Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)(45)

Twenty-four … twenty-five … twenty-six …

They were snarling in the street, just below Marisol’s window. The house seemed to shudder; it sounded like one of them was raking its claws on the front door. There was a bang.

Iris jumped.

Her breaths were frantic now, but she gripped the flashlight like a weapon, prepared for anything. She felt Attie take her other hand, and they held on to each other. And even though she couldn’t see, Iris knew Marisol was directly in front of them, sitting like a statue in the darkness, a gun resting in her lap.

The shrieks faded. They returned. The house shook again, as if they were living in a loop.

Iris was exhaling her seven hundred and fifty-second breath when the silence returned. But it was just as Marisol had foretold.

It ended up being a very long night.





{21}





Knight Errant or Rogue


Are you safe? Are you well? What happened?

Please write to me, whenever you can.

Roman sent the message through his wardrobe not long after Iris sent her abrupt one. He knew something unexpected and terrible must have happened, for her to misspell three different words. He paced late into the night, his eyes straying to the closet, to the clean-swept floor before it. Hour after hour passed, dark and cold, and she didn’t write.

What was happening? He was desperate to know. Eventually he was so exhausted that he sat on the edge of his bed, overwhelmed with misgivings.

Perhaps the town she was stationed in had come under attack. He imagined Iris having to take shelter while bombs cascaded, exploding in a blazing array of sparks and destruction. He imagined Iris wounded. He imagined Dacre’s soldiers swarming in victory, taking her prisoner.

Roman couldn’t bear to sit.

He stood and paced again, wearing a trench into the rug.

If something befell her … how would he learn of it?

“Iris,” he spoke into the lamplight. “Iris, write to me.”

It was three in the morning when he withdrew her old letters from their hiding place. He sat on the floor and reread them, and while he had always been moved by her words to Forest, he realized that he felt pierced by all the words she had written to him. They made him ache, and he didn’t know why.

He left his room to walk the mansion’s dark corridors. He took the route that he had walked night after night in the wake of Del’s death, when sleep evaded him. When he had been fifteen years old and so broken that he felt like his grief would bury him.

Down the stairs he went, quiet as a wraith. Through cold rooms and winding passages. Eventually he was drawn to faint light spilling from the kitchen. He expected to step into the chamber and discover the house had set out warm milk and biscuits for him, sensing his distress. Roman startled on the threshold when he saw it was his nan, sitting at the counter with a candle and cup of tea.

“Roman,” she said in her typical brusque tone.

“N-Nan,” he replied. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to … I’ll be going now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nan said. “The kettle’s still warm if you want a cup of tea, although I know you prefer coffee.”

It was an invitation to talk. Roman swallowed; he was haggard as he slowly entered the kitchen, reaching for a cup. He poured himself some tea and sat on the stool across from his nan, fearful to make eye contact with her at first. She had a knack for reading minds.

“What has you up at such an hour?” she asked, her shrewd gaze boring into him.

“I’m awaiting a letter.”

“A letter in the dead of the night?”

His face flushed. “Yes.”

Nan continued to stare at him. She had smiled only maybe three times in her entire life, and so Roman was shocked when he saw her pursed lips curve in a grin.

“You’re finally putting my typewriter to good use, then,” she said. “I take it you’re writing to Daisy Winnow’s granddaughter?”

Roman hesitated but conceded to nod. “How did you know?”

“A mere hunch,” she replied. “Considering that Daisy and I were both determined to keep our typewriters in the family rather than surrender them to that pitiful excuse of a museum.”

Roman thought about the letter Iris had been writing to him before she was interrupted by whatever it was that was currently happening, kilometers away. She had figured out the connection between their typewriters, and he was keen to know what exactly was binding them together.

“You were friends with Daisy Winnow?” he dared to ask, knowing his grandmother was reluctant to talk about the past.

“That surprises you, Roman?”

“Well … yes, Nan,” he replied with a hint of exasperation. “Our family is—”

“Upper-class snobs built on new money?” she supplied. “Yes, I know. Hence why I loved Daisy so much. She was a dreamer, innovative, and openhearted. Alouette and I never cared about her social status.” She paused. Roman was quiet, waiting. He held his breath as his grandmother began to tell the story about her friendship with Alouette Stone and Daisy Winnow, and the typewriters that had once kept them connected.

He was stunned at first. He drank his lukewarm tea and listened, and he began to see the invisible threads that drew him to Iris. It didn’t feel like fate; Roman didn’t quite believe in such fancies. But it certainly felt like something. Something that was now stealing his sleep and making his chest ache with each breath.