Page 9 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

She shakes her head, the fuzziness receding. “I won’t—” she begins to protest.

“Exactly. You won’t. Because I won’t let that happen.” He stands, brushing the dust off his jeans. He’s still wearing clothes from earlier, her blood staining the knees of his jeans.

“Is that a promise or a threat?” she mumbles, half to herself. She stands as well, the movement slow as she unfolds her legs. She wonders how long she’s been in this basement. Hours? A day? He’s holding out a hand to her, but she can’t tell if it’s to help her stand or push her back down. He doesn’t seem too sure either. She steadies herself against the wall instead.

“Both,” he replies, eyebrow arched. He considers her with a scowl, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his worn jeans. “Is there someone you’d like to call? A coven? Let them know your whereabouts? There’s a phone upstairs.”

She teases the edge of her teeth with her tongue, finding the sharpness unsettling. She shakes her head almost absentmindedly. “No one to call. But that’s beside the point. I won’t kill anyone.” She puts more confidence in her voice than she currently feels.

“She’ll be fine,” agrees Kane.

“And how do you know that?” asks Rory.

Kane hops up onto her shoulder and cocks his headto the side in contemplation. He grabs a wayward lock of her hair and tugs, as if the strength of will-power is evident in the strength of hair. She swats him away, chains rattling, but he holds firm, claws digging into her shoulder. “I can tell.”

Rory scoffs. “Oh, well, if you can tell.”

“Kane’s right,” she says. “Please. You can’t keep me locked in this basement. I won’t—” Without thinking she reaches out and touches him, her fingers circling his wrist.

She only has a moment to note the temperature difference between them—her skin so hot against his, which is cold like the concrete at her side, as cold as the Ether, really—before a loud scratching sound echoes around them, followed by the crunch of metal and glass, the creaking of wood, the groaning of something large moving with great effort. Dust and debris fall on their heads as the walls shift, the ground vibrating beneath them.

Kane takes flight immediately, disappearing into the dark. Without thought, Calliope reaches out, grasps Rory’s shoulders, the closest solid thing, and he gathers her in his arms, shielding her head from the debris falling around them.

She is burning in his arms, her whole body on fire and she presses her cheek against his chest, feeling a momentary relief from the pain in her jaw, like packing a wound with snow.

And then the house stills.

The silence that follows is heavy, and it stretches around them languidly, like a large cat unfurling after a nap. Calliope raises her head, and Rory’s arms slither away from her.

“What was that?” she asks, blinking away dust.

There is a flutter of wings, and Kane perches on Rory’s shoulder. “The house agrees with me,” he says, preening a bit of dust from his wing. “It made a room for her.”

6

A Shadow-Wraith Come

Calliope

The mid-morning light pools on the scuffed wood floors and Rory frowns. “Why is the floor so scratched up? This room didn’t even exist before.”

Calliope watches as he tests the floor with the toe of his boot, then returns her focus to the casement window. Obscured glass delicately etched with flowering vines hinders her view of what lies beyond, and she swings the window open, allowing a burst of tepid breeze to filter in. The lake below shines diamond-bright, the trees on the adjacent shore a dark shape against the clear sky.

Looking directly downward, she can see the side of the house and the small stone patio she glimpsed earlier, only briefly as Rory led her out of the basement and up the stairs to the new room. Decorative railing runsthe length of the curved slab of stone, stretching beyond Calliope’s view. A flower bed, such as it is, runs along the railing, softening the hard edge.

She feels Rory move behind her and a second later, the slight chill of his body is at her side. She has the mounting feeling that she is drowning, so overwhelmed with the tightness in her gums and the bright, clear sky and this room, a miraculous bit of magic that her brain, still fuzzy with the transition, can barely comprehend. She gives Rory an askance look, his shadow at her side eerily reminiscent of the one she left in the dark of night three days ago—her husband. She remembers the prone figure of the man, one leg hanging off the side of the bed, his boot just touching the rug.He won’t find me. I am safe. I am free, she tells herself.Despite the manacles.The chain rattles as she slips a finger underneath the wrist cuff to rub gently at the fledgling irritation from the rough iron pressing into her skin.

Kane lands on the windowsill with a bitter squawk. “The house has never given me a room.”

Calliope isn’t sure how to respond, so she doesn’t. She lifts her shoulder in a vague apology. Placing her back to the window, she takes in the remainder of the room, marveling at the emerald green built-in shelving units overflowing with books, leather spines interspersed with trinkets and strange arrangements of metal and glass that are reminiscent of science apparatuses. They remind her of her grandma’s kitchen,cauldrons and glass vials and metal armatures to aid a witch in her Craft. To her left, is a velvet blue couch, overflowing with pillows and knit blankets. “I thought vampires didn’t sleep?”

Rory runs a distracted hand through his hair, attention still on the lake below. “We don’t. But rest is…helpful. Sometimes.”

“Well, this is all very nice,” she says, fingering the corner of a pillow, “but I best be going now. Perhaps you could take these off?” She holds her arms out, looking pointedly at the cuffs.

Rory scowls and shakes his head. “You need to drink.”

“I’m not thirsty.” She takes a step closer, shaking her wrists for emphasis. “I feel fine.”

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