Crown of Salt, page 4
part #4 of Faerie Lords Series
“You would have better been a pagan, little Valentine,” the Drowned Lord whispered in her ear, as her husband’s form retreated. “You sold yourself so cheaply, for the bonds of Christian marriage. But there is no room for witches in their philosophy.”
Her ivory crucifix hung heavy about her neck. Valentine closed her eyes, clutching at its cold comfort with her power. She would be better numb, she knew, than living out this nightmare.
It took nearly an hour, even without her crucifix, for the endless feeling of drowning to drive her mad.
She had learned ways to cope, in spite of the hideous torture of it. Counting down numbers in her head. Imagining other places, other daydreams. There were so many more beautiful realms in Arcadia, and Valentine had seen so many of them. There was a peaceful, sunlit glade in the Hedge just near to the Briars, speckled with vibrant flowers of every shape and color. Near to Fool’s Hope, the sky sometimes turned gold, as though some faerie craftsman had gilded the clouds one by one.
But there was a new memory this time that made itself known, as her muscles spasmed and her body strangled itself in agony.
A touch of impossible, fleeting warmth. The scent of wintergreen.
“Don’t give up. There’s always hope.”
Why that damned vampire came to mind, she had no idea. That flippant smile of his was a lie — all the more terrible because he believed the lie himself. There was no hope. There was no happiness that ever lasted. If he had been kind, he would have ended her as she had asked — no, begged — before she found herself wishing to die all over again, at the bottom of the deepest, darkest ocean in existence.
His lips at her throat, his fingers brushing at her hair, the awful kindness in his eyes—
The madness settled in, more keen and terrible than ever before.
It stretched on for an eternity. To call it that was a mistake, though there was no other word for it. Not once was she allowed to lose consciousness, to surrender herself to the waters and give herself up. The Deeps knew her threshold, knew her soul, and they would not give her quarter until their master allowed it.
When the dark realm finally released her from its grip, Valentine came back to the present, curled into herself uselessly. The Drowned Lord tucked cold fingers beneath her chin, dragging her gaze up to his.
“Your husband traded me your life, Pallid Valentine,” he told her. “It is my right to decide how you shall live and die. But it was you who offered me your soul.”
Valentine closed her eyes.
A month, a year, an eternity. How long had he drowned her in the depths? Each time, the Drowned Lord asked her for her true name, told her that the misery would cease, if she would only swear her soul into his service.
“I did,” she whispered weakly. There was no use in protesting, claiming that he’d forced her to it. Faerie logic held little room for human emotion.
“I have lessons to reteach you, it seems,” the Drowned Lord told her. “Lord Blackfrost’s wanderings can wait.”
Chapter 4
It was the height of stupidity, returning to Hull. Returning to him was even more ridiculous.
Still — two months later, Valentine dragged herself into the reception area of a little animal clinic, dripping cold, bloody water all over the floor.
The woman behind the desk — a quiet blond in blue scrubs — blinked violently at the sight of her. She shoved to her feet. “Are you — are you all right, ma’am?” she asked nervously. “Should I call an ambulance?”
Valentine rolled her eyes. “I’ve ‘ad worse,” she muttered. “Where’s Percival? I’ll ‘ave my business wi’ him an’ be off.”
The poor woman behind the desk looked stricken at that. “Er,” she said, clearly trying to assess whether the small, intimidating woman in front of her was a threat to her employer.
Valentine narrowed her eyes, and the receptionist shrank a bit beneath her gaze. “Go an’ tell him,” she said. “Tell him he’s four favors in th’ hole. He’ll just laugh at you, I expect, but he knows it anyway.”
The woman scrambled for the office in the back. Valentine leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms tiredly, waiting for her return.
It wasn’t the receptionist that returned for her, however.
Percy stepped out of the back room with surprising alacrity. There was a long white coat over his carefully-starched button-down. It somehow managed to make him look professional, even surrounded by all the modern trappings of a bloody puppy doctor. His snowy white hair was neat again, but his clear blue eyes spiked with alarm as he saw her.
