I HAVE LIED FOR YOU,” ARIS WHISPERED. “I HAVE SPUN A KINGDOM out of thin
air. I have fed you and tolerated you, and have put up with all of your nonsense. But this is where I draw the line.”
They were ducked into a corner of the foyer, Olivia and Elijah making small talk as they waited for the newlyweds in the parlor.
“Come now, Aris. It’s only a game.” It took everything in Blythe not to let on how entertained she was by his loathing. “What else are we to do during a blizzard?”
“Literally anything.” Every word sounded as if it were being forcefully pulled from the depths of his gut. He hissed a long breath, smoothing a hand through his hair.
No longer able to contain herself, this time Blythe did laugh. “Why on earth do you look as though you’re preparing for war?”
“Because I might as well be, you monstrous girl.”
How ridiculous Aris was, brought to such turmoil by the prospect of a silly game. The fact that he’d ever dared to call her dramatic was insulting. “It’s charades, Aris. It isn’t going to kill you.”
His huff was a withering, pathetic thing. “Oh, but I wish it would.”
“Wish all you want, but you’re playing. Now put on a brave face so that we may join the others.” Blythe took him by the wrist, content as hatred oozed from her husband’s every pore.
“I detest you and your entire lineage,” he spat.
Blythe patted his arm. “That’s the spirit! Be sure to put all that fire into your gameplay.”
As they entered the parlor, Blythe was glad to find that her lady-in- waiting had taken it upon herself to have the game prepared. Olivia held out an upside-down top hat, several slips of parchment folded inside.
“There’s quite an assortment of things.” She spoke coyly as she set the hat onto a small side table. “But I kept them simple enough to get the game started.”
“Thank you, Olivia.” Blythe beamed.
“Yes, thank you, Olivia,” Aris grumbled, likely regretting his decision to give the woman free rein to act as a lady-in-waiting. Blythe didn’t let his glumness get to her; it’d been far too long since she’d played a game. Before her mother died, the Hawthorne family had spent many nights just like this one, tucked away laughing by the hearth while Warwick filled a hat with countless papers of ridiculous things for them to act out. As Percy had gotten older and as Elijah’s nights at Grey’s grew longer, game nights had fallen to the wayside. But when Blythe thought of her family, those memories were some of her fondest.
If Elijah was wanting to play, then perhaps he, too, was feeling reminiscent.
“I’ll go first,” Blythe volunteered, standing before her husband and father to pluck a paper from the hat. It read: modiste.
Elijah and Aris sat side by side on a long leather sofa, the latter with his elbows propped upon his bouncing knees. His steepled fingers were pressed over his mouth, masking what was undoubtedly a most unfavorable grimace.
“The first one to guess correctly gets a point,” Blythe reminded. Not one to let Aris’s sourness deter her, she pulled up a chair and took her seat, mirroring the motions of sewing. She pushed invisible spectacles up the bridge of her nose, then paused to fuss with an imaginary measuring tape.
Aris’s eyes locked on her imaginary needle, narrowing. “Are you mocking me?”
“What are you on about?” Elijah mused. “Clearly she’s… sewing?”
Blythe tried not to roll her eyes as she flashed him the invisible measuring tape, making a show of taking measurements and pressing pins into fabric that wasn’t there.
“Ah!” Elijah snapped his fingers. “The modiste!”
“Yes!” Blythe threw her arms up with a victorious laugh. God, she was
so good at this. “That’s one point for my father,” she told Olivia, who sat near the hearth keeping a tally. “Aris, you’re next.”
He stood as if he’d just been told that his childhood pet had died. Shoulders slumped and refusing to meet anyone’s eye, Aris stalked across the rug to see what fate awaited him on those slips of papers. He unfolded one, taking a single glance before the entire world fell still around them. Elijah was caught midblink, and Oliva was stilled while scribbling down a tally next to his name. Only Blythe, Aris, and the fire remained moving.
Aris swiveled to face Blythe. “No.” His voice was as hollow as his eyes. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing this.”
Blythe had just taken a seat in Aris’s former spot when she felt the magic slip across the room and jumped back to her feet. “What on earth are you doing? Unfreeze them this instant!”
He clenched the paper tighter. “Not until you tell me that I’m exempt from this ridiculous game.”
“You most certainly are not exempt!” Oh, what she wouldn’t give to clobber this ridiculous man. “Whether you like it or not, you are part of my family now, and in my family we play games. So cease your ridiculous magic before you lose our bargain, and get on with your turn!” Blythe matched the venom of his scowl with her own and waited, unwavering, for Aris to groan. Seconds later the magic unraveled around him, the other two falling into motion once again as Aris tossed his slip of paper into the bin.
