Crown of Salt, page 2
part #4 of Faerie Lords Series
Percy grinned. It was a devastatingly handsome, boyish look upon him. He leaned in toward her. “I think you’re quite far from being able to make me regret a thing,” he told her. “Let’s simply agree that once you’re able to do so, you’ll be ready to get off of bedrest, shall we?”
A worried shiver went down Valentine’s spine. “I can’t afford bedrest,” she said. “An’ neither can you. He’ll come lookin’ if I don’t go back.”
Percy shrugged. “Nonetheless,” he said. “It’s what you require. If your drowned faerie comes looking for you, I suppose I’ll need to explain the situation, as your… well, as your doctor, I would say.”
Valentine swallowed. “You don’t explain things to faeries,” she said hoarsely. “They don’t ‘ave the head to understand explanations.”
“I can be quite compelling when I put my mind to it,” Percy told her, with another careless smile. He brushed right past her protests once again, reaching out to tug the covers over her with his still-shaking hands. “I’ll be nearby, if you need.”
“I won’t need,” Valentine whispered.
But the lack of her crucifix made her heart hurt in her chest, and she found she missed his hands unaccountably, once he was gone.
Chapter 2
“You’ll need to put away that nonsense o’ yours forever, dear, if you’re goin’ to be gettin’ married,” Valentine’s mother told her.
Valentine quickly dropped her fingers from the ivory charm at her wrist. “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said guardedly, though they’d had the conversation more than once before.
Her mother smiled sympathetically. “It’s too much like witchery, Valentine,” she said. “I know you don’t mean nothin’ by it, but it isn’t quite godly. Men like Sidney don’t come along every day. He’s not goin’ to want a wife what pretends to do magic.”
Valentine let out a slow breath. Her mother had never really believed in her magic. Before, she’d called it a harmless distraction… but she’d also shied away from mentioning it to anyone else at Church.
“I didn’t intend on bringin’ it up,” Valentine said carefully.
“That’s not th’ same as gettin’ rid of it,” her mother said gently.
A knock at the door saved Valentine from having to answer. Her mother quickly reached out to straighten Valentine’s dress, worrying over her like a hen. “Mind your manners now,” she said. “You’re engaged, not married. He could always call it off.”
Her mother rushed to open the door. Sidney stood on the other side. He was impeccably-dressed, as always, with a rich burgundy neckcloth and a high-collared jacket. He smiled as he saw Valentine, and blood flushed instantly to her cheeks.
“This morning, I think I must be the luckiest man alive,” he declared. He offered out his arm. “Would you do me the pleasure of accompanying me for a walk, Miss Valentine?”
Valentine took his arm — perhaps a bit too quickly to be proper — smiling shyly down at her feet. His body was warm, and she pressed her side into his, savoring the feel of it. “I’d go just about anywhere wi’ you, Sidney,” she told him softly.
“You invited a warlock into your home?” An incredulous man’s voice filtered through the walls, vaguely muffled. Valentine stirred from sleep, bleary and tired. It was daylight outside — weak, cloudy daylight, in the usual spirit of Hull — but while she’d barely managed to explore the hallway just outside her room, she was already fairly sure it was the only part of the flat with a window.
“Oh, please,” Percy’s voice replied, perfectly blasé. “I never invited her, Oliver. Give me some credit, won’t you?”
Valentine stumbled out of bed, wary. Warlocks weren’t well-trusted, for all manner of perfectly legitimate reasons. Percy hadn’t seemed interested in attacking her, but that didn’t mean all of his associates would be similarly-inclined.
“You know that’s not the whole of it,” the other voice grumbled. “Once you get tangled up wi’ faeries, you’re like to never get loose again. All it takes is one sorry an’ suddenly you owe your first-born or something—”
“Oh,” Percy said thoughtfully. “Well. I might have apologized once or twice, out of politeness. Dead men can’t have children, of course, so I suppose my first-born is off the table. I could promise her your children, perhaps. Are you planning on having any?”