“My dear Valentine,” Percy said. He strode toward her quickly, eating up the steps between them. His hands grasped at hers, tight and distressed. “You look so truly awful. Please, have a seat. I’ll find my kit.”
Valentine snatched her hands back from him as though she’d been burned. “I’m not here for help,” she said. “You’ve got something of mine. I need it back.”
Percy blinked quickly. “So I do,” he said. He seemed strangely flustered to see her, stumbling for words in a way that he hadn't done the first time they’d met. “And I’ll give it back straightaway, if you show me what you’ve done to yourself this time.”
“I did nothing to myself,” Valentine snapped. “Got caught in a nasty bit of th’ Hedge. I don’t need a doctor.”
Percy ignored her quite ably. “Could you find me a clean needle and thread, Giselle?” he called back. “Some disinfectant too, please!”
Valentine snatched him by the collar of his very expensive shirt, hauling him toward her with a snarl. “I don’t need stitches, you posh little worm,” she hissed again. “Give me what’s mine and I’m off again.”
She was shorter than him, of course — but that hadn’t seemed to dim her capacity for intimidation in Oliver’s case. Percy smiled down at her, however, utterly unafraid. “I was convinced I’d never see you again,” he told her. “I’m so very pleased to be wrong. I hope you’ll stay for a spot of tea.”
Valentine narrowed her eyes at him. The scent of wintergreen assaulted her senses, weakening her resolve in ways she hadn’t anticipated. “You don’t drink tea,” she accused him.
“Don’t I, indeed!” Percy said, offended. “I’m still an Englishman, my dear Valentine. Now do come upstairs, please. You’ve traveled all this way again, after all.” He closed his fingers around hers, and — gently, but firmly — pried them away from his lapels.
The woman in the scrubs slipped back out to the front, her face wary. She offered out a pair of gloves and a freshly-threaded needle to Percy, and he snatched them up quickly.
“I’ll be upstairs,” he told the receptionist, as he dragged Valentine’s sodden form along. “Go on and close down soon, will you?”
He pulled Valentine up the stairs behind him, before the poor woman could formulate an answer.
“Would you please have a seat and let me look at that leg?” Percy asked, exasperated. Valentine blatantly ignored him, as she pushed her way down the hall toward the guest room.
The door was unlocked, thankfully. But it only took her a moment of rummaging through the bedside drawer to realize that the thing she’d come so far to find was missing.
Valentine whirled on him. “Where is it?” she demanded. A hint of panic seeped into her voice before she could stop herself. She knew her face was pale and worried.
“Er,” said Percy sheepishly. “Your jewelry, you mean? It’s quite safe. I had Oliver put it elsewhere for me. The bedside table in the guest room simply didn’t seem secure.”
Valentine clenched her nails into her palms. “I need it back,” she said hoarsely. A dim, dizzy feeling had begun to tug at her mind, now that she was so close. Intellectually, she believed him when he said he still had it… but its visible absence still made her breathing quicken in fear. “Please just — just let me have it back.”
Percy blinked, clearly taken aback by her extreme reaction. “It’s yours, after all,” he told her reassuringly. “Of course I’ll give it back. Just come this way.”
He guided her only a few feet down the hallway, toward the door that had been locked before, and pulled a key from his pocket. Inside was indeed another bedroom, cloistered away from any problematic windows to the outside. It wasn’t quite what Valentine had expected, though she now realized that she’d had no concrete expectations at all. The room was sparse, though what furniture it had was of significant quality. There was a large, darkwood bed with a navy blue coverlet, still slightly-mussed, and a writing desk in the corner that had probably been built precisely when such things were still in style.
Percy helped her toward the writing desk. His arm had closed lightly around her shoulders at some point, vaguely comforting her without drawing too much attention to the gesture.
“It’s in the right-hand drawer at the top,” Percy told her. “You’ll have to take it yourself, I’m afraid.”