Grinding his jaw, he lifted both hands into the air, elbows in toward his chest and his fingers pointed down. For a long while no one said anything, waiting to see what else he might do, but he never moved.
Elijah cocked his head to one side, scratching absently at his neck scruff. “Is that how you pray in this kingdom of yours?”
Though Blythe had already guessed what Aris might be attempting, she told him sweetly, “You’re going to need to give us a bit more than that, darling.”
The murder in his eyes was palpable.
With the longest sigh Blythe had ever heard anyone draw in their life, Aris lowered himself onto his knees. He kept his hands up like he was begging, looked her dead in the eye, and said in a low voice, “Woof.”
It took everything within Blythe and her dark soul not to fall into a fit of hysteria. She covered her mouth, muffling the amusement that threatened to
overtake her.
“No sound effects!” Olivia scolded, which was all it took for Blythe to fully lose herself and double over in laughter.
“I’ve no idea, Aris,” she cackled. “Could you perhaps be a dog?” Her laughter, in turn, got Elijah laughing.
“It’s not the worst thing I’ve been called,” Aris muttered as Blythe wiped at her watering eyes. She did feel a smidge guilty, but good God did she love watching this man make a fool of himself.
“Since you cheated, you have to go again,” Blythe told him. She didn’t know whether that rule was real, but it was today. “No sound effects this time. Just have fun with it. Pretend you’re in a performance.”
“A performance?” Aris looked to be having thoughts of skewering her upon a spit, but Blythe smiled all the while, pressing her fingers against her lips as Aris drew another slip of parchment from the hat. If possible, he looked even less enthused by this one than the previous. This time, though, Aris made no argument as he played along, extending one arm out and putting the other into a half circle before him, as if he were holding someone.
“Dancing!” Blythe shouted, unable to contain herself. Aris bobbed his head, signaling she was close but not quite there. He stepped up, to the right, back down, to the left, and began to hum.
Blythe was about to scold him again for the sound effects, but the words caught in her throat at his hummed melody. Her vision tunneled, swaying until it felt as though she were the one dancing in someone’s arms, her body moving to the familiar rhythm. A melody that she knew deep in her bones, as if she’d danced to it a thousand times before.
Yet such a thing could not be possible. She had never danced to this song, nor had she danced with a faceless man who consumed her thoughts, every breath—every heartbeat—belonging to him. For months Blythe had pondered the song, mulling it over and over in her brain. Could it have been Aris that she’d heard it from?
Her heart thundered so loudly that Blythe wondered whether Olivia could hear it across the room. She pressed a hand to her chest, where the skin was clammy and likely flushed as she watched Aris dance, everything moving as though it were in slow motion.
“A waltz,” her father said at last, his voice cracking something within
her. Making time move again.
Aris stopped his dancing the second he was able. “Bravo, Elijah,” he told her father. He might have said something else, too, but Blythe didn’t hear it. Her mind was still playing the song forward and backward as she lowered her fretting hands to her lap, tearing at the skin around her cuticles. She didn’t want to ask in case she was wrong. Didn’t want to worry her father in case she was hearing things, but Blythe couldn’t stop herself. “What was that song?” She had to pause three times before speaking to
ensure that her voice didn’t quake. “I thought I heard you humming.”
“Was I?” His brows pinched as he took a seat beside her. “It’s a song I learned long ago. You don’t hear it much these days, but it’s always been a favorite.”
She didn’t need him to fill in the gaps. She knew who he had pictured dancing with just now as his eyes turned cloudy and unfocused. It was Life. Everything with Aris always circled back to Life.
But that song…
There was no doubt about it—she must have heard it from Aris. She must have held on to it subconsciously for all these months, not remembering where it came from. That, or Life truly was in her head, toying with her even now.
Blythe wound her arms around herself, squeezing to ensure she was solid. That she was there beside her father and Aris and that all was well.
But she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Her skin itched and her eyes grew bleary, temples pulsing with a blossoming headache that threatened to consume her.
Her father had gotten up to take his turn, but Blythe could hardly pay attention as he shuffled about, Aris calling out his guesses. He seemed to have loosened up, to be watching Blythe and Elijah closely and having a good time. But she couldn’t focus.
“Blythe?” he whispered after a moment, trying not to draw Elijah’s attention. “Are you well?”
“Just a little worn down is all,” she lied. “I’ll be all right.”
She shifted her focus to her father, who was clearly acting out the role of a stable hand. Blythe thought that Aris must have known it, too, but was stretching it out for her enjoyment.
She appreciated it, truly. And yet she could barely look at Elijah,
because all Blythe could focus on was the sound of the music swelling in her head, and the faint memory of two people dancing on a bed of autumn leaves.
