Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
She wore the same oversize gray sweater as the previous day.
“Bad night?” I murmured. It was easy to do so privately—she sat next to me on a wide couch, with Ash on her other side. He, however, was involved in a conversation with Phoenix, who sat in an armchair kitty-corner from him.
To my right was Kaea, with Grace and Vansi seated near him. All three were chatting, while Aaron had just got up to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Vansi and I had offered to do it instead, told him he’d done enough, but Aaron had insisted. Knowing the kitchen was where he decompressed, I’d let it go.
“My head felt like it had a drum in it.” Darcie moved her spoon in her oatmeal but didn’t eat. “The painkillers must’ve worn off at some point. I spent the rest of the night in a kind of half-awake, half-asleep daze. Had the weirdest dreams.”
Her lips turned downward. “Ash said I screamed Bea’s name at one point. Sorry if I woke you.”
“I heard nothing through the wine drunk and no one else has mentioned it, either.” I angled my head to look at the back of hers, saw only the fuzzy silk of her hair. “Is the wound healing?”
“Nix examined it before Ash and I came down, and he says that while it’s swollen, it doesn’t seem to be much of a cut. I guess it’s true, head wounds just bleed like crazy.” She tried out a faint smile. “Vansi shared more of her magic pills with me just before, so hopefully I’ll start to feel a bit more human soon. Especially after all of Aaron’s delicious food.”
Ash said something to her then, and the conversation drifted. I didn’t take too much part, content to listen. Content to think. The oiled hinges continued to niggle at me, until I took the opportunity to ask Darcie, “Does Jim maintain the secret passageways in the house?” It didn’t seem likely when she’d said the passageways had always been her and Bea’s private secret. “Does he even know about them?”
“Hardly.” Her eyes were brighter now, her laugh fuller. “Not worth the potential liability. He could get trapped in one of the passageways, and the next thing I know, there’s a dead body on our family estate.” She shuddered. “No one who comes to work on the estate knows about the passages, but still, I make sure they’re locked up.”
As she finished speaking, Phoenix asked Kaea how he was doing, got a thumbs-up in return.
“This hasn’t exactly worked out as I hoped,” Darcie said to the group after accepting a top-up of her coffee from Aaron with a smile of thanks. “Do you think we’ll laugh about this one day when we’re old and gray? The disaster of a reunion I organized in the middle of nowhere?”
Aaron chuckled and poured me some coffee, too. “It hasn’t been that bad.”
The others all chimed in, and since I didn’t want to be the rain on everyone’s parade, I said, “I have thousands of photographs already—it’s a fantastic place to shoot inside and out.” Which reminded me. “With the rain and all, I thought I might explore the house a bit more, if that’s all right with you, Darcie, take more internal photographs.”
“Go for it,” Darcie said, her fingers curled around her mug and her smile fading as she looked down into the dark liquid. “Sometimes, I think it’d be better if I just got rid of this place. Too many memories, you know? If I do end up making that choice, it’ll be nice to have photographs to look back on.”
“Big decision,” Grace murmured. “Wouldn’t it be tough to lose touch with such a solid piece of your legacy?”
Darcie’s fingers tightened on the mug. “I swim between two extremes. Cling to all that once was—or start brand-new. No haunts trailing in my wake.”
“I guess it’s your decision to make.” The edge to Grace’s tone caught my attention, had me focusing on her.
When Darcie shot her a sharp look, Grace blushed. “Gosh, I’m sorry.” She ducked her head. “I grew up rich, but I’m adopted—from one of those infamous Romanian orphanages.
“My entire history is what I remember from the time I was old enough to form memories. Even my parents’ wealth doesn’t help when it comes to finding my birth family—they’re ghosts in the system. I guess I’m jealous of you having access to over a hundred years and more.”
Darcie’s face softened. “God, that must be so hard. I never thought about it that way.”
I knew what was coming even before she glanced at me. “Luna’s adopted, too.”
I’d never hidden that. But for some reason, I didn’t like how casually Darcie shared an intimate part of my history. Or maybe I was just irritable because I couldn’t stop thinking about those oiled hinges.