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“Is this what you want?” he whispered, the words fluttering against my skin like a hummingbird’s wing.
“Yes,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I’d agreed to. In the aftermath of our fight with the hawk, Rafe’s closeness made me feel safe. Despite, or maybe because of that, I finally found the nerve to ask, “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The glasses… the cane. You move through the forest almost too fast for me to follow, yet I’m not honestly sure what you can see.”
He stayed silent for so long I thought he might not answer, yet he did not loosen his hold. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked him something so personal, or I should have waited until some other time, when things were less fraught.
The irony was not lost on me, that I, Vincent Fairchild, who relied so much on his appearance, should be bewitched by a blind man.
“We really shouldn’t stay here, in case the demon returns.” His voice was rusty, as if, in these last moments, he’d become unused to speaking.
I didn’t move a muscle. “Looked like a hawk to me.”
“Not a hawk.”
“It might not have been an actual bird, but those claws and that beak looked very real.”
He released his hold and took a step away from me. “Let’s go to the tower. We can talk there.”
I shivered, bereft of his warmth. “You lead the way.”
He headed down the path and after taking a deep breath to clear my head, I followed.
The walk to the lighthouse was faster than the trip to the cave, faster and more direct. Rafe crashed through knee-high ferns, using his cane as a scythe. Despite our speed, my mind had time to stray.
For the most part, I feared I’d come to regret having asked him about his sight. He hadn’t seemed angry. If anything, he’d held me closer, more tenderly. That wasn’t the action of an angry man.
Yet there were so many things I did not know. Those questions plagued me, so that by the time we reached the edge of the forest, I’d decided that ifI had my druthers, I’d find my friend Rutger and drink a pint somewhere. Rutger was easy. He’d never tied me in knots like this.
Rutger. What had happened that last night in San Francisco? Something profound enough for Madam Munro to exile me here. With luck, my friend had ended up someplace safer.
Safe or not, I followed that dark, caped figure across the grass, one eye on the sky in case the hawk made another appearance. Why did he need privacy for this conversation? Or did he just want to bring me someplace nobody would see? If Rafe intended to reveal himself as the holder of the Ferox Cor, I would have little defense against him no matter where we were.Lord.I swallowed down my fear and kept on.
Rafe reached the door of the tower, opened it, and stood aside so I could enter. The door closed behind us, and for a moment, we both hesitated.
“Should we go up?” I asked.
He stood with his arms crossed, a picture of indecision. This lower floor had no windows, but a thin, grey light came down through the stairwell from the upper floor.
“Maybe I should apologize. I didn’t mean to distress you so,” I said.
Shaking his head, Rafe took a deep inhale, and there, in the cold, damp tower, he removed his amber glasses.
His eyes were as black and glossy as coal. The focus of his gaze was off to one side of me, and his lips quivered, as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.
“What happened?” I asked, an almost involuntary question. “No, you don’t have to answer. I didn’t mean…”
What didn’t I mean?I had no idea. This close to him, in a place of privacy, my thoughts were as ragged as the wind-tossed surf.
“It’s all right.” He slipped his glasses back on. “You’ll have to forgive me. It’s been so long since I had anyone but Mother to talk to.” He raked a hand through his hair, an uncharacteristically awkward gesture. “Um…when I was twelve or so, I tried a spell, one well beyond my skill.”
“That must have been a difficult spell indeed.”
That comment brought the shadow of a smile. “Yes and no. In a way, it was a gift, because by trying and failing, I opened channels to power that I might not have otherwise found. It did, however, permanently damage my vision. I can see only the spirit realm, no more and no less.”
With those words spoken, we moved closer together. He wasn’t going to destroy me with the Ferox Cor. He might still possess it – Lord, for all I knew, it was behind the spell he’d failed to cast – but this was simply a conversation.
