The Light Within (Shadow and Light Duology #2)

6. Cinn

six

Cinn

S ilence plummeted in a suffocating wave around Cinn, sucking all the oxygen out of the air.

Cinn stared at Julien. His face was about to burst into laughter, any second now. Because Julien was surely joking, though this was hardly funny.

But Julien gave away nothing more, his expression remaining one of controlled neutrality as he patiently waited for Cinn to react.

This wasn’t a joke.

“Well, fuck me,” muttered Elliot.

“My… my what?” Cinn said weakly, slumping back in the armchair.

His father. A man he had no living memory of.

It had bothered him a handful of times in recent years, how remarkably little his mother had mentioned his father, back when he lived with her.

He knew his father was dead without knowing precisely how he knew. He’d certainly got none of the infamous lies of single-mother households. There was no ‘he was a famous rockstar killed in a tragic car crash’, and no ‘his submarine got lost in the Mariana Trench’.

The only thing his mother did share about his father was his taste in music. A song would come on the radio, and she’d say, ‘your dad loved this band’, and then get that sad look in her eyes that invited no questions .

Apart from that, Cinn’s father was only a blank space in the tapestry of his past, a ghost without a story. A blank space. Apart from… There was that one photograph on the bookshelf, a framed portrait of a man under a weeping willow tree. Had he actually been explicitly told by his mother that the photo was of his father, or had he simply connected the dots himself?

In the photo, the man’s face was obscured, lost in the shadow of the cascading branches, leaving his features forever a mystery. The man’s arms were bare, revealing a skin tone strikingly similar to Cinn’s own, and it was this fact that squashed his persistent theory that he was just a random man his mum had cut out of a magazine. But he wouldn’t put it past her.

“Give me that.” Cinn reached out to grab the file, clutching it to his chest.

The first bunch of pages were similar to Béatrice’s—basic information. They’d somehow collated a list of every address he’d ever lived at, including all ten of his foster homes. Next was a detailed police report of his first arrest as a teenager, which he quickly flipped over—no need to relive that right now.

Another police report, another bad memory—the quadruple homicide that triggered Auri’s involvement with Cinn. Even looking at the photographs from the CCTV made a sour taste rise in the back of his mouth, and his warding band heated slightly.

Then, a transcript of a telephone conversation between Viktor Sturmhart and Eleanor, ordering her to go and collect him from England.

A photocopy of a letter to the chief of the gendarmerie, Salvatore Gallo from Eleanor, stating that he might be a flight risk and she may need his officers to help contain him within the Auri boundaries.

His mood plummeted further. He’d never been the biggest fan of Eleanor and this wasn’t helping .

Turning the page, Cinn saw Noir’s name at the top, heart sinking at the notion of the old codger spilling the beans about their tutorial-come-therapy sessions. However, after an explanation of his visits to Noir, the rest of the page was filled with a single line— session records confidential . Cinn laughed, the image of the grumpy bastard refusing to contribute entertaining him greatly. Or, equally likely, Noir couldn’t be bothered to type up his notes from his leather notebook.

“The information about your parents is next,” said Julien, peering at him from across the room.

Cinn shot him a look that he hoped said, shut the fuck up, before studying the documents.

First up, his mother. Just the sight of her name, Esme Saunders, had his heart leaping into his throat. There was no photograph. It had been so many years since he’d seen her—would he even recognise her? Underneath her current residential address—a part of London he didn’t recognise, a fancier postcode than he’d grown up in for sure—there was indeed a work address at a hospital.

That was it, aside from a note stating that Cinn left her custody in July nineteen eighty-five. The phrase ‘voluntarily relinquished custody to state’ wasn’t quite how Cinn remembered it.

“Alright?” asked Darcy quietly.

Cinn grunted in reply, moving onto the final piece of paper.

A black and white headshot of a man in his twenties filled a corner of the page. Cinn crumpled the corner of the sheet in his shock.

“He has your hair, right?” said Julien.

“I’ve got my mum’s hair,” Cinn shot straight back.

But he couldn’t deny the similarities between him and this man. His father. The stranger possessed a slightly sharper nose, slightly narrower eyes, but the comparison was indisputable .

A trickle of sweat made its way down the back of Cinn’s neck. It was difficult to breathe. He removed his hoodie, but the room was still so goddamn warm .

