Asylum (Causal Enchantment #2)(33)
You don’t say? Max muttered from his spot on the floor beside the sectional I shared with Julian. The sarcastic comment earned a snicker from me before I could stifle it. It was the fourth time Leo had made that announcement.
“I can’t believe I’m only seeing it now,” I said as I leaned over to grab another fistful of buttery popcorn from the ceramic bowl. I stole a glance at Julian and caught his eyes on me. I smiled. He smiled back but said nothing. He seemed tired. His olive complexion hadn’t completely returned yet.
We had spent the entire day in the great room, sprawled out on either side of the gray sectional couch as Julian recovered from his near-death trek. The servants quietly swept through several times during the day to bring snacks and hot drinks, which we readily accepted, Julian surprising me with the manners of a well-trained schoolboy. Otherwise, no one said two words to us.
After I had divulged the secrets behind my connection to the vampires, Julian must have felt the need to reciprocate, because he gave me a summary of his life, from his early grade school days in Colombia to his American all-boys private school to being accepted into Harvard medical school just this year. It was a fairly normal—if privileged—life for the son of a Colombian drug lord and slave-monger and it helped strengthen my sense of connection with my human companion in this isolated part of the world. We may have come from very different backgrounds, but we were equally confined by vampires.
As the day progressed and Julian’s chattiness waned, I plugged in one of the seven hard drives sitting beside the forty-two inch plasma screen. No one could say Sofie hadn’t prepared for years of entertainment. We settled on a marathon of goofy sitcoms and movies. Julian and I seemed to have the same tastes in shows. That was a good thing, given we would likely be watching a lot of them together.
It was dinnertime when Leo resurfaced from his room, his skin chalky, supporting himself on the furniture as he shuffled into the great room. In a burst of energy, Julian sprang from the couch to rush over and pull out a chair at the dining table for the old man, then offered to fetch some of Magda’s delicious broth, if the beef goulash was too heavy. His attitude toward Leo had changed drastically since the old warlock had saved his life. Watching the exchange quietly from my nook on the couch, I smiled. Perhaps living here together would work after all.
“Oh, I’m not surprised it took being exiled to the middle of nowhere by a vampire for you to sit down and watch this classic. You young folks and your MTV and video games—or whatever the newest thing is,” Leo muttered as he pointed the gray plastic remote at the television and shut it off. “No appreciation for the arts.”
He struggled to rise from his chair. Julian threw his blanket off and slid for his corner of the couch to rise and reach for Leo’s arm, but Leo waved him off, adding grumpily, “I’m not a geriatric!” Julian flinched as if struck. “But thank you for your concern,” Leo quickly added, his tone more civil.
The old Irishman managed to get to his feet and hobbled over to the fire. “Can’t seem to keep the warmth in this drafty place,” he murmured as he leaned over to grab a log, bracing his other hand on the stones of the fireplace. Testing the weight of the log, he changed his mind and grabbed a smaller log. With some effort, he heaved it into the fire.
A twinge of worry nagged at me, seeing such crippled movements where only days ago he’d been a spry seventy-eight-year-old, practically bounding around. It was as if he had aged twenty years overnight. The exertion required for that spell to transport me here, followed by healing Julian, was proving too much for him. He should be resting. “Leo, why don’t you just use your magic for the fire?” I suggested.
He chuckled. “I enjoy stoking the fire.” He demonstrated by poking the logs with the iron prod to kindle the flames. “And if I used my magic for everything I could, rigor mortis would have set into this old corpse by now.”
Leo a corpse. Dead. The very thought brought a pang of grief to my stomach. He was my ally, my magical guardian, along with Max. More, I felt a strange kinship to him, finding his sympathetic pats and gentle nods so . . . grandfatherly. I had never met my grandfather. I had no idea what it was like to have one. Yet, if I closed my eyes and tried to picture my mother’s father, Leo’s weathered, smiling face was the first to appear. I couldn’t have him dying while protecting me. Maybe Sofie could heal him . . . if I could just get her here, somehow. “Have you heard anything more from Sofie?”
Leo opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut as his eyes darted to Julian.
“I’ve told Julian everything,” I blurted, earning a loud grumble of disapproval from Max.
Leo’s grim face indicated his agreement with my disgruntled canine. “Of course you have, silly girl,” he muttered, exasperation in his voice. “You’ve learned nothing! I think you may be allergic to secrecy.”
“Yes, I have learned!” I retorted, defiantly thrusting out my chin. I certainly had learned about the advantages of keeping secrets from vampires and witches. “But look at him!” I threw my hand out to point at Julian, who now squirmed uncomfortably on the couch as we discussed him. “He’s a human. He’s harmless.”
Leo’s mouth curved in a condescending smirk. “You assume humans are harmless?”
“No, but . . . ” I stumbled over my words. In the end, there was only one answer I could give: the one that made sense. “He has a right to know. Just as I did.”