“I told you, Nerissa is going to be all right for a little while longer,” Archie said. “Stay with me, let me show you the ropes, make it so you don’t end up like you did in Lovecraft. Let me help you, Aoife. Stay here for a month or so and promise me you won’t go to the Brotherhood, and then I’ll do what I can about Nerissa, all right?”
“I can’t …,” I started. My mother didn’t have that kind of time, no matter what he said. I couldn’t waste a month learning whatever it was Archie wanted to teach me. If the Brotherhood had actual answers, I had to seek them out, no matter what they thought of my father or he of them.
“Promise me,” my father ground out. Pain flared in my fingers.
“I promise!” I cried, because I could tell by his expression I wasn’t going to change his mind.
I didn’t change my own mind, either, though.
My mother didn’t have a month.
Crunching footsteps over the icy grass made my father finally let go of me, putting his hand back in his lap, and when Dean rounded the corner, Archie looked like himself again. I breathed a sigh of relief, glad it was Dean and not Conrad or Valentina.
“Hey there, Aoife,” Dean said. “Mr. Grayson.” He was smoking the very end of a Lucky Strike, which he stamped out under his steel-toed boot. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” I said, jumping up. “We were just finishing our talk.” Honestly, I didn’t think that talk would ever be finished. The revelation that the Brotherhood might blame me for what had happened, might actually refuse to help, was almost more worrying than thinking about my mother’s fate.
Archie stayed where he was, smoking and running his other hand absently up and down his temple, his index finger leaving a small red mark. He didn’t look strong and self-assured just then, more small and lost, like I felt a great deal of the time. I wanted to do something to make him feel better, but I knew from my own bleak moods there was nothing for it except time.
Before I could say anything else, Dean laced his fingers with mine and was leading me away. The motion aggravated my already sore hand, and I jerked loose without thinking.
“Whoa,” Dean said as we rounded the corner of the porch. “You hurt? Did he hurt you?” Quick as a cloud scudding across the moon, darkness dropped into his eyes. “I’ll beat his hide so hard your granddad feels it.”
“Dean,” I said as he started back toward Archie, realizing what he’d read into the situation. “He didn’t do anything.”
Dean looked down at me, his nostrils flaring and his lips parted so I could see his teeth. In that moment he looked more Erlkin than human, and I took a step back. “You’ve been quiet and glum since we got here, and now I see you looking tore up. Is he—”
“No!” I shouted. “Stones, no. He’s my father, Dean. He’s not hurting me.” The very idea that Archie would be physically abusing me was sort of laughable. To me. But Dean’s life had been very different, and I knew he was just trying to look out for me.
Dean settled back inside his leather jacket, like a predator retreating back into its cave. “Well, okay. Why are you so gloomy, then?” He brushed his thumb down my cheek. “I miss you, princess. I miss your spark.”
I didn’t speak, just leaned in and wrapped my arms around his torso under his jacket. I loved the feel of his ribs under my fingers, the warmth of his skin through his shirt. I put my cheek against his cotton-wrapped chest and let out a breath for what felt like the first time since the Munin had touched down.
“I miss you too” was all I said. All my anger at the Brotherhood and all the worry about my father deflated, and I felt exhausted.
Dean pressed his lips to the top of my head. “Is it that bad?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “We’re stuck here. And everyone in the world wants my head on a spike.”
“They can’t all,” Dean said. “Though it is a very pretty head.”
I laughed, even though it felt like swallowing a mouthful of ash. “You’re the only person who thinks so, I guarantee.”
Dean moved his lips to touch mine. “Only one that matters, aren’t I?”
I nodded, and stood on my toes to kiss him in return. After a minute I tilted my head toward the metal hulk of the Munin. “We could be alone in there.”
Dean’s smile came slowly, but it warmed me from the inside out. “I like the way you think, princess.”
“I am the brains of this operation,” I said, and then shoved him lightly and took off across the grass at a run.
“Oh, you are gonna get it when I catch you,” Dean called as I darted away from his grasp, feeling lighthearted for the first time that day. He followed me until we’d climbed the ladder into the Munin, both of us out of breath and shivering from the cold.
Dean snapped his lighter and illuminated our way into the cabin, where he shut the hatch and then turned to me, stripping off his jacket. I sat on the edge of the bunk, feeling the satiny brush of the fine linen on the backs of my legs. Valentina had given me fresh stockings and a garter belt to replace the ones I’d destroyed on the beach, and suddenly I could feel every inch of them against my skin.
I couldn’t leave the Crosley house, I couldn’t fix what was happening outside it, but I could be myself with Dean. Never mind that my hands shook when I gripped Dean’s biceps, his wiry muscles moving under my hands as he lowered me to the mattress, the length of his body pressing against mine. I could feel his weight and smell his smell—cigarettes and leather and woodsmoke. It covered me and pushed away all the helplessness and the choking feeling of being caught in a spiral of events that I had as much control over as an oak leaf over a hurricane.
“I like being this close to you, Dean,” I whispered.
“And I you, princess,” he whispered back. “What do you want to do?”
“Honestly?” I propped myself up, looking into his eyes, and bit my lip.
“Honesty is good,” Dean said.
“I want to take a nap,” I confessed. “I’m exhausted, and that house is so echoing. I can never really drift off.” I was self-conscious all of a sudden. Would he get mad that I didn’t want to just make out until we either got caught or had to go in to supper? Would he go find someone who would, when we left here, if I kept putting him off? “Or we could just go inside,” I rushed. Dean stopped me moving.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t leave.”
“I-I’m sorry,” I stuttered. “I just …”
“Hey, calm down,” Dean said, and I managed to stop my frantic babbling long enough to look into his eyes. As always, the calm gray seas within soothed me. He stroked my hair, pulling me back to his chest so that I could hear his heartbeat. In that moment, I never wanted to move. “So lay yourself down and sleep.” He grinned at me. “How many guys get to sleep next to somebody who looks like you?”
“Just you,” I murmured, eyelids already fluttering now that I knew he wasn’t upset with me.
“Damn right,” Dean said, pulling a blanket over us. “And in my book, that makes me the luckiest guy on this messed-up planet.”
“Good night, Dean,” I whispered. I planted a light kiss on his chest before nestling my head against him. His arms went around me, and I was so warm and calm that I never wanted to get up.
“Good night, princess,” he said softly. “Sweet dreams.”
The figure didn’t seem surprised to see me, and I wasn’t as shocked as I had been in the past to see him.
All the skies were red, bleeding sunsets and throbbing, bruise-colored sunrises. The black things that drifted above were close now, close enough to cast shadows.
I no longer even bothered asking what he wanted from me. I just stood, watching the great gear tick off the heartbeats of this place.