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Chapter no 5

Wisteria (Belladonna, #3)

The space between Blythe and Aris morphed into an impossibility,

encompassing them in a wonderscape crafted from the depths of Aris’s imagination. There was a midnight lake filled with water that shone silver, and a sky so inky black that the smattering of the stars upon it looked like a lie, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and flicked them onto a blank canvas.

Even more impossible was the water itself, for they stood upon it as a banquet table took shape between them. Blythe slid free from her slippers, and though she was able to feel the water rippling beneath her toes, they did not get wet.

On the table were two place settings and ornate flatware with a black base and a golden handle that shimmered as she held it. Even the chairs were fabulously odd creations, for the back of each one had been carved into an intricate design—one of them like the head of a deer, with antlers that spiraled high over the back of the seat, tall enough to make whoever was sitting there appear to wear them like a crown. The second was carved like an owl, its wings stretching to the sides of whoever was to sit there.

“What is this place?” Blythe made no effort to conceal her wonder. Though Aris kept his face flat as he took the seat with the antlers— somehow managing to look powerful as they adorned the back of his head

—she could tell by the slight lessening of his severity that he was glad she asked.

“It’s tonight’s dining room.”

Wherever they were, it was certainly no room. There wasn’t a single

wall as far as the eye could see. Blythe had no doubt that Aris was trying to show off, wanting her to better understand the magnitude of his power. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t unnerve her as he might have hoped. Blythe certainly was beginning to understand just how much power this man she’d bound herself to had. As alarming as it was, it was also fascinating. If she had powers, turning her dining room into a starscape was precisely the sort of ridiculous thing she might do. How wonderfully dramatic Aris was.

She touched the back of the owl’s wing before taking a seat in the chair. It was sturdy beneath her, not just an illusion. “Where did this come from?” “From the most brilliant minds all across the world. Most of them

horrendously underappreciated.”

She mulled over that comment, confused. “Couldn’t you change their fate if you find them so undervalued?”

“I could,” Aris answered, “but I won’t. The unfortunate truth is that the world doesn’t work that way. Not every genius will be appreciated, and too many amateurs will get the attention that others deserve.”

She noticed then that there was a chandelier above their heads, one made of iron branches and elongated black candlesticks that seemed to float in the air. What any of it hung from, Blythe couldn’t say. She tipped her head back to stare at the marvel, feeling as though she’d entered another world.

And she had, she supposed, for she was now married to Fate. Married to a man who, without batting an eye, could give her a dining room made of midnights. A man who looked entirely unimpressed by his own creation, one who, Blythe realized, must have spent a hundred thousand nights just like this one, alone beneath an impossible sky.

As much as Blythe enjoyed spending time on her own, it seemed a shame not to have someone to share a space like this with. Already she was thinking of how to word such an experience into the letters she’d write to Signa. She glanced at Aris, wondering how many times he’d brought his late wife to a space like this, and how it might have felt to come here alone after he’d lost her. Blythe thought of nearly twenty years of dinners spent with her family. With her mother chatting with everyone about their day while Percy either asked after their father on the nights Elijah had stayed late at the office, or busied himself with trying to look impressive when Elijah was there, stoic and always focused on work. In her mind’s eye she even saw Warwick standing at the side of the room, trying to pretend like he

wasn’t eavesdropping on every conversation as he waited to be of service.

She may have never dined upon an iridescent lake with a sky of stars that pressed so close it felt like she could reach out and snatch one, but she’d had a dining room that had always been noisy with tinkling silverware and chatter. Exquisite as it was, the space around them was too quiet. Too empty. It reminded her of the months she’d spent sick and alone in her room without a soul for company. She curled her toes against the lake, dread lodged in her chest.

Never again would she let herself feel that way. Which was why she tested her weight once more upon the water before dragging her seat closer to Aris, closing some of the wide berth between them.

“I much prefer this place to Wisteria,” she told him simply. “I hate how you’ve redecorated since your soiree. If stagnant spaces bore you, you ought to revisit the palace’s design.”

“This is Wisteria. And everything in it is designed exactly as I intend.” So cutting was his tone that the stars winked out just long enough for Blythe to see that beyond them lay the same flat gray stone of the palace. This dining room was an illusion, then, at least in part. The table and chairs seemed real, but everything else was of Fate’s creation, making her see whatever he intended. As remarkable as it was, the realization of such a power was so unnerving that she picked up her knife just to have something solid in her grasp.

