The Stars Over Bittergate Bay

Chapter 5

5

J onas woke up to the smell of sweet honey and yeast. Someone was baking. Someone who wasn’t him, obviously, as he was still tangled in his sheets, the dregs of a dream he could barely remember making his limbs and his mind sluggish.

He got up and dressed, remembering that he’d put Sidney in the guest room across the hall the night before. It was hard to think of the last time he’d had a substantive conversation with someone that wasn’t Delilah, but he found, in the cool light of morning, that he’d probably enjoyed himself. Which was fine. It wasn’t illegal or anything. But he shouldn’t get used to it. Or the idea that his house would smell this good all the time.

Even though he’d looked at himself in the mirror, it wasn’t until he put his red-orange palm on the banister that he realized his glamour had slid off sometime in the night. He stopped on the top step and took a deep breath, pulling the magic back over himself. It wouldn’t do to frighten his guest. A guest who didn’t need to know any of Jonas’s personal business, like who or what he actually was. They were taking care of the witch sight. They were going to talk about the telescope, and then the pretty professor would be off back to Holyworth, and out of Jonas’s hair forever.

With his day thus efficiently planned, Jonas settled into his glamour and continued into the kitchen.

Sidney was engulfed in a small cloud of steam, hunched over the oven, pulling out a tray of the most delicious smelling sweet buns Jonas had ever encountered. Jonas’s stomach growled immediately and enthusiastically. Sidney glanced over his shoulder.

In the sunlight that came in through the window over the sink, Sidney was practically glowing. His skin shone where the light hit him and his dark hair looked fine and soft where it swept haphazardly over his forehead. The longest strands brushed his cheekbones, and Sidney swept them away before scratching absently at his throat. Jonas could see the muscle there, the pulse of his heartbeat, and where Sidney’s neck met his shoulder and the skin turned paler and infinitely more biteable.

Jonas should have backed out of the kitchen slowly. He needed to have a stern talk with his libido, which had apparently chosen that moment to rise from a long dormancy and turn distinctly feral.

He wasn’t going to run from an astronomy lecturer, for Christ’s sake. Or from those sweet buns. Jonas took a breath and tried to force a sardonic smile.

“Made yourself at home, I see.”

“I woke up early,” Sidney turned away, placing the dish of buns on top of the stove, and Jonas did not notice or care about the way Sidney’s white undershirt clung to the line of his ribs. “Didn’t see you had much in the way of breakfast, so—” he turned suddenly, his face apologetic. “I really didn’t mean to intrude in your— I just thought—I couldn’t lay awake in bed anymore.”

“It’s fine,” Jonas said, because anything that yielded him a pan full of steaming hot sweet buns was well and truly fine. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

“I couldn’t find the grounds in the pantry.”

“Ah, cause they’re not in the pantry.” Jonas reached up into the cabinet above the icebox to produce the can of ground coffee.

“Noted,” Sidney said. Which was ridiculous, as he’d be staying here at most one night more and didn’t really need to be knowing where the coffee was. But again, fine.

As Jonas waited for the percolator, he glanced into the library where the light was on. A large book was spread open, hanging off the small side table beside one the armchairs.

“Doing a bit of reading?” Jonas asked. Sidney was taking the buns off the tray and dropping them onto a cooling rack. Jonas hadn’t even known he had a cooling rack.

“I was, well—I was just browsing your collection when I saw that bestiary. It looks medieval.” That was because it was a medieval bestiary, written by a couple of twelfth century monks, but it would be a little hard to explain why Jonas was in ownership of an artifact that at least belonged in an archive if not a museum.

“It’s a copy.”

“Well, I assumed as much. I can barely read the text. I mostly know Greek and Latin. But I think it’s talking about merfolk as prophets. Or maybe fortune tellers ? ”

“Some people think so,” Jonas concurred. “Though they’re generally not keen on handing out prophecies to humans. They mostly see people as a food source.”

“Right,” Sidney said slowly. Jonas smirked.

“Are you in need of a clairvoyant, then?”