Valentine blinked slowly, as she leaned against the door. Percy had apologized to her, she remembered. Twice, at least. Had she been in a better state at the time, she would have caught it. In Arcadia, thank you and sorry both implied a debt. Most faeries — and indeed, their warlocks as well — were viciously adept at catching such careless slips of the tongue.
“Would you stop havin’ fun at this?” Oliver demanded despairingly. “What am I goin’ to do wi’ you, you stupid knob?”
“Life is far too long to take anything too seriously, Oliver,” Percy replied lightly. “Stop worrying so much. Whatever trouble results, it will be on my head and not yours.” He paused. “And maybe your future children. I’m going to need to start work finding you a wife, if you’re going to have any. I admit, that task does intimidate me somewhat.”
“Percy!” Oliver snapped. “This isn’t a joke.”
“Well, I was joking,” Percy told him, puzzled. “I don’t really want your first-born, Oliver. If you try to force a baby upon me, I shall be very put out with you.”
An inarticulate sound of frustration was his only reply.
Footsteps headed toward the door, and Valentine stumbled back, landing heavily on the bed.
Percy stepped through. He’d long since scrubbed the dried blood from his hands, though he still wore his shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and he’d discarded the tweed jacket somewhere else. His red eyes had faded to a very pleasant, clear blue color. His snowy hair was still mussed, as though he’d just rolled himself out of bed, but he carried an old-fashioned leather medical bag with him.
Following behind him was a shorter, younger-looking man in red plaid pants and a tattered leather jacket. His features were narrower and less delicate, and he wasn’t nearly as pale as Percy — though, to be perfectly fair, very few people were that pale. Percy’s associate had hair of a startling crimson color that Valentine had never seen before, and there was a tight alertness to his posture that reminded her of an animal. His eyes had a yellowish cast to them, and he narrowed his gaze warily upon her as he saw her.
“Sun’s out,” Valentine warned Percy shortly, as he approached the bed.
Percy waved a hand dismissively. “It’s cloudy today,” he said. He dug inside the bag to pull out a blood pressure cuff, and offered his hand out to her. “Would you give me your arm please, dear?”
Oliver scowled behind him, shifting on his feet. Valentine took Percy’s hand in wordless resignation. He slipped the cuff onto her arm, and started the process of taking her pressure. “Oliver, this is Valentine. Valentine, this is Oliver. He was kind enough to bring some food for you. I’m afraid the only solid food I have about is for the animals, so it was quite good of him.”
“Hope you like pub food,” Oliver muttered. He still didn’t look pleased to be there, and his expression made it clear that he was even less pleased with Valentine being there.
Valentine smiled narrowly at the newcomer. “I prefer th’ blood of th’ innocent,” she rasped. “I’m sure you both know it’s hard to come by in Hull, so pub food will have to do.”
Percy blinked at her, startled. “Was that a joke?” he asked, delighted. “Why, you do have a sense of humor!”
A stray sunbeam broke through the clouds to brush across his forearm before Valentine could reply, and he jerked his hand back abruptly. The brief contact left an angry red sunburn on his pale skin, as though he’d been out on the beach for hours. As the moment of light passed, however, he went back to checking her blood pressure, and Valentine frowned.
“You haven’t got a bit of survival instinct, have you?” she asked dryly. She reached behind her to pull down the window’s shade.
Percy smiled at her. “And yet, here I stand,” he said. “It will catch up to me one of these decades, I’m sure.”
This did give Valentine a moment of pause as she puzzled over the apparent contradiction. Oliver’s brow knitted behind Percy, and she suspected the younger man was considering the words as well.
“As I thought,” Percy said, ignoring the moment. “Your resting blood pressure is almost nothing. Something is suppressing your vital signs. That’s normal for you, I take it?”
Valentine shrugged. “I have a piece of th’ Deeps attached to my soul,” she said. “I don’t feel much of anythin’. Don’t need to breathe, neither. I’ve survived things before that should ‘ave killed a normal human being.”
“You said before that you serve a creature called the Drowned Lord,” Percy observed. “I take it that’s a literal moniker, given your physical state.”
