Page 13 of Mortdale

“And the others?”

Though her round gaze told me she was curious, her heart that was still beating a mile a minute wasn’t giving a very cogent argument that she wasn’t scared. “You’re the Duchess of Darkheim now. And my wife. They’re here to keep you safe from harm.” Her gaze still followed my hand as I brought it to my side. “There’s two things you need to know once we leave Meridian. The first being that you cannot leave this carriage at any point in this journey.”

“What if there’s a fire?”

“Even if it rides straight into Hell itself. Silver Woods is a hunting ground. There’s hunters from this continent and many others who would test me and my soldiers for a single lock of your hair, you hear me?”

She wiggled her napkin-stuffed nose. “What’s the second thing?”

“No magic.”

“No magic what?”

“You cannot cast any spell once we leave Meridian borders.”

“Because of the hunters.”

“Because magic is forbidden in Mortdale.”

Her lashes fluttered fast. “A bit drastic.”

Sighing, I rubbed a hand across my eyes. “Thought you’d know this much.”

“I never cared to know how people are and what rules and laws they inflict on each other. Once dead, it’s all the same inside. None of those rules and laws will even matter at all when I have my hand shoved up all the way in your guts. Besides, it takes away all the fun if I know all the rules to the game.”

“This isn’t a game, Willow.”

“It is to me. Nothing is truly real. You live by your made up laws, I live by mine. And who’s to say which is right and which is wrong.”

It was impossible to argue with that. Shrugging out of my jacket, I threw it around her trembling shoulders.

“Won’t you be cold?” she asked, briefly pressing her nose to the collar and inhaling deeply.

“No.” Did she really know nothing about my kind, or was she feigning it to make herself seem less threatening?

I reeled back when she grabbed my tie, pulling me to her. “Where are you going?”

“It’s safer for you if I stay out there. And there’s not enough space in here for the two of us to be comfortable.”

She still wouldn’t let go of my tie. “Don’t you people sleep in coffins? This is basically a manor to you.”

Funny. “Do you jump from roofs on the full moon to ride a broomstick?”

She looked me dead in the eyes. “Yes.”

“Liar.”

When her face broke into a huge smile, I realised Agnes might have tricked me into something far more wicked than I’d originally thought. “Well, we could. We just don’t make it a habit to ride our cleaning tools.”

“I’ll let my butler know not to hide them from you.”

She made a face and then fixed my tie, letting go of me.

Stretching my neck from side to side to relieve some of the tension building at the back of my head, I shut the door and quickly undid my tie before the scent of violets choked me.

Saints.

We’d just left the borders of Meridian when she cracked the window open and stuck her head out. Resting her chin on the sill, she stared at me with her big, brown, drowning eyes. “Are we sharing a coffin? You look heavy, so I’d really prefer to be on top.”