Valentine tugged open the small drawer. As she did, she felt his body stiffen minutely against her, though the discomfort didn’t show on his face. Her fingers closed around the ivory crucifix, and she swayed on her feet in mute relief.
Fear, sorrow, and despair all flooded away from her at once, curling into the old talisman. They didn’t disappear entirely, but they dulled enough to give her back her wits.
Percy was looking very pale next to her, though he did his best not to draw attention to it. Valentine shoved the crucifix into the pocket of her trench coat, and he breathed a bit easier.
“All in order?” he asked her. When she failed to respond, he took it as an affirmative. “Good. Now you can sit down, and we’ll take a look at that leg—”
Valentine’s eyes caught on a neat pile of papers in the back corner of the writing desk. At the top was a crisp photocopy of a document that struck her memory violently. She pulled it toward her, thunderstruck. Percy had the good manners to look away with a wince.
“Er,” Percy said, and his strange behavior suddenly made sense. “I went looking at things that perhaps I oughtn’t have looked at,” he admitted. That flustered expression came back to his face. “If I’d known you were coming back, perhaps I wouldn’t have done. But you left me quite curious, and I fear I don’t handle curiosity very well, all told.”
Valentine stared at the copy of the old marriage register in her hands. She knew she ought to be angry, but the shock of it had yet to fully settle in.
“…would you tell me?” Percy asked softly. His fingers were still closed around her shoulder. “You are Valentine Monroe, aren’t you? Or… Valentine Ellis, as it were.”
The name sent a strange shiver down Valentine’s spine, and she knew he couldn’t help but feel it. “Where’d you find this?” she asked him, in a shaking voice.
“I had Oliver go through the records of the church near where I found you,” Percy admitted. “Don’t hold it against him, please. He said I ought to leave well enough alone. He’s got a better head on his shoulders than I do, most days.”
Valentine set the marriage certificate back down on the writing desk. “It’s wasted effort,” she told him in a hard voice. “Nothin’ to tell from a few old papers. I’m not who I was. An’ I expect you’d say th’ same, however long you’ve been dead now.”
Percy guided her slowly away from the desk and back toward the kitchen. “Nonsense,” he said. “You were born nineteen hundred and six. That tells me quite a lot. For one — we’re nearly of an age. We’ve seen all the same history, just from different standpoints. Don't you find that fascinating?”
“Not in particular,” Valentine said, though she found she was lying when she said it. Some part of her did find a common bit of comfort in the revelation. Just as Oliver had found her familiar for the sake of a shared hometown, Valentine felt the emotional distance between Percy and herself shrink as she thought of another Brit living through the same long history. There were few people, ponce or not, who could appreciate the way that life had upended in the face of the Great War — nor the deep, despairing repetition of a second Great War, a global mistake made twice-over just because the first had been unsatisfactory.
Valentine’s sole constant companion through that history had been her patron, she realized — a creature that cared little for the affairs of human beings, and who had even less regard for their suffering. She’d made acquaintances throughout her time, but they were fleeting, and necessarily limited in nature. Oliver was probably the same way to Percy — a friendly snapshot in time, a child who would never know the darkness of a life spent watching human nature repeat itself too many times.
Percy settled her into the kitchen chair, and gently pulled her leg up into his lap. “I’ll need to cut away some of the material here, I’m afraid,” he said, as he inspected the injury. “I’ll find you something else to wear before you go, though.” He reached for a pair of scissors, just after informing her of the necessity, and began to do just that. “Would you like an anaesthetic? This is quite a gash you have.”
Valentine groaned, and let her head drop back against the chair. “Would you get on wi’ it?” she demanded. “If you’re goin’ to insist, th’ least you can do is be quick about it.”
Percy frowned. “If you say so,” he murmured. “But you will let me know if it hurts too badly?”
Valentine jerked her head in a silent nod, and he glanced down once again.