With his file in hand, Cinn stood, swept his rucksack up from the floor and headed out into the corridor, avoiding the three pairs of silent eyes that followed his path.

For reasons unbeknown to him, his feet took him to Béatrice’s room, rarely ever entered. But one look at that black bundle of wool on her desk—the knitted scarf she’d never finish—had him pivoting on his heel, dashing through the kitchen to fling open the back door.

He inhaled a large gulp of crisp air, the chill of it hitting his throat like an icy shock.

It took several more breaths for the tightness in his throat to relax.

He headed to the bench, headphones at the ready. Cinn needed something that would blast his anxiety out of his head but his rucksack offered a limited selection of cassettes. He reached for his favourite— Doolittle by the Pixies—to remember that it had jammed while he was rewinding it yesterday, and now tangled lengths of black tape spilled out of the cassette like entrails. He picked it up regardless, giving its surface a sad stroke.

It had been the soundtrack to countless lonely nights, and had prevented him from slipping countless times, back when music was his only defence. He twisted his gold warding band before popping his next best option into his Walkman—The Cranberries’s No Need to Argue , fast forwarding to “Zombie”.

Headphones on, cigarette lit, he was finally ready to look at the photograph again.

His father stared up at him, wide-eyed, a startled smile on his face as if the camera had caught him unaware .

Although Cinn could see echoes of himself in the curve of the stranger’s lips, the crinkle of his eyes, he couldn’t reconcile the image with the man he’d sometimes allowed himself to imagine.

Neon pink leg warmers appeared in his peripheral vision. He hadn’t heard Darcy approach over the deafening chorus of the song. He slid his headphones off as she sat down beside him.

“Julien tried to follow you out, but I sent him and Elliot to the shop for milk.”

“Cheers.”

“I also asked him to pick up some verjus. He’ll have no idea what it is, so that should slow him down.”

Whatever verjus was, Cinn didn’t have the faintest clue. He nodded along in conspiratorial agreement.

“So, did you have any idea? About him being a shadowslipper?”

Cinn’s head snapped to Darcy’s. “ You what ?” He stared at her, letting out a hollow laugh that filled the garden.

Darcy’s face twisted. “Your dad? Julien just told us that he was also a shadowslipper?” She nodded down to the file Cinn hadn’t actually finished reading yet.

“You’re fucking with me.”

Her guilty, worried grimace suggested otherwise.

“Bloody hell.” Cinn leaned back on the bench, watching the clouds in their slow drift for a count of ten. Then he dragged his eyes to the paper.

Nikolas Mavros

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, 1950.

Deceased 10th March 1976.

Father, Ioannis Mavros. Mother, Eleni Mavros.

Grandparents . Now there was something Cinn had never considered before .

“Why don’t I have his name?” Cinn murmured. “I don’t think I even knew he was Greek…”

It was one thing to know his father was dead, but entirely another to know, know , seeing the word and date on the page.

Cinn glanced at the text below, the spark of a headache already igniting and he hadn’t even attempted to read it yet. Béatrice’s write up was bad enough, and this looked worse. He rooted around in his rucksack, moving mints and empty lighters aside to locate the yellow overlay Julien had gifted him. Once placed on the first line, the letters forwent their usual wiggling dance.

Fifteen at the time of the Calamities of 1965, Nikolas Mavros was a first generation moteblessed, and confirmed shadowslipper. His abilities allowed him to traverse back and forth to what is often referred to as ‘the shadowrealm’, or ‘the other place’, a phenomenon known to challenge the boundaries of reality and perception.

Arriving at AAIoES in late 1975, Mavros presented with severe psychosis, a condition exacerbated by his unique abilities. Medical professionals endeavoured to treat his condition, yet his mental state remained precarious. During periods of lucidity, Mavros offered intricate accounts of his shadowslipping experiences, initially misconstrued as symptoms of schizophrenia. As his illness progressed, he became increasingly unable to differentiate between his experiences in the shadowrealm and the tangible world.

In January 1976, Mavros lapsed into a persistent comatose state, defying all efforts at revival. His tragic case continues to intrigue researchers, highlighting the profound impact of shadowslipping abilities on the human psyche.

Notably, Mavros gained significant attention due to his claims of being able to bring ‘spirits’ and objects back from the shadowrealm into our world. However, it should be emphasised that this aspect of his ability was never conclusively verified. To date, this remains the sole documented potential instance of such a phenomenon occurring.