Oliver blanched behind him, and Valentine knew that the younger man had heard the name before. “What’ve you done, Percy?” he groaned, pressing his hands to his face.
Percy glanced behind him curiously. “Oh, then you’ve heard of him?” he said. “I wasn’t aware you were such a connoisseur of faerie lore, Oliver.”
“I’m not!” Oliver snapped at him, raising his face from his hands. “I’m just local, you twit. If you’d lived ‘ere long enough, you’d know him too. He’s—” The younger man glanced toward Valentine, and shut his mouth abruptly.
Valentine smiled sharply. “He’s a plague upon Hull,” she finished for him. “A demanding patron deity, of sorts. Those times he deigns to remember th’ city, woe always seems to follow.”
“Hm,” said Percy. The expression on his face didn’t change, but Valentine thought she could see gears turning in his head nonetheless. “You know, I thought you had a local accent, Valentine. You’re originally from Hull yourself, aren’t you?”
“An’ you’re clearly not,” she replied. “What’s a ponce like you doin’ at th’ end o’ the line out here?”
Percy arched one white eyebrow at her. “That’s not a nice way to describe your hometown,” he said.
“We’re allowed to call it that,” Oliver told Percy wryly, crossing his arms and leaning back against the doorframe. “You’re not.” The realization that Valentine was local had softened his attitude toward her very slightly. When Valentine had grown up in Hull, it had been a busy port town, full of life and industry. Somewhere along the next century though, it had hit a hard decline. The locals were simultaneously ironic and defensive about the city’s much-lessened status.
Overly-refined Southern men like Percy often made fun of everything from the city’s looks to the accent of its inhabitants. Sometimes just putting that poncy Southern accent on display was enough to get someone’s hackles up, as a consequence.
“Well,” Percy murmured — he said it like an acknowledgement, rather than a dismissal. He considered her thoughtfully. “…I suppose I’ll go first, then. I spent much of my life in and around Oxford. I grew a bit tired of the company there, so I decided to move somewhere less political.”
Valentine gave him a dry look. “You were exiled?” she said.
Percy grinned. “Oh, I wish,” he said. “That would make for a far more interesting story. No, I meant it as I said it — I left.” He flipped a stethoscope from the bag next to him, and carefully pressed it to her chest. “Breathe in, please,” he added, and she complied.
“If there’s another vampire somewhere in Hull, I’ve never met them,” Percy continued. “That suits me well. Vampires are not doomed to be monsters by our nature; we don’t even need to kill in order to survive. I’m arguably more of an ethical eater than most human beings I know.” He moved the stethoscope down. “Another deep breath, please,” he added, and Valentine sucked in her breath.
“The thing is,” Percy told her conversationally, “I’ve discovered that when we congregate together, there is a bit of a monstrous tendency. It’s an echo chamber of old, world-weary predators, all convincing each other that anything is permissible. I far prefer to live among people who remind me how to act like a decent human being.”
Valentine frowned at that. “You’re not,” she said bluntly. “A human being, I mean.”
“All the more reason to be decent, I suppose.” Percy moved the stethoscope one last time. “Last breath,” he told her. When she obeyed, he shook his head wonderingly and pulled the stethoscope away. “You sound like a drowned woman,” he said. “What a curious case you are.”
“I am a drowned woman,” Valentine snapped, perhaps a bit too forcefully.
Mouth full, lungs full, the taste of brackish water, the burn of salt in her eyes, screaming silently in the darkness—
“Steady on,” Percy said, blinking. He pressed a hand to her shoulder, concerned. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to stir something up.”
Oliver groaned. Valentine set her jaw. There was a genuinely compassionate look in Percy’s eyes that she decided she did not particularly like.
“That’s three times you’ve apologized, an’ three debts you owe me now,” she told Percy harshly. “Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”
Percy frowned at that. “I’ve hit a nerve,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”
“You hit a nerve when you saved my life,” Valentine told him. “It takes a lot to kill me. I can’t think th’ next time I’ll get so close.”
The words shifted something behind his eyes. Percy straightened, and glanced back toward Oliver. “Can you give us a moment, Oliver?” he asked.
