Verum (The Nocte Trilogy, #2)(19)

Of course not.

I’m alone.

I lay my hand on the wall and try to draw in a deep breath. I can’t be crazy. It’s one of my worst fears, second only to losing my brother.

A movement catches my eye and I focus on it.

Carnation petals and stargazers, white and red, blow across the floor. Funeral flowers.

Startled, I turn toward them, bending to touch them. I run one between my fingers, its texture velvety smooth. It hadn’t been here a moment ago. None of them had, but yet here they are, strewn across the floor.

They lead to a crypt in the wall.

Adair Phillip DuBray.

My heart pounds and pounds as I race to the plaque, as I trace the fresh letters with my fingertips.

This hadn’t been here either.

What the hell?

I gulp, drawing in air, observing the fresh flowers in the vase beside his name.

There is no moss here, because this had been freshly carved, recently opened, and very recently sealed. But there’s no way Dare can be here, because I just saw him last night. He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine.

As my hands palm his name, as I reassure myself, pictures fill my head, images and smells.

The sea, a cliff, a car.

Blood, shrieking metal, the water.

Dare.

He’s bloody,

He’s bloody,

He’s bloody.

Everything is on fire,

The flames lick at the stone walls,

Trying to find any possible way out.

The smoke chokes me and I cough,

gasping for air.

I blink and everything is gone.

My hands are on a blank wall, and Dare’s name is gone.

The flowers are gone.

I’m alone.

The floor is bare.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I’m crazy.

It’s the only explanation.

I scramble for the door and burst out into the sunlight, away from the mausoleum, away from the death. I fly toward the house, tripping on the stones.

“Calla?”

My name is called and I’m afraid to look, afraid no one will be there, afraid that I’m still imagining things. Is this what Finn felt like every day? Am I starting down that slippery path? It’s a rabbit hole and I’m the rabbit and I’m crazy.

But it’s Dare, standing tall and strong on the path, and I fly into his arms, without worrying about pushing him away.

His arms close around me and he smells so good, so familiar, and I close my eyes.

“You’re fine,” I tell him, I tell myself. “You’re ok.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says in confusion, his hands stroking my back, holding me close. “Did you think something happened?”

I see his name, carved in the mausoleum stone, and I shudder, pushing the vision away, far out of my mind.

“No. I…no.”

He holds me for several minutes more, then looks down at me, tucking an errant strand of my hair behind my ear.

“Are you ok? You’ve been gone for hours.”

Hours? How can that be? The sky swirls, and I steady myself against his chest.

I hear his heart and it’s beating fast, because he’s afraid.

He’s afraid for me because he recognizes the signs, he’s seen them before.

“It’s ok, Cal,” he murmurs, but I can hear the concern in his voice. “It’s ok.”

But I can tell from his voice that it’s not.

Craziness is genetic.

I’m the rabbit.

And I’m crazy.

Dare’s arm is around my shoulders as we walk back to the house, and I can feel him glance at me from time to time.

“Stop,” I tell him finally as we walk through the gardens. “I’m fine.”

“Ok,” he agrees. “Of course you are.”

But he knows better, and he knows that I’m not.

Sabine is kneeling by the library doors, digging through the rich English soil, and she looks at us over her shoulder. When she sees my face, her eyes narrow and she climbs to her feet.

“Are you all right, Miss Price?” she asks in her gravelly voice. I want to lie, I want to tell her that I’m fine, but I know she can tell the difference. In fact, as she stares at me with those dark eyes, I feel like she can see into my soul.

I don’t bother to lie.

I just shake my head.

She nods.

“Come with me.”

She leads us both to the back of the house, to her room. It’s small and dark, draped in colorful fabrics, in mystic symbols and pieces of gaudy jewelry, shrouded in mirrors and dream-catchers and stars.

I’m stunned and I pause, gazing at all of the pageantry.

She glimpses my expression and shrugs. “I’m Rom,” she says, by way of explanation. At my blank expression, she sighs. “Romani. Gypsy. I’m not ashamed of it.”

She holds her head up high, her chin out, and I can see that she’s far from ashamed. She’s proud.

“You shouldn’t be,” I assure her weakly. “It’s your heritage. It’s fascinating.”

She’s satisfied by that, by the idea that I’m not looking down at her for who she is.

Her dark eyes tell a story, and to me, they tell me that she knows more than I do. That she might even know more about me than I do.