Page 160 of Flirting with Darkness

With a huff, he lowered the mug. “I. Am. Not. Thanking. A. House.”

“I thought fae were particular about manners.”

“The house is athing,not a person, fae or otherwise.”

“Is it?” Eyebrows raised, I turned to Granny.

She watched us over her coffee cup, amusement in the glint of her eyes and curve of her mouth. The curve tugged higher before she blew on her drink and took a sip. With a tilt of her head, she shrugged, as non-committal as one of Faolán’s grunts. “Probably best not to offend it.”

Lips pursing, he flicked a glare at me and the triumphant look I undoubtedly wore. “Fine.Thank you,” he muttered, practically into the mug, before taking a gulp.

I patted his shoulder. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

14

HOUSE

After breakfast, Granny gave us a tour around the endless hallways. We walked through a library with bookcases that soared three storeys high and chains that secured the books in place.

The thought of climbing to fetch a book from the top shelf made my head spin. And why on earth would books need chaining to the shelves?

We poked our heads into parlours so choked with dust and cobwebs, they clearly hadn’t been used in years. A card room was similarly disused, the green baize of its card table almost completely hidden under a layer of blackish powder, a handful of cards scattered across the floor.

In another room, we found a glass sitting on the edge of a billiard table, some kind of mahogany-coloured liquid inside. Balls dotted the table’s surface, a cue discarded amongst them, as if someone had abandoned the room mid-game. In an ashtray sat a half-smoked cigar.

The halls were clean, but now I looked more closely in the daylight, I spotted tatty edges to the heavy drapes and threadbare patches on the carpets. In some corners, black mould crept in from an old leak.

How long had Granny been here to wear the carpets so thin on her own? Then again, the billiard table, the card room—had there once been others here? Or were these the evidence of previous “guests”? She’d said it had been a long time.

Granny asked us about ourselves, where we were from. I told her a little about Briarbridge, how we were a family of bakers and I had a dozen brothers and sisters. I didn’t mention any names. I knew what the stories said about True Names having power, and I didn’t want to risk sending any fae creature after my family, even if Granny really did seem to be a lonely old fae, stuck in this house.

When she turned her question on Faolán he grunted, “Tenebris.”

“A visitor from the capital?” Granny’s eyes widened, an eager light entering them. “My, aren’t I lucky to have someone from the very heart of the realm in my home? Tell me, does the Night Queen still insist on wearing blackallthe time?”

A twitch of the skin around Faolán’s eyes. “I thought you were trapped here.”

“I haven’talwaysbeen trapped here.”

“Mm.”

He didn’t answer her question about the Night Queen.

But Granny wasn’t so easily evaded, apparently, as she opened the next door before smiling up at Faolán. “And what brings you so far from court?”

“Work.”

It went on like that, her questions, his one-word answers, half-grunted. I tried to be friendly and respond more fully, albeit heeding his advice to not let down my guard. But Granny didn’t ask anything too invasive, certainly nothing that seemed dangerous. They were all exactly the sort of questions I’d ask strangers if I’d been alone for a long time.

She also spoke about how this wall hanging was made by some old fae with a name I couldn’t pronounce and that sculpture of a naked woman bearing herself to the moon was carved by somebody else. The reverence with which she spoke the names told me I should’ve been impressed, but Faolán and I exchanged glances that said he was as clueless as I was.

Abandoned rooms and storage cupboards, she opened every door we came across and showed us inside.

Except for a set of double doors so wide, three Faoláns could’ve stood shoulder-to-shoulder and still not touched the sides.

I caught him eyeing them, but he said nothing.

I glanced back as we passed without Granny saying a word about who’d carved their pure white surface. The shapes had grown indistinct with age—lumpy forms that merged together. That was perhaps an eye. This, a misshapen hand.

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