He spent the next bit disinfecting the injury. Valentine could have told him it was unnecessary — if she’d been prone to infection, she imagined that the Deeps would have found a way to kill her long ago — but he seemed quite absorbed in the ritual of it all, and she decided not to bother him. The moment she broke his pattern, he would probably start talking again, and she’d had quite enough of that today already.
Percy gave her another careful glance as he threaded the first stitch. It barely punctured the numbness of the power that slept within her. As she failed to flinch, he sighed and continued his work. Valentine couldn’t help but appreciate the neat, careful quickness of his hands. There was a kind of aesthetic pleasure to watching him work, though she never would have admitted as much out loud.
“I was born Percival Wessex,” he said suddenly. His accent was painfully clear on each word. “I was second-in-line for a little barony. I went to Eton, and then to Oxford. My family bought me an officer’s commission. It was the thing to do, at the time. I spent much of the Great War terrified, stitching other people up and hoping not to die.” He smiled helplessly. “It was the Spanish influenza that got me, you know. Sheer good luck that someone happened by and offered me a way out.”
Valentine shifted uncomfortably at the words. “I don’t need to know any of that,” she told him.
“It just seems fair,” Percy told her. “I hate to feel I’ve pried, even though that’s exactly what I did.”
Valentine scowled at him. “Fine,” she said. “You want to talk, let’s talk. Why give up all that posh livin’ an’ money just to come to Hull an’ stitch up little kittens?”
Percy smiled at that. “I thought I’d already answered that,” he said.
“You don’t want to be a monster,” Valentine said dryly. “Fine, you left Oxford to get away. Why th’ animals, though? If you’re such a humanitarian, why not go heal all th’ people you can get your hands on?”
Percy blinked slowly. “Oh,” he said. The question gave him a moment’s pause, and she could tell he was thinking very carefully about his response. “Well, I have been a doctor of the human sort. For decades, in fact. But I suppose I eventually gravitated toward animals because of their essential innocence. They have no real choices open to them, you understand. We take them in, force them to our will. Anything terrible they do is ultimately someone else’s fault. I never have to wonder if I’m doing the right thing by alleviating their suffering.”
The answer made Valentine clench her jaw in sudden anger. “An’ is that what I am, Percy? Some faerie lord’s hound?”
Percy winced. “I wouldn’t use those words, precisely. But I... suppose there are similarities.” He shook his head. “I’ve seen an awful lot of death. I picked shrapnel from little children, when the Germans bombed London.” There was an odd, earnest fear underlying his voice. He hesitated on his next words, picking them out very slowly indeed. “I have had men beg for death before, when they were already on its doorstep. But… not like you. Never like… that.”
He searched her face, as though looking for some solution to the terrible mystery that eluded him. “I cannot fathom it. I have wracked my mind trying to understand it. And I… I have decided that I despise the very notion.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what happened, after the wedding records I found. But now that you’re back, I see I cannot leave you in this state.”
Valentine clenched her fingers into her palms. “Don’t you promise things on which you won’t deliver,” she hissed at him.
“You mistake my point,” Percy said. “No, indeed. I mean to say… I do not know that I could ever bring myself to kill you, my dear Valentine. I will continue to think on the matter, I promise. But in the meantime, if there is anything else I can do to ease your mind, you have only to ask. A few stitches and a bit of tea are not very far out of my way. There’s more within my power, I’m sure.”
Valentine gave him a cold look. “Unless you mean to kill th’ Drowned Lord himself, you’ve got nothin’ I want, leech.”
Percy shot her a bemused look. “What is it they say in faerie tales?” he asked. “Be careful what you wish for.” He finished off the last stitch in her leg, and she realized that he had been working the entire time during their conversation. “I’ll add the possibility to my list.”
Valentine frowned at him. The tone he’d used had been not-quite-flippant. Unless she was entirely mistaken, the madman had truly considered her request for just a moment. The realization gave her just enough pause to rethink her reasons for being there.