“Noir talked about him in one of our sessions. He said there was only one other shadowslipper that had brought anything back before. He didn’t fucking tell me it was my father, though.”

Cinn’s earlier wave of fondness for the old man crashed and burned. His gaze combed over the photo of the father he had no memories of, the one he seemingly had to thank for the affliction that he’d once felt ruined his life.

“Before you explode at him in your next session, I have a sense that Julien may not have obtained these files using the most legal of methods. Just a hunch. So you might want to hold back.”

Cinn dug the heel of his trainer into the ground, drawing a pattern in the dirt. “I’m not seeing him again until January, anyway.”

The sun disappeared behind a grey cloud, removing the sliver of warmth it was offering.

“Come on.”

Darcy led the way back into the kitchen to make another round of tea. By the time the leaves in the teapot had brewed, the front door clicked open and noisy footsteps echoed through the cottage.

Cinn didn’t hold back his groan. He’d been rather enjoying his and Darcy’s silent solitude.

Julien slid a bottle of verjus across the kitchen countertop, its glass surface gliding smoothly until it hit Darcy’s hand.

“You found it then.” She wiggled the small, green-tinted bottle in the air.

“Piece of cake. We asked the shopkeeper,” said Elliot .

An awkward pause settled in the room. Cinn added a third spoon of sugar to his tea in order to keep staring down at it.

“So—”

“I think I need to go to London.”

The words were out of Cinn’s mouth before he even had a chance to understand why he was saying them. He ripped his eyes upward to meet Julien’s piercing gaze.

“Really? You want to go see her?”

Cinn gave him a single decisive nod before he could change his mind. His head spun. This morning he barely knew whether his mother was even alive, and now he had an address, questions, and a plan. Well, a plan of sorts.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Darcy, attracting everyone’s attention. “My parents are flying to London for Christmas, but I didn’t want to leave you alone this year, Julien, with how much you hate Christmas and such.”

“Why does everyone keep telling me how much I hate Christmas?” Julien mumbled.

“Last year you begged me to burn down that obnoxiously large Christmas tree in the town square when it was still there on the second of January,” said Elliot.

“And I caught you pulling down all the tinsel in the library study room,” said Darcy.

“It’s a place to work, not a winter wonderland,” snapped Julien.

“Anyway, now we can all spend it with my parents.”

Sounded like hell, but Cinn could hardly refuse Darcy’s kind hospitality. “Okay,” he replied weakly.

“I’ll go give them a ring from the living room. Elliot?”

Darcy looked pointedly at Elliot, who shot her a baffled look back before a flash of understanding flickered over his face. He followed her out of the kitchen, leaving Cinn and Julien alone .

Julien teetered on the balls of his feet. He wrung his hands together, gaze scrutinising Cinn’s face.

Cinn took a small sip of his tea, then set it back down. He leaned casually against the fridge. His gaze bore into Julien as he waited, and waited. He was prepared to wait all day for Julien to speak first.

The chasm between them grew wider with each passing second until it created an unbearable distance that threatened to engulf them.

Cinn cracked.

“You could’ve at least asked before digging up secret files on me,” he said in a rush, folding his arms.

Julien stepped towards him. “I didn’t seek it out. Béatrice’s was the objective. Yours was a lucky bonus.”

Cinn huffed. Nothing felt particularly lucky about his current situation. “You could’ve asked my permission to read it, then.”

“I wanted to read it first, just in case.” A guilty frown tugged at the corners of Julien’s mouth. He closed the space between them, standing so close vulnerability was visible in grey eyes that begged for understanding.

“In case of what?”

Soft fingers slid between both sets of Cinn’s. Julien tugged Cinn’s arms from their fold, then he interlaced their hands, bringing one to his lips to press a feather-light kiss against it.

Julien dropped his voice to a whisper. “In case you needed protecting from any bad things.”

Cinn must have been going mad, because his brain stopped fighting Julien’s twisted logic. Or perhaps all rational thoughts were being manipulated by Julien’s cologne—he was wearing Cinn’s favourite one, the one that carried a hint of cinnamon that made him smell deliciously divine.

Julien pressed his thigh against Cinn’s, dropped one of his hands to press it against the fridge, caging Cinn in .

“Let me protect you from the bad things,” Julien breathed into Cinn’s ear before brushing his lips across its shell, and Cinn leaned back further against the cool metal to stop himself from losing control.

