission, but I can't allow myself to be seen by any mortals. That's not his rule. It's a rule that has been set by a higher power."

"Who?"

"Even the Gods have people they answer to," Julian chuckled. "Don't worry about it. We won't stir up too much trouble. No one will see me. As for you, don't worry your little head over it. You're not dead yet."

"Grismal showed himself to me during the Blight Rain and then at my father's cottage."

"Yes, he did so at a significant cost to himself. He only took that risk because he no longer cared about his fate or that of his kingdom. The dead and the living are two worlds that were never made to intersect. You'll see. One day you too will die, Melody."

"Not today, I would hope."

Julian slipped into the shadows as we emerged from the cave and stepped back into the world of the living. I didn't know if it was a trick of the light, but he made himself one with the shadows as Grismal had done when he stalked me in my cottage.

I didn't care what tricks he was using to blend with the world of the living. I was never more relieved to see the sun and breathe the fresh morning air. The air up here was utterly devoid of the smell of mold and whiffs of sulfuric volcanic rock. It was as though the world was reminding me that I belonged here, in this world, and not in the Land of the Dead.

Yes, even you, Melody Balan, cannot will yourself to call Mearnox home.

"Where is he?" I quipped as Julian led me out from my father's properties. "Sebastian? Is he far? Oceans away, perhaps? Is this a trick?"

"No."

"Do you even know where he is right now?"

"Of course. He's at River Way."

"What?"

How could that be possible? I was just there a couple of weeks ago when the storm destroyed half the city. Why would Ian be there out of all the places he could have gone? I thought he was doing his best to hide from us.

"He was injured, and there was nowhere else left to go. He went there to recover."

I stared at Julian with about a thousand emotions moving across my face. Because of my particular combination of witchy looks, I was sure I simply looked pissed off.

"Let's go. He's expecting you."

~*~

I needed time to process my emotions.

I thought Ian wanted nothing to do with my husband or me. My knowledge of what happened to him after I was imprisoned inside Villaris on Diremore twenty years ago was scattered at best. I was told he was taken to Lewisville with Glenn, my husband's chauffeur. There, Ian lived until he was 16 when a fire broke out in his small town, killing nearly everyone living there. Ian fell in with Alesandra for a while, but he eventually left her about a year ago. Then, his whereabouts were unknown to us, or so I thought.

Blake knew more than he shared with me. I preferred it that way. I told him not to tell me anything I didn't need to know. I did it for Ian's safety and my husband's. However, back then, the person I was afraid of spying on me was Calmen Jin, the leader of Qarnik. Not the Reaper himself.

"He is a little beat up," Julian explained. After the last flight of Blight Rain, much of Manna City was in ruins. Finding an abandoned car to drive back to my husband's old home was easy. I drove, not only because I knew the way better but because Julian was a spirit, and I suppose it was against the laws of the universe for him to take the wheel.

The last time I was here in River Way, it was during the rain. Orion was gravely injured. I had begged the gods to save him. It wasn't the gods who answered. Instead, it was the Reaper. As we came to the entrance of my home, Julian made me stop the car. He found a pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment and lit himself one.

"Ian's inside," Julian said, gesturing for me to walk the rest of the way down the woody tree-covered road ahead. He snorted and patted the door of the beat-up minivan to wake me from my thoughts. "Go on. See your son. You're walking the rest of the way alone. Did you think I would step inside that place, even if I am already dead?"

He had a point. The likes of him didn't belong inside River Way. I knew it was silly for me to treat that old manor with any pleasant nostalgia. It was only a sacred place because Orienne had made it so.

Who was the Goddess Orienne to the likes of me?

No one.

Less than no one.

Orienne would throw me into the darkest, deepest pits of Mearnox herself if she had the opportunity.

I got out of the car and started walking. With each step I took, the soft light of the morning sun wiped away my memories of Mearnox. It had been a month since I had been here. I was surprised to see that the manor had been repaired in a cursory fashion. The fallen trees had been carted away, and a collapsed portion of the East Wing had scaffolding around it, surely a sign the manor hadn't been abandoned altogether. It was surprising to me, considering the closest city — Manna City — herself was in shambles.

It may be as well that the grace of a goddess would outlast the feeble creations of man.

"Madame Thorne!" A voice exclaimed from the hedges. It was the gardener, one I had undoubtedly met before but whose name I never attempted to remember. I nodded at him, but before he could bring the welcome party (I knew there would be a welcome party because if the gardener had returned, there must be other servants around these grounds), I brought my index finger to my lips to shush him. I didn't want them to make a big deal. I hadn't come here to feast on fine foods or to empty their wine cellar.

"Is there a boy named Ian here?" I whispered. "I am not supposed to be here right now. I want to slip in and out if that is possible."

"Of course," the gardener replied. He removed his cap and scratched the remaining stray hairs on his balding head. "He was in the South Garden when I left this morning. I'll take you to him."

I nodded and waved the old man away.

"I know where the South Garden is."

"Are you sure, Madame Thorne?" The gardener offered again. I supposed he was worried because he didn't think a woman wearing heels and a dress could manage. River Way, even when I was a child, could only be tamed so much, even by the most aggressive gardener. I suppose. It was like me, in a way — wild, tangled, and dangerous.

"Yes, don't worry, my dear sir. I know these grounds better than I know the landscape of your master's body," I snarked in a way that made the old man blush and then chuckle. "And believe me, neither withhold any secrets from me."

"The path is muddy today, be careful. Not Blight Rain. Just plain rain," the gardener yelled with glowing optimism before I headed out of hearing range.

I came across two more maids who were off giggling about gossip I knew nothing about. They cleared their throats and addressed me with a good morning. The servants never knew what to call me around here. My name was Melody Balan, but they were afraid of offending me by calling me that. Not especially when Blake constantly referred to me as his wife. If I stayed away too long, he would begin referring to me with ever more sarcasm as his "beloved wife." If he started referring to me as his "Dearest Love," I knew I was in trouble. That meant I had stayed away too long, and there was a danger of him ripping my dress from my back as soon as the bedroom doors were closed.

Either way, the staff settled on Madame Thorne because that was the least offensive of the choices.

It was hard to come back here now, not only because I had cut ties with the world of the living.

It was because I didn't know who these servants reported to anymore. Blake was gone. Was it Orion who was paying the staff and repairing the manor? I thought he had left the city with Lycenia.

There wasn't time to speculate. In the South Garden, a man was sitting in a wheelchair. No, not a man. It was a boy. He had his back turned to me, but I recognized him by his messy tuft of black hair.

It was Ian, my long-lost son.