Page 29 of Antiletum
Patiently, I waited while Selise shared with Delaney embarrassing stories of us all in finishing school.
That was the first lift in my mood. Witnessing Delaney make a friend of her own.
Her smile was genuine as a photographer halted us upon quitting the party for one more picture, hiding behind his cloth and blinding us in an exploding cloud of smoke and light. She even straightened my hat for me before we posed.
But right now, seeing Delaney’s undiluted joy and awe over where I have brought her…
“What do you think?” I ask softly, though the answer is written all over her lovely face. She doesn’t even know I have a better gift waiting for her in the conservatory, as soon as she’s ready to let me in.
But thespirlinarywill do for now.
“It’s beautiful,” Delaney whispers, both hands tucked against her chest. Awestruck by the intricacy of the rose windows. “I wasn’t allowed to see it, during my only time visiting The Citadel. I…” she trails off.
Pulse thumping in my throat and jaw muscles tensed, I wait to see how she finishes that sentence.
“I had to leave before I got the chance.”
This morning, she had shared vaguely with me that she’d only been to Omnitas once before, in her youth. My molars grind. Same as they did during that particular conversation. Holding in a manic outburst. Both then and now.
“Well, now you may come here whenever you like.”
Delaney walks to the stained windows of thespirlinaryin The Citadel. The one that now belongs solely to her. Is it selfish to close down the most elaborate place of worshipwithin the borders of theNoctuafaction—perhaps even the world—for my wife’s personal use? Couldn’t rightfully say.
Seems reasonable enough to me.
With a slow stroll through the yawning room, she brushes fingertips over the statues honoringNoctua, Vulpes,andPanthera. Dips them into a burbling feature of moonwater tucked in the corner. Inspects the altar littered with bottles of more moonwater and bowls and mirrors and feathers and all other manner of items to aid those with weaker magic. Items Delaney doesn’t need, but clearly used in her failed attempt to speak to her dead sister, hoping it would lead to success.
“I was so partial to thespirlinaryat our estate because it was the only place I was allowed to necromance. My parents made it inaccessible to anyone else, when they couldn’t stop me from practicing altogether.” She stops, offering me a small, sad smile that makes me want to raise her deplorable parents from the dead just so they can meet their end all over again.
Unfortunately, they burned to death and now there’s nothing left.
“Why were they adamant on hiding you? What were they so afraid of?” There’s no point in asking. No matter the answer, I’ll never understand.
I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around Delaney, let her be safe and accepted within them. If only shewantedto be accepted. By me.
“I could ask you the same,” she responds in reference to my own magic not being unveiled until I was seventeen.
With a shake of my head, I answer somewhat defensively. “My father did what he had to. When he found himself in a position to support and uplift me, he did. I owe everything to him.”
Delaney’s eyes turn steely, black eating through those specks of blue as her pupils flare. “My parents never rose to ranks anywhere near your father.” She scoffs a bitter laugh, finishing her bubbly wine and placing the glass on a pew. “Rainah’s marriage to a Lord would have brought them to the heights they so wanted to see.”
My steps are slow, deliberate, coming up behind my wife who has turned her back on me again.
The black bodice of her gown swallows her like a snake, tight in itsskin and refusing to shed. The skirt flares into a perfect halo of black. Though her face is turned away from me, I canseeher gazing at the city below, guessing which direction her stare focuses on. As if she’s drawn to a particular place.
The exact same way I am.
Delaney doesn’t shy away when I come directly behind her, so close I can feel the heat of her body, reaching for me like a ghost does its purpose—always just out of reach.
My hands find the dip of her waist, cuffing it loosely. She doesn’t resist. “There was no excuse for why your parents sheltered and stifled you as they did,” I say against her hair. “Even before my father made such strides to put to rest the discrimination against our magic. Certainly not after.”
Delaney glances over her shoulder. “My parents were still scared of the prejudice. Of how Parliament would punish them for lying about my showing and saying I was a grower like them all those years.”
Slipping out of my hands, she starts another slow trek through thespirlinary, taking in the massive crystal chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings. Moonlight sparkles against them, casting against the walls like a sprinkling of fireflies.
“But were they scaredforyou? Or only themselves and your sister?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she says quietly. It guts me like a fish, how she would defend them so fiercely when they never did her. I don’t think she even hears her own heartbreak nestled within her weak defense.