“I don’t need your protection,” Cinn tried to snap, but it came out as a low, soft whisper.

Julien pulled back to look him in the eye. He cupped Cinn’s cheek. “ Oui , you do, mon amour . Just like I need yours.”

Goddamn it. Those fucking eyes. Those fucking dimples alongside that sad fucking smile. It was enough to convince Cinn, at least for a moment.

Cinn pressed their lips together, feeling the warm exhalation of Julien’s relieved sigh as it ghosted across his cheek. Their bodies shifted, slotting into an alignment that felt as natural as breathing. The kiss deepened as Julien’s eager lips sought, and Cinn’s responded. The weight of the fridge toppled backwards slightly as Julien pinned Cinn against its cool surface, sliding his leg against Cinn’s as he held his chin in place, moulding their mouths together.

Cinn pulled away, breathless. “It’s cheating when you use your French on me,” he grumbled.

The gleam in Julien’s eyes radiated both amusement and desire. He leaned forward once more—

A cough, and what was possibly a retching sound from the doorway. Their heads shot around to see Darcy hovering under the arch, unimpressed, with Elliot behind her, mouth twitching in… suppressed laughter ?

“We left you so you could talk, not topple over my fridge.”

When Julien relinquished Cinn by stepping back, the appliance lurched forward, landing on the tiles with a soft thud.

Oh dear.

Cinn’s gaze roamed over to Elliot, stomach tensing. Surely he hadn’t liked seeing Julien with his tongue down Cinn’s throat? But Julien’s oldest friend seemed only entertained .

Darcy moved into the middle of the kitchen, spotlit by her wrought-iron hanging light. “Now that you two have clearly lost all self-control around each other… Julien, I want to restate the fact that, in the event of divorce, Cinn gets custody of me.”

Cinn’s cheeks burned, but it was his heart that felt the warmest of all.

“And me,” said Elliot, slouched against the archway. “Sorry, Julien. I just can’t live without his cookies. I’m sure you understand.”

Making friends had never come easily to Cinn. Back in his school days, he’d always been conscious of how much quieter he was than his classmates. It wasn’t that he was shy per se , it was just that the other children were louder, always shouting over him, whenever he tried to speak. Eventually, he stopped trying. Then, it had seemed pointless bothering to connect with others in his numerous foster homes, like trying to plant roots in shifting sand.

Cinn swallowed down the thick lump in his throat, moving to the sink to busy himself with the dishes.

“We’ll come for Christmas,” Julien declared, raising his voice. “But just because we’re in England does not mean I’ll do any of your silly traditions. I’m not doing the hideous jumper thing. Or the song thing. And I’m certainly not eating Christmas pudding, ” he spat, as if the words were acid on his tongue.

“Any other demands, your highness?” asked Darcy. “Let me get my notepad.”

Cinn snorted, placing the last china mug on the drying rack, stacking it exactly how Darcy liked.

“Why, yes!” Julien clapped his hands together in mock delight. “Please write down that we must have foie gras .”

Elliot made a disgusted sound, which Cinn concurred with—he’d never had any desire to try the overfed goose liver on bread that only rich snobs ordered.

“Absolutely not. It’s barbaric,” Darcy replied .

“Oh, and for my final condition—Cinn has to make la b?che for dessert.”

At Cinn’s blank look, Darcy supplied, “It’s only a chocolate log. They’re obsessed with them in France.”

“I’m no baker,” Cinn said. “I’ll do the potatoes for everyone, but that’s as far as it goes.”

Julien pouted at him, eyes pleading. “ S’il te pla?t? For me ?”

Cinn opened his mouth, quite possibly to give in and agree, but Elliot saved him by whacking Julien on the arm. “That won’t work on Cinn. He’s immune to your bullshit.”

If Cinn was immune, his brain certainly didn’t know that.

“You’re coming, right mate?” Cinn asked Elliot.

“There’s family stuff happening back in the states. But I haven’t been personally invited to anything, so I guess you guys win.”

Darcy beamed at him.

The festive twinkle in everyone’s eyes was infectious. Cinn’s mouth pulled up into a smile. The conversation had drifted miles from his initial statement of needing to see his mother. But that was okay—getting lost in the warmth of the moment was exactly the distraction he needed. He couldn’t quite believe his luck in getting to spend Christmas with the three of them, but he’d certainly take it.