Page 40 of Raven in Midwinter

“Well, for me, this has been all one evening. We went over to James and Cass’s house earlier tonight. I feel like I’m having some crazy fever dream.”

“You haven’t slept at all?”

“No.”

“That’s concerning.” He rolled off the bed. “After we clean you up, you should try and rest.”

“I doubt I can, not in the middle of all this. Every second this goes on, I feel like we get further away from unraveling it. Which is maybe why he created the slip here, in this time, so that more of it passes.”

“That makes sense, because for you it’s one night, and maybe that’s because you’re a witch and your magic can discern reality. For me, as I’m magic adjacent,” he said with a chuckle, “it feels like so much longer. But for people here, they perceive my time with them as years.”

“I know.”

“That’s madness.” He shook his head.

“And because I heard that, I was worried you might have forgotten me.”

“No, love, I’ll never forget you.”

I nodded quickly, unable to speak.

“We have to figure out how to undo what he’s done to Corvus.”

Silently, both of us thinking, he walked me to his bathroom, where there was the biggest bathtub I’d ever seen.

“Tell me that’s not solid gold.”

“Oh, I think it’s solid gold,” he teased. “My thought is, because of all those years bouncing around, having to move from place to place, never having a home, now that he can, he’s created this monument to indulgence and bad taste.”

“Lots of triggers and unhealed trauma here.”

“Without a doubt,” he said, moving around to plug the tub and turn on the water.

“Hot and cold running water?”

“Only the best for Giles Corey.”

“I hate that he locks you in here.”

“He does it at night, which doesn’t bother me. I have free rein of the house and grounds all day up until after my evening meal.”

“He doesn’t worry about you and Argos cutting out during the day?”

He shrugged. “Where are we gonna go?”

“Then why lock you in at all?”

“To have some semblance of control, I’m sure.”

“And you don’t care?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s only the outer door. For whatever reason—and I do have a theory—he can’t pass the threshold into this room. Neither can Ilara, his companion, which is a constant source of frustration for her.”

“It sounds like she wants you.”