“I mean,” Sidney gave a sheepish smile, his gaze dropping to the sweet buns. Jonas’s stomach did a small flip, that was certainly due to hunger. “There are some parts of the future I’d like to know. Wouldn’t you?”

“The future is what it is,” Jonas said. “And even if you knew what was going to happen, I’m not sure that I think you’d be able to do anything about it. All you could do was change your reaction to it. Prepare yourself, I suppose.”

“That’s a little fatalistic for my tastes,” Sidney said. Jonas shrugged.

“There’s very little control to be had over the whims of the universe. And even less over other people. You’re better off just worrying about yourself.” Sidney made a noise in the back of his throat that felt purposefully noncommittal, and Jonas thought briefly that he didn’t know this man well enough to be making personal philosophy statements to him. He finished his coffee in silence before snagging a bun and retreating to the kitchen table.

Half an hour later, his stomach nicely full of sweet buns and coffee, Sidney followed Rookwood out the kitchen door and along the back path up into the garden, stifling a yawn. He’d fallen asleep late and had woken up well before the sun, his mind abuzz. There was a Shakespeare quote that was circling in his thoughts, ‘O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t.’ If the bard had only known.

Sidney stretched as they walked, waiting for the proper moment to begin asking the questions he’d been mentally cataloging in the wee hours of the morning. The grounds were lovely, even where the grass changed to cliffside and dropped off into the silvery bay below. Sidney strayed toward the edge as they walked along in silence, looking down at the fauna and the stones that stuck out oddly from the edge of the earth. A furry creature of some kind, small and sleek looking, scuttled along the sheer rock face, and Sidney stopped to try and catch a better look. Rookwood clicked his tongue.

“Ah ah, back away from the cliffside, Quince, if you’d be so kind.” Sidney scowled.

“I promise Mr. Rookwood, I have no interest in taking a dive.”

“Whether or not you personally have an interest is entirely immaterial,” Rookwood replied. “That’s not how marks work.”

“Well, how do they work?” Sidney asked. One of his questions, perfectly lobbed. Rookwood gave Sidney a handsome scowl. He ran his hand through his hair, pushing the dark tendrils out of his face, and continued up the path without responding. Christ, but he was irritating. Still, Sidney had no choice but to jog to catch up with Rookwood’s long strides. And when he finally did, Jonas Rookwood began to speak.

“A merfolk mark wouldn’t necessarily make you want to throw yourself into the water. It’s more like a compulsion. Your body would want to do it, even if your mind wasn’t inclined to. You could try and stop it, but it would be a battle of your will against the magic of the mark.”

“I think my will and I are in particular alignment on the subject.”

“A mark can shift its power depending on how close or far you are from the creature who placed it. Or even creatures of a similar genotype, depending on what it’s intended to do.”

“Magic cares about things like genetic morphology?” Sidney arched an eyebrow. Rookwood nodded, then smirked at the expression on Sidney’s face.

“Skeptical already?”

“I’m just trying to understand.”

“But you don’t believe me.”

“I barely know you, Mr. Rookwood. I came here because Karolina suggested it, and I trust her judgment more than my own most days.” Rookwood smiled at that. A real one, brilliant and maybe a little bit proud.

“You seem like an intelligent fellow, Quince, but that’s easily the smartest thing you’ve said to me so far.”

“How do you know her?” Sidney asked. Rookwood chuckled.

“She’s my younger sister. Half-sister, technically.” Sidney tried not to let himself look as shocked as he felt.

“She never said.”

“Well, when your brother’s a mad old recluse, it’s hardly worth bragging about.”

“You don’t seem mad.”

“You just got here. Give me a day or two to really get going.”

“What could be madder than telling me merfolk are real and that one of them marked me for death?” Sidney asked. Rookwood smiled.

“What indeed?”

“So, what are marks used for?” Rookwood looked heavenward, as if asking a benevolent god for strength. When he looked at Sidney again, it was with an audible sigh.

“Let’s say I was a demon. Perhaps you wanted something from me?—”

“Like what?” Sidney asked. Rookwood blinked at him.

