Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)(81)

Before Iris could reply, a song crackled over the radio, filling the café with the melancholy tone of a violin. At once, the hair rose on her arms. There it was again. The melody that haunted her dreams when she saw her mother.

“Mum?” Iris whispered, leaning over the bar. “Why do I hear this song every time we meet in a dream?”

Aster set down a steaming coffeepot. “Do you know who Alzane was?”

Iris was startled by the abrupt change in topics, but said, “He was one of the last kings of Cambria, before the monarchy fell and chancellors were appointed.”

“Yes, but there is far more to him than that. He was the monarch who oversaw the divine graves. He buried Dacre, Mir, Alva, Luz, and Enva centuries ago. In a myth that has been cut away from our history, he inspired this lullaby to sing the gods to sleep. Since then, there have been many iterations of it, but the power of the notes remains, even if they have been forgotten by many.”

Iris mulled that over. The world beyond the café windows was beginning to darken. A storm was brewing. Rain slid down the glass, and flickers of lightning illuminated distant buildings.

“I don’t think Enva was ever buried,” Iris dared to say, to which Aster quirked her red-stained lips to the side. “I think she struck a deal with the king, and she sang the other four to sleep while she remained hidden in Oath.”

“A wild theory, sweetheart. But one that may have some truth within it.”

Iris listened to the music, but her breath caught when the radio’s static intensified and the dream began to break. Desperate, she reached out to take hold of Aster, but her mother had already faded into the shadows. The café began to spin, the glass windows cracking beneath the weight of the storm, until the pressure felt unbearable.

Iris startled awake.

A beat later, she realized a cough had woken her; the mattress beneath her shook as Roman rolled away, rising to his feet. With her eyes open to the darkness, she listened as he stifled another cough, then another. They sounded wet and painful, and she quickly sat forward and turned toward him.

A sliver of moonlight that snuck in through the curtains limned his body. His pale shoulders were hunched; she could count the ridges of his spine as he reached for his discarded shirt on the floor and coughed into the fabric, muffling the sound.

“Kitt,” she whispered, moving to the edge of the bed. The floor was icy cold on her bare feet; her hair was still damp from the shower. “Are you all right?”

He straightened, but kept the shirt pressed to his mouth for a moment more. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m fine, Iris. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She stood and walked to him. “Can I get you anything?”

“You plan to sneak down to the kitchen and boil a pot of tea for me?”

He was teasing, but it only made Iris realize how impossible this was. How impossible they were. Mr. Kitt would be outraged to find her in his house, sharing a bed with his son. He would probably throw her out if he caught her wandering the corridors, or have his associate drag her off and drop her somewhere for the Graveyard to punish.

“If you want tea,” Iris said, her voice husky and determined, “then I will sneak down to the kitchen and make it for you. Simply tell me what you’d like. And how to find the kitchen, of course.”

Roman turned, a few tendrils of his black hair dangling over his right eye. Sometimes his beauty still struck her, made her knees feel weak. She realized that she loved the sight of him in the night just as much as she did in the day. How the darkness made him seem sharper in some ways and softer in others, like he was a starlit portrait in the process of being painted.

“I know you make a bloody good pot of tea, but I’m fine,” he said. “Truly.”

She didn’t believe him. She was opening her mouth to protest when he continued.

“Sometimes I have a hard time breathing at night. My throat feels narrow. I’ve had a cough ever since my memories returned, but it’s nothing that I can’t handle.”

“From the gas,” Iris whispered.

Roman nodded. “When this is over, I’ll seek proper treatment. See if a doctor in Oath can help me.”

“Dacre doesn’t know?”

“No. And I don’t want him to. If he did, then he would realize his influence over me has broken. That I am no longer a captive to him. That I know he only healed me enough to make me pliable and confused.”

He fell pensive, glancing down at the shirt in his hands. Iris was worried there would be blood on the fabric, and she could feel panic climbing her bones. But it was still the flawless white linen it had been before, save for a few wrinkles it had now garnered, from when she had tossed his shirt to the floor.

“You’re cold,” Roman said, studying her in the moonlight.

“A little,” she confessed. “But I don’t mind it.”

“Give me a few moments, and I’ll join you in the bed again. Since it does, in fact, fit two people.”

She smiled and returned to the feather down mattress, still warm from their bodies. But her heart was heavy. She listened as Roman walked to the lavatory and turned on the sink faucet, drinking a cup of water. She was thinking about doctors and if it would be possible to find a way to sneak him medicine when Roman slipped under the covers.

“There’s something I need to tell you, Iris.”