“What do you want to eat?” Fate asked, stiffer now that Blythe was nearer.

She leaned in. “What are my options?” “The better question is what isn’t.”

She chose not to be surprised by this and answered without hesitation, “A hot pie with stew and mulled wine.” There was little that sounded better on a cold night.

No sooner had she requested it than the food arrived on the table in a shimmer of gold. Steam wafted from the lid of the stew’s tureen, its onion and thyme so fragrant that Blythe salivated. The pie had the most perfect golden crust and smelled like heaven on a plate. The wine came in a silver chalice, so rich a color that it was more a cherry hue than it was purple, which was fortunate as Blythe still had difficulty with anything the shade of belladonna.

And then there was the cake. Blythe didn’t have nearly the same palate for sweets as her cousin, but she couldn’t deny wanting a taste of the gorgeous wedding cake that manifested at the head of the table. It was at least two feet tall, with ivory icing and white lilies that cascaded down the sides, simple in its elegance and nothing at all like the fantastical wonderland in which they sat. Blythe wasted no time as she loaded her plate, already warmer simply from looking at the piping hot feast laid before her.

Though Aris said nothing, Blythe could feel his eyes on her, watching as she took a spoonful of stew and nearly cried when it hit her tongue. Never had she tasted lamb so rich and tender that she barely had need to chew. She took a bite of the pie next, warm and buttery as it slid down her throat. Blythe slumped in her chair, letting it heat her from the inside out. Was that melted goat cheese inside? Heavens, it was divine. Even the wine did not taste of any fruit that she knew, but of starlight soaked in the finest ambrosia.

The meal was, in every sense of the word, impeccable. After all their bickering and being given a room with no bed, Blythe couldn’t believe Aris had even allowed her to taste it. She could only hope he wouldn’t take it away from her once she got used to such finery, for if this was how Aris ate, then at least there was one part of this new life that she could look forward to. “It’s incredible,” she whispered as she took another spoonful. “Where did it come from?”

Aris had stopped watching her, looking mildly more satisfied as he cut into his venison. “All over the world, same as everything else.”

Blythe’s hand stilled midway to her lips. She didn’t need to ask to understand what he meant—looking around the table, it was clearer by the second that every bit of this meal had been stolen. She looked immediately toward the wedding cake and, with great effort, set her fork down.

“Please tell me you didn’t take this from someone else.”

“Shall we start our marriage on a bed of lies? This is what you requested.” He twirled his wineglass before taking a swig.

It was frustrating how much Blythe craved to pick her spoon up and take another bite. Instead, she resisted the urge to throw her fork at him. “I never asked for you to steal a wedding cake, Aris. We didn’t even eat the one at our own wedding!”

“Do give me some credit. I don’t despise marriage, Miss Hawthorne—” Aris froze with a quick hiss of breath, rubbing the band of light on his finger, which seared brighter at the use of her maiden name. When he could, Aris continued, “I despise our marriage. The wedding in question was called off once the groom realized that his betrothed had been scrumping his brother. I did everyone a favor by taking this cake off their hands.”

That, at least, made Blythe feel less guilty about the severity in which she craved a slice. “What about the rest of it?”

“If you’d prefer not to eat, then we can be done.” When Aris started to push from the table, however, Blythe grabbed hold of her fork and stuck it straight into the warm pie.

She couldn’t say where any of the food came from, and she didn’t understand Aris well enough to know whether he’d ever steal from anyone who needed it. Sometimes, like when he’d rescued a young kit during the Wakefields’ fox hunt several months prior, it seemed there might be an honorable man beneath that rigid demeanor. And yet she couldn’t forget how he’d tried to manipulate her, or how easily he was able to coerce a person’s mind into believing whatever he desired.

Aris was dangerous, but Blythe needed to eat. And so she resigned herself to the fact that she, too, was likely doomed to become a horrible person now that she’d married this brute, and dug back into the pie.

“Just so I know for our very long and arduous future, is stealing from the unsuspecting something that you do every night?” She stuffed another bite into her mouth, having to make a concentrated effort not to look too thrilled by the taste of it.

To her surprise, she noticed that Aris was no longer scowling, though his frown was still carved deep. It didn’t seem that her question annoyed him; rather, everything Blythe asked seemed to deplete him, as if Aris were a rag wrung dry. “You ask too many questions.”

