Page 57 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

Rory sighs, finally relaxing his grip on the wheel. He reaches over and squeezes her knee. His fingers are cold and heavy. Comforting. She wishes her dress wasn’t so long, so she could feel his skin against hers. He doesn’t say anything, but, then again, he doesn’t need to.

The car speeds along the highway and the silencethat envelops them is tender and soft. Vines spread across the forest floor of her Mind’s Eye. White flowers unfold under a dark velvet moon.

She wipes again at her nose, feeling the dried blood flaking off. It had dripped down her chin and trailed down, soaking into the neckline of her dress. The fabric feels cold and stiff against her skin. She was honest when she told Rory she didn’t know why this use of magic caused a nosebleed, though she wonders if it has to do with the fact that she wasn’t trying to create an illusion for Officer Burton. It simply happened. The Ether knew she needed help and it opened itself to her command.

But what she did with the gate was enacted with purpose. She had a goal, and she pulled what she needed from the Ether, too quick to ask, too frantic to wait for the Ether to do it itself. She hopes she didn’t pull too hard. She wants to slip back in, to make sure she didn’t do any damage—to the Ether or to herself—but when her eyes slip shut, she finds sleep taking her instead.

* * *

She wakes when Rory pulls into the driveway. The sun is just beginning to set, and the house is awash in pale blues and golds. Kane greets them by the door, as if he’s been standing sentry on the banister all day.

“Is that blood?” he caws.

Calliope looks down at her dress with a frown. “I need a bath.”

“What happened?” she hears Kane ask as she makes her way up the stairs.

“Long story,” is Rory’s reply.

She turns into the hallway and makes her way to her room, trailing her fingers along the wall. The lights flicker. “I’m happy to be back, too.”

Despite her nap, exhaustion still sits heavily in her body. She undresses slowly, running a finger over the dried blood on her collar. The stain is already set, and she doubts she can wash it out. She is too tired to try anyway, and she lets the dress fall to the floor before turning on the taps of the claw-foot tub. She drops in some lavender and eucalyptus oil, and then, after a moment of consideration, she adds a drop of vetiver, smiling at the image of Rory that it conjures in her mind.

She’s glad she told him about Maddox—that he’s still alive and probably looking for her. It’s not the full story, of course. She doubts she’ll ever be able to share it all, even with time stretching endlessly in front of them. Still, it’s as if something between them has cracked open.

That man is not Maddox Grey, she thinks. He’s a far better man than Maddox Grey could ever be.

She’s not foolish. She knows that Rory has far more blood staining his skin than even her husband, but Rory has something the warlock never had andprobably never will: remorse. His past circles around her, like a ringing echo of a bell on the wind. A ripple on a lake. He trusted her with his story, and she’ll hold it carefully in her heart like the precious thing it is.

She slides into the water, submerging herself up to her chin.Rory is a good fella, her grandma would say.Sad soul, but a good fella.

Calliope agrees. She didn’t have to talk herself into using the Ether to escape the guards, even though she had no reason to believe that they would trifle with her. It just made sense to help him, because it was helping them both. They were—are—in it together. A team. A family, even.

With a delicate smile playing on her lips, she slips below the surface of the water. She visits her Mind’s Eye first. Hun is there, though she slumbers peacefully. Calliope leaves her curled up in the soft soil, and lets her consciousness slide down farther, through the ground and to the nothingness of the Ether.

The impenetrable blackness consumes her vision. A thin layer of ice begins to form on the bath water, though she hardly notices. Her mind is fully enmeshed in the Ether, her attention on the thin, hairline crack of light, made catastrophic by the contrast of the darkness around it.

“I’m so sorry.” Her voice echoes back at her.

Although she is still tired, her nap has restored some of her energy. She rallies what she has left, every last honey-sweet drop of energy, and she beginsto pour it all into the Ether, an offering to the haven gifted to her by an ancestor long ago. Thank you. She doesn’t say the words out loud—doesn’t need to, because the Ether knows her. It’s a part of her. Like calls to like. She hadn’t truly recognized it before, but now, as she pours herself into it, she hears the soft bird call of her Mind’s Eye, and a bright green tendril of life springs out from the crack, suturing the ends of the tear together.

With one last burst of energy, Calliope smiles at the darkness with its shock of green.

* * *

She comes back to the present in lukewarm, blood-tinged water. She wipes at her face, realizing that she’s crying. She is overwhelmed with emotions, but perhaps it is mostly exhaustion. She puts a hand over her mouth to stifle the sounds, chest heaving with a breath it doesn’t need.

But the Ether is healed, which is a comforting thought even as her febrile skin heats up the water around her, even as her body feels heavy and limp. She’s not sure how long she’s been in the bath—vampires don’t get wrinkled fingertips it seems—but she’s sure her absence has been longer than expected. She lifts herself heavily out of the water, grabbing the clean towel that’s suddenly appeared on the small table next to the tub. As she slips into the soft, well-worn cottondress, she can’t help but wonder about its previous owner. It fits her perfectly, just like all the other dresses the house has provided.The house, she thinks,who needs protection from vengeful vampires.

“I’ll make sure you’re protected,” she whispers, pressing a hand to the door frame. “Don’t you worry.” The lights buzz brighter in response.

She leans heavily on the banister as she makes her way downstairs, but when she reaches the bottom, she pauses to catalog her body, letting her awareness travel down her torso, expand out to her limbs. She squares her shoulders, straightens her spine, pushes her exhaustion out through her fingers and the tips of her hair. She has a kelpie to help, after all.

“Sorry I took so long,” she says, pushing through the kitchen door.

Rory looks up from the cauldron on the stove. “It’s okay. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” She yawns. “I could sleep for days though.” She sits at the table, glancing out the window to see Kane perched on the railing, keeping watch on Effie, who is but a pale green mist swirling in the center of the lake. She’s getting restless. Calliope can feel it—can almost hear the flair of nostrils and the high-pitched noise.

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