Oliver frowned warily. Valentine saw him weigh the idea of protesting — but he must have decided against it, because he said: “I’ll just pop th’ food in th’ fridge.”
The younger man stepped back outside, and closed the door behind him. Percy listened intently to his retreating footsteps for a few more moments before he finally spoke. “You really want to die so badly?” he asked quietly.
Valentine considered him wearily. “I don’t want much of anythin’,” she rasped. “What I don’t want is what I’ve got. So I guess you could say I don’t want to die… but I don’t want to live.”
Percy pressed his lips together. “So why not kill yourself before now?” His voice had an oddly insistent tone.
Valentine smiled grimly. “I tried,” she said. “Once. My patron put some safeguards in place after that. I’m bound. Can’t even give myself a scratch.”
Percy frowned. “But I could,” he said. He reached up to run his fingers along the column of her neck. Valentine shivered at his touch. “I could kill you, couldn’t I?”
Valentine met his eyes. “You could,” she said. “Th’ Drowned Lord would take it out of your hide. But you could.” She angled her neck to give him a better view of her pulse.
Percy hesitated. His fingers closed around the back of her neck. He tugged her closer, ducking his head to her shoulder. “You’re sure?” he asked. His breath whispered over her skin.
Valentine’s heart sped up at the thought. Mortal fear mixed with unutterable relief. It would be relatively quick this way, she knew. Maybe it would even be pleasurable, from what she’d heard.
There are worse ways to go.
“Go on,” she said. She swallowed, hard enough to feel his lips graze her skin. That alone was oddly pleasant. Now that she was staring death in the eyes again, Valentine realized that she hadn’t been touched with any sort of affection for a very, very long time.
There was a brief, sharp pinch at her neck. Warm, tingling bliss flooded through her veins, chasing away the touch of the Deeps. Valentine gasped, reaching up to tangle her fingers in Percy’s hair. It was just as soft as it looked, and terribly satisfying to touch. She leaned into his bite with a soft moan, throwing herself wholeheartedly into the feeling of it. There was no reason not to enjoy her last moments, after all.
Percy wrapped his arm around her back, holding her close. It was an oddly intimate way to die, with his body pressed against her, and the scent of wintergreen surrounding her. The sharp sensation in her veins confused her — it was such an intoxicating feeling, after so many decades of nothing, that she might have begged for more if she’d had the presence of mind. Signals crossed in her brain, and the strange thought of kissing him came and went like a cloud across the sun.
Percy shivered against her, with a quiet moan of his own. A witch’s blood was potent, and she had to imagine he could taste the dark, heady power of the Deeps on his tongue. She knitted her fingers harder in his hair, urging him on.
But he broke away abruptly.
That tingling warmth fled. Percy’s breath came harsh against her neck. His arms held her tightly, as the shivers of his hunger continued.
Valentine clenched her teeth together. “What’re you doin’?” she managed. “Keep goin’.” She meant it to come out as a demand, but it sounded pathetic instead. Pleading.
Percy closed his eyes against her. His fingers dug into her back. “I thought you’d change your mind,” he whispered. He sounded quietly horrified that she hadn’t.
Valentine didn’t have a response for that. Frustrated tears slipped down her face, as the realization that she wasn’t going to die sunk in once more.
“I’m sorry,” Percy said again, very softly.
Four favors.
“I could make you very sorry,” Valentine whispered hoarsely.
“I know,” Percy told her. He opened his eyes — they had a red sheen to them once again — and he very slowly straightened. Valentine’s fingers slipped from his hair, and she found herself crying in earnest, with great bitter sobs.
Normally, she would have shunted that keen new despair into the crucifix around her neck. But her crucifix was sitting in a drawer, too far away to touch. Instead, everything hurt all over again, and she felt herself flailing for mental purchase, unable to catch her balance.
Percy pulled her into his arms and held her gently while she cried, stroking her tangled hair. Valentine hid her face in his carefully-starched shirt, agonizingly humiliated by the necessity. Percy said nothing further, but she could feel the guilt in his quiet touch.