Perhaps, but Blythe only flourished her fork and asked, “How else am I to get to know my husband?”

His jaw clenched at the word, and Blythe made a mental note to use it more often.

“If you must know, I spend most dinners outside of my home. I travel to get whatever I desire from where I know it’ll taste the best. The rest of my

meals I’ll either make myself, or take from those who have no use for them.”

Blythe had many questions about this, and yet the one she gave voice to was, “You can cook?” Aris didn’t seem the sort who would do anything to dirty his own hands. “Are you any good at it?”

“If you had centuries to practice something, don’t you imagine you might become rather skilled? I’ve had the best instructors in the world.”

She thought back to the art that had been displayed throughout the manor during the first night she’d seen Wisteria and how offended Aris had been when she’d commented that some of it seemed rather pretentious. If she had to guess, she’d say that Aris had been the one to create those sculptures. For what else was a person to do when they lived alone for an eternity?

“You’ve done a lot of traveling, then?” she asked, for as much as she despised Aris, Blythe had always wanted to travel. She’d spent hours holed up in Elijah’s study with maps, and in the library reading tales of far-off countries and distant cities over and over again until she knew the details by heart. When she closed her eyes, she’d envision herself visiting those many places, tearing her way through a jungle with a machete or holding a parasol as she strolled beside a cerulean sea, the spray of salt upon her skin and wind gusting her hair.

“I rarely remain in one place for long.” Aris’s tone was suggestive enough to prickle Blythe’s skin. Other than for her father and Thorn Grove, Blythe had no attachments to this town and would have loved to explore the world. But for Elijah’s sake, she couldn’t leave.

“Then it sounds like staying here will be a good change of pace for you,” she told him as she took a heaping spoonful of wedding cake. She wondered where it had come from, for it tasted nothing like any cake she’d ever tried but of honey and ripe plums.

“We are not staying.” Far behind Aris roused a great storm. Lightning cracked over his stag horns, and she followed its tail down to the golden burn of Aris’s eyes.

“Well am not going.”

“I could always make you.” He whispered the words as soft as a lover. It was clear when Aris was trying to rile her, but this he spoke plainly, as they both knew it was the truth.

“Should you try, I will tie myself to the trees,” she promised him. “And every time you leave, our rings will ensure that you end up right back with me again.”

Aris must have anticipated such an argument, for he didn’t seem as bothered as Blythe had hoped. He only stood, the plates and flatware clearing themselves before Blythe had finished her meal. She barely managed to scavenge herself another bite of cake before it disappeared. “I wasn’t finished!”

“But I am.” He smoothed down his shirt. Each of his gilded buttons was straight and precise, and there wasn’t so much as a crease in the white fabric. Aris looked so straitlaced that Blythe itched to reach out and make his collar crooked.

“The decision is yours,” he said, “but know that if you refuse, then you cannot leave this palace any earlier than in a month’s time. Your father and all your acquaintances believe that we are off on some extravagant honeymoon, and I do not care to deal with their questions or your frustrations when you get caught up in your own lies. Should you agree to leave with me, however, I will take you on that honeymoon and you will see parts of the world that you’ve never imagined.”

It was no tiny inkling of curiosity that stirred within Blythe but an awful, colossal desire. She was disgusted with herself for even allowing the idea purchase in her mind, yet Blythe couldn’t control it as she thought of all the places she’d imagined visiting, now within her reach without any of the hassle of travel. And she couldn’t deny that escaping the dungeon that was Wisteria wouldn’t be the worst fate.

“If I were to agree to such terms,” she asked, “would we ever return to Celadon?”

It was Aris’s easy answer that damned him. “Eventually, perhaps for a visit.”

It wasn’t good enough. Not nearly. Every vision of travel faded at once from her mind’s eye, for Blythe refused to leave her father without some guarantee of when they’d be back.

“I’m not leaving,” she told Aris. “I’ll remain here, and in a month’s time I will have my freedom.” As dreary as Wisteria was, surely it was possible to survive it for a month.

Given Aris’s smug expression, however, it seemed he held a different

belief.

“Very well,” he mused, too unbothered for Blythe’s taste. “Do let me know when you change your mind.”

And just like that, the night sky winked out of existence and the lake of silver slipped away to stone, stone, and more gray stone as far as the eye could see. Blythe once again stood in the hall, alone, as the fireplace rasped behind her.

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