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Sipping the warm, sugary tea, I watched as Delilah presented Brock with a cup and saucer of his own. The little porcelain looked ridiculous in his large, calloused fingers, but he handled it gently and moved to sit. Delilah joined us a moment later, perching in her own chair like a dainty songbird on a branch.
“Now then, as I’ve told Miss Grayson, I realize we cannot have true premarital counseling. She has expressed that there is not the time necessary to conduct such a thing, and that her attitude toward the entire situation makes it difficult to maintain objectivity.” Delilah said and sipped her tea.
“Attitude?” Brock asked, his gaze slipping to me. “I’m sorry, I thought you were invited here.”
I took another sip of tea. Rosehips, I thought. And something else, something tangy under the sugar.
“Invited, yes. But I declined that invitation. I fear other means were used to secure my services here.”
Brock seemed taken aback by this. “What sort of other means?”
Well, there was at least one man who had no idea about the runestone and the kidnapping. And by the concern pinching his brow, I would wager he had nothing to do with warlock trafficking either.
Delilah’s voice dripped with loathing, “Mark stole the woman from her home.”
Mark, I thought. Not her mother. I supposed that confirmed Maureen had not ordered my abduction. Still, a minor reprimand was not nearly enough for such a thing and I eyed the door, wondering if the subject of our conversation was nearby.
Brock straightened in his chair. “What?”
“I’m afraid so,” I confirmed for him.
“But Derrick would never let that sort of thing happen!”
“Derrick didn’t have a choice,” Delilah said, resting a soothing hand on Brock’s forearm. “My mother had already placed people around Ms. Janice King at the hospital. I’m certain she meant to bluff, but it would seem Uncle Malcolm took matters into his own hands.”
“But why? This makes no sense, Dells.”
“Because I had already upset her by demanding an outside counselor in the first place,” Delilah said. “You know how she gets when she thinks she’s lost control of something.”
The expression on Brock’s face said that yes, he did know, and he heaved a sigh. “It won’t always be this way,” he said. “Once we’re married, we’ll have some freedom.”
“Will we? Near as I can tell, they will still control everything, and our every movement will be dictated by what the business and family needs. Is that truly the sort of life you wish to lead?”
Brock shifted in his seat. “What alternative is there?”
Delilah smiled a little. “We can go into business for ourselves.”
The lights in the room began to swim. Sinking back into my seat, I rested the teacup and saucer on my lap and blinked a couple times. Brock and Delilah continued to talk, but I lost some of it. My runestone – no, the runestone – itched and burned under my skin, but I could not rub it lest I drop the delicate porcelain. Maker only knew how much the tea set must have cost.
“Miss Grayson, are you all right?” Brock asked.
I saw Delilah sip her tea. Light seemed to blur around her frame, and she looked at the ceiling. There was a rushing in my ears and my skin began to prickle.
“I don’t know,” I said.
Brock left his seat to kneel beside my chair. With steady hands he took my cup and saucer, turning away long enough to deposit our drinks on his own chair. My skin felt cold, but underneath I was hot, as though my blood were boiling, and I swayed. Brock steadied me with a hand and looked to Delilah, but whatever he meant to say died with the expression on the girl’s face. She looked equal parts remorseful and annoyed as she primly rested her teacup on her knee.
“Dells, what did you do?”
“I’m very sorry,” Delilah said, and this time she was looking at me.
Darkness edged through the room, shadows swirling that hadn’t been there before and my eyelids were suddenly too heavy to keep open. I slumped to the side, felt Brock’s hands on me, guiding me to the floor with gentle care. The world began to distance from me, but I heard Delilah’s voice before a wall of black overtook me; “I did say I needed a private word with Brock.”
Chapter Sixteen
Oftentimes, I know when I am dreaming, or something within the dream realm alerts me to the fact that, yes, I am dreaming and somewhere nearby my body is safe, waiting for me to wake. Only this time, danger growled through me, insisting I needed to wake, fast, but there was some essential tether missing and I could not feel my physical self. There were muffled sounds, indistinct voices, and a sense of movement, but it was gone in the next instant, leaving me to the dream.
I was inside the aether, surrounded by brilliant ribbons of magic twisting and turning in an unseen breeze. This was the world within the world, the sometimes gentle, sometimes brash influence of magic on full display. It overlaid everything, seeped into the ground beneath my feet, drifted in and out of what I began to realize was the forest outside Leslie manor.
