The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge [81]
I pray to any of the old gods with ears still turned to a mortal man that it is enough.
The Fiery Stars
I CLIMBED DOWN from the attic with the dusk, exhausted. The library was dim, but aether light gleamed from the back parlor and I heard laughter.
Dean, Cal and Bethina sat around a low coal fire, Bethina’s round face alight.
“You’re a card, Dean!” she exclaimed. “The way you tell those stories I’d take them for true.”
“They are true.” Dean spun the poker between his palms. “Every word.”
Bethina hooted again, but I’d spent enough days with Dean now to know his face when he wasn’t teasing.
“We have aether. And light,” I said, to announce my presence. It was surprising to see Graystone in the real light of the aether lamps. Cal got up and hobbled over to me.
“We thought you’d died in that dusty attic.”
“Well, the kid thought so,” Dean drawled. “Bethina and I thought that was a tad dramatic.”
“Aether pump had a loose valve,” Cal babbled. “But I fixed it up. Routes into the house and runs a real nice little generation globe for heat and light.” He jerked his thumb at the hi-fi in the corner. “And I guess Dean got that antique working, not that we get any reception up here.”
“I’d die for some dance music,” Bethina cried. “The aether hasn’t been working since … well, since the unpleasantness with your da.”
“Cal,” I said, ignoring her. She hadn’t spent the afternoon seeing what I’d seen. “Cal, I have something to tell you.”
He cocked his head. “Spill.”
“Alone,” I elaborated. Cal was my confidant and he should be first to know what I’d found. I didn’t think Dean would call me crazy, but I didn’t know him as anything except a criminal guide who wanted me to tell him secrets. With Cal, I knew, there would be no price attached.
“All right,” Cal said, his grin vanishing.
“The hallway,” I told him, stepping out beyond the door, where we’d be out of earshot.
Behind me, music filled up the parlor, scratchy and antique across the tenuous connection of the aether.
Cal folded his arms. “I don’t like the way you just let him act as familiar as he pleases, Aoife. He’s basically a member of the help, you know.”
I slid the pocket doors shut on Dean and Bethina dancing awkwardly. Dean was liquid-graceful. Bethina was stumpy, her face red and her curls loose. I hoped I’d never looked like that in dance class.
Cal sighed. “Aoife, I’m serious. It’s not right to let someone like that run away at the reins.”
“Cal, I’m not one of those spoiled Uptown girls,” I said. “And even if I was, it doesn’t mean people who work for their living are less than human. You sound like Marcos.” I mimicked his stern gesture.
“You’re better than Dean Harrison,” Cal grumbled. “At least I know that.”
“This is emphatically not what I wanted to say to you,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back on track. “Cal, listen … I found something in the attic.”
Cal’s face lit like a lucifer match. “Bootlegger’s stash? A secret chamber, like for a blood cult? I read about one in Black Mask once—”
“I found a … a book,” I said, trying to pluck up the courage to tell him the exact nature of said book. Cal sighed.
“Oh. Just like school, then.”
“Not exactly,” I said, my voice going soft and shivery of its own accord. Cal was my friend, but I was about to ask him to believe a whole lot. “Cal, I found it. I found the book Conrad wanted me to use. It’s a … journal, I guess you’d call it.” Journal was a poor descriptor of the grimoire I’d found, but it was the one that would placate Cal. “My father kept it since he was eighteen or so.”
Cal spread his hands. “So?” I’d never noticed how pale his hands were. They were long and knobby and soft—gentleman’s hands. By comparison, my scar-traced knuckles and callused fingers were rough and unwieldy. But Cal had always excelled at being delicate and careful during classes, while I nicked and cut myself on metal and hot soldering lead every time we did shop.
“So.” I stepped closer, going up on tiptoe to get close