Page 197 of Flirting with Darkness

And the blood.

So, so much blood.

“I’m sorry,” we whispered, cupping their cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Our vision blurred, and my own heart cracked.

“I know.” They smiled and covered our hand. “Not your fault.” With a cry, they shook, neck cording.

“Elaina!”

They didn’t respond, locked in pain, in dying.

They were dying.

Oh gods.

It felt different, but if this was a dream, then Elaina might have died centuries ago, killed by her lover, killed by me. But Faolán was in there too.

And death in the dream meant…

Trapped inside the man’s head, in his body, in his actions, I cried out. I flung myself at the walls around me.

It might be that this was something else. After all, we were in bodies that weren’t our own, and we’d fallen into the painting rather than falling asleep.

That might mean we were safe.

But it might not.

We needed to wake up or get out of the painting or whatever this was.

Now.

“I won’t leave you to go alone.” Our voice cracked on a sob and our hand closed on the iron knife’s hilt.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

It was a shriek in the void.

But I couldn’t let this happen to Faolán. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want him to die because death was generally sad and something to avoid.

It was that I didn’t wanthimto die.

I didn’t want to be withouthim.

Whatever I’d told myself, however convenient this marriage was, I cared for him.

And it felt frighteningly like… like…

But there was no time to force myself to think the word I tried so hard to avoid: I needed to save him.

House? Please?

Something stirred.

We stared into Elaina-Faolán’s brown eyes as they blinked, but on the edge of my vision, in the mirrors of the ballroom, in the endless reflections of us and them and the blood and the twisting vine floor with a crimson heart at the ballroom’s centre, there was another figure.

Tall. Dark. Slender. Otherwise indistinct.

But I knew it was House.

---