“Anything you like.”

“Anything?”

“Magic,” Rookwood said, his tone strangely hollow, his gait stiffening, as they continued up the hill. “Say you wanted the ability to use magic. So I grant it to you, in exchange for part of your soul. That marks you. Now, later, when I’ve used up the portion of your soul that I had, the mark might trigger. It would draw us together, or more accurately draw you to me. A human who has consorted with a creature once, for whatever reason, is more likely to be willing to do it again. Presumably they know the benefits or have already reaped the rewards.”

“But it wouldn’t make me do anything,” Sidney considered. “Just because you’ve found me again using the mark doesn’t make me want to give you more of my soul.”

“Not necessarily. It would draw you to me. And then between the enchantment in the mark and my own persuasive capabilities?—”

“Fish stew?” Sidney teased. Rookwood narrowed his eyes, then rolled them when he got the joke.

“Amusing,” he grumbled, but Sidney caught the ghost of a smile that drifted across Rookwood’s face.

“I think I understand,” Sidney said. “The merfolk just need the mark to get me in the water, and then they can take care of the rest.”

“Precisely.”

Bittergate Chapel was a compact white stucco building up on a hill about a twenty-minute walk from the house. An alcove had been cut out of the forest, just the right shape for a little graveyard, the church, and then a dainty cottage, overgrown with vines, smoke puffing merrily out of the chimney. It looked exactly like something out of a fairy tale.

Sidney followed Rookwood up the steps, pausing beside him on the porch as he knocked. It didn’t take long for an older man with dark skin, a shock of white hair, and silver spectacles, to answer the door. He was dressed all in black and had a white clerical collar tucked around his throat. For a moment, the man paused, looking between the two of them. Then his gaze settled on Rookwood and he smiled.

“Jonas! It’s been a minute since I’ve seen you like this.”

“Company,” Rookwood said gruffly, gesturing to Sidney. “Father Michaels, this is Sidney Quince, a lecturer who works with Karolina at Holyworth. Mr. Quince, this is Father Michaels, our local clergyman.”

“Pleasure,” Sidney stepped forward and held out his hand, which the priest shook with a warm dry palm and a pleasant smile.

“A teacher? The noblest of professions.”

“Said the preacher,” Rookwood replied dryly, clearly teasing. Sidney couldn’t help but smile, as Father Michaels laughed.

“Good to see you’re in pleasant spirits,” he said, clapping Rookwood firmly on the shoulder. “Now, how can I be of assistance?”

Sidney had forgotten how nice it was to share a research table whilst you were working. Ever since Mark, Sidney nearly always worked by himself. The company, even when spent in silence, was nicer than flipping through old tomes and charts alone. But in the basement of the vicarage where Father Michaels kept his own library of strange, old books, Sidney found he enjoyed the comfortable quiet of pages turning, Rookwood’s small hums of interest. The scratch of a pencil that wasn’t his own.

Father Michaels had gotten them set up and then left them to it, excusing himself to go work on that Sunday’s homily.

“Do many people attend service?” Sidney asked. Rookwood shrugged.

“I couldn’t say. I’m not a parishioner myself.”

“You seem to know the vicar well enough.”

“We have certain shared interests. And I give him my squash, and he gives me his extra tomatoes.”

“A symbiotic relationship,” Sidney said. Rookwood nodded.

“Exactly so.”

An hour passed more quickly than Sidney’d thought possible, when Rookwood stepped back from the table, clicking his tongue.

“What is it?” Sidney asked, straightening up, ignoring the pops of protest his spine made.

“‘ A complete submersion within an infested body of water, combined with the safe extraction of a marked subject after a number of minutes, dependent upon the strength of the pull,’ et cetera, et cetera.” He looked up, amber eyes catching Sidney’s across the table. Warmth crawled up the back of Sidney’s neck with an uncomfortable speed.

“Meaning?” Sidney asked, already knowing, really, what it meant. Something in him needed to hear Rookwood say it before he could begin to come to terms with it.

“Meaning we’re going to have to go for a swim.”