Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(14)

I need Dare for that.

But if he’s the sun, he’ll burn me.

And my metaphors are making me sick.

I retreat to the gardens, where I’m surrounded by flowers and silence.

All I have are my thoughts here, and my mind is a scary place.

I close my eyes and will my memories to return, But all I can see is the past.

The past I know.

Not the things that I don’t.

My mother’s screams haunt me.

Finn’s headstone, my tears.

His journal, which I left at home.

I wish I’d brought it.

At least I’d feel closer to him, even though his words were crazy.

I picture a page filled with scribble, with his familiar handwriting and scratched out words.

With perfect clarity, I remember it.

Calla will save me.

Or I will die.

I will die.

I will die.

Serva me, serva bo te.

Save me and I’ll save you.

A shudder runs through me because I couldn’t.

I couldn’t save Finn.

And no amount of words and consolation… from my father, from Dare, from Sabine… no amount of argument can change that.

You survived them for a reason.

Sabine’s nonsense comes back to me, and I ponder it.

For what reason?

I don’t know.

Is my reason to save Dare, like Jane saved Mr. Rochester?

I don’t know.

All I know is I have to uncover his truth if I am ever to save anything.

The truth will set us all free.





Chapter 7





I’m lost again.

Whitley is so large that I find I’m perpetually lost. Somehow, I find myself outside of Eleanor’s study today, and I hear her voice coming from within.

Reaching out to grip the doorknobs, I pause because she doesn’t seem happy. With the door already cracked, I can hear the words loud and clear.

“She’s not well, Eleanor,” Sabine says in her creaky voice. “She needs rest and solitude, I fear.”

“Then she’ll get it here at Whitley,” Eleanor says impatiently. “I don’t see the reason for your concern.”

“She’s lost everything,” Sabine offers. “And you don’t offer her anything but shelter. Perhaps if you would just tell her…”

“Tell her what?” Eleanor snaps. “Remind her that…”

“Haven’t you heard it’s impolite to eavesdrop?”

Dare steps around me, studying me curiously. He’s handsome, he’s enigmatic, he’s in my personal space. He also doesn’t want me to hear what they’re saying.

I take a breath. “What is everyone hiding from me?” I ask him bluntly.

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”

It’s everything. I feel it.

“I need to know,” I insist. He stares at me.

“You’re here to recover, Calla. To rest, to come back to yourself…”

“But you said that I’m not safe,” I remind him. “Shouldn’t I know from what?”

He’s uncomfortable now, and his dark eyes seem to shimmer. “So much has happened to this family. You don’t need to think about it right now. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

I wish I could.

“This is madness,” I whisper.

“We’re all a bit mad, I suppose,” he quotes Lewis Carroll for what, I assume, is a lack of a better answer. My fingernails dig into my palm because I’m so frustrated.

“I love you, you know,” he offers, and his face is suddenly gentle. “God, I hate this, Calla.”

He walks away, like standing near me is painful.

I do the only thing I can do. I retreat to my room, where I’m alone and no one is watching. The room is lonely and quiet, and I can’t take the silence.

“Finn, you’d hate this place.”

Of course there’s no answer, but it makes me feel better to talk to him, to pretend my other half is still living, still making me whole.

I picture his face and he laughs.

“You’re such a goof, Cal,” he tells me, his pale blue eyes twinkling. “You were always the better half. You don’t need me.”

“That’s dumb,” I reply instantly. “I’ll always need you. I’m probably going to never stop talking to you, ok?”

He rolls his eyes and stands in the moonlight. “Fine. But there’s going to come a time when I stop answering. Because eventually, you have to let me go, Cal. For your own good.”

“Don’t tell me what my own good is,” I scowl, but he laughs, because that’s what Finn does. He laughs and he makes every situation better.

“Stay with me,” I urge him. “I feel so alone.”

He nods and he sits on the bed with me, and he watches me while I settle down to sleep. He hums, a song without words, a song that’s familiar, but I can’t place the name.

“Sleep,” he tells me. “I’m right here.”

So I do. I sleep while the memory of my dead brother watches over me, because that’s the only way I feel safe.

But even then, my dreams plague me.