Her night vision was as flawless as it had been when she'd been a ghost, and when she slept, she dreamed of floating and moving things with her mind.
This twilight, Néomi had awakened with a rose petal clutched in her fist... .
Nïx had visited Néomi on several occasions. Each time, the Valkyrie blatantly scrutinized Néomi with those golden eyes, seeming fascinated. Just yesterday Nïx had come to Elancourt and said nothing, only blankly staring at her.
"Nïx, what am I?" Néomi finally asked her.
"Complicated?"
"I came back wrong, didn't I?"
Nïx sighed. "I can't get a sense of you whatsoever."
Néomi had no sense of her own self. She didn't feel as she had when human - or as a ghost.
Awkward doesn't begin to describe this meeting.
"Have a seat. Please," Nikolai said, waving to one of the chairs in front of his office desk. Sebastian occupied the other.
Conrad had traced to Blachmount Castle, Nikolai's home, to meet with his brothers - at Néomi's insistence. It was day in New Orleans, and she'd wanted to nap for the afternoon, so he thought he'd get this over with.
His brothers had questions about the past - and Conrad wanted to formally purchase Elancourt from Nikolai.
With his neck knotted with tension, Conrad reluctantly sat. He was already on edge from leaving Néomi for the first time since her return, but being back here made his uneasiness ratchet to another level.
"I thought all three of you would be here," Conrad said. "Where's Murdoch?" He would leaven this tense atmosphere.
"Missing in action," Nikolai answered. "We presume it's concerning his 'secret' Bride. I think for the first time in his existence, he's having woman troubles."
"Might do him some good," Sebastian said, then asked Conrad, "Does it not feel surreal to be back here?"
He nodded. This castle was where Conrad and most of his family had died. His young sisters had wept here as they'd succumbed one by one. Blachmount was where Conrad had been born and raised - and raised from the dead.
For three hundred years, Conrad had hated Nikolai for his decision that fateful night. Now Conrad was beholden to him for Néomi. Without Nikolai's choices and Murdoch's determination, he would never have known his Bride. He would never watch her readying for bed, brushing her long hair.
Just yesterday, he'd thought, My Bride by fate, my wife by choice... .
"I felt the same way when I first returned," Sebastian said.
Nikolai made a scoffing sound. "No, you didn't - you were too busy decking me."
"The second time, then."
Uncomfortable silence ensued. Conrad peered around the paneled study. Nikolai tapped a pen against his desktop. Sebastian jogged his leg.
Eventually, Nikolai rose from his chair. "I have something of yours." He pulled a file from a cabinet, handing it to Conrad. Inside were the deed to Elancourt and the contracts of transferral.
"I signed the property over to you and your Bride the night you got her back."
Conrad's tension cranked up even more. "I can pay you for it."
"It's technically Néomi's anyway, right? Consider it a wedding gift."
Conrad hated feeling beholden. "Wait." He traced to Elancourt. There, he checked on Néomi, tugging her blanket higher with a kiss. Then he snagged a bottle of whiskey from the crate. She'd suggested bringing one, but Conrad had gruffly declined. Now he returned to Blachmount and gave it to Nikolai.
Nikolai brushed off the label. "My God, this is... this is... "
"As good as you're imagining," Conrad finished for him.
Sebastian wasted no time, rising for snifters from the sideboard. "Then stop staring at the bottle and let's drink it!"
Chapter 24
They did. Two hours later, Conrad decided that speaking to his brothers with roughly twenty thousand dollars' worth of whiskey in his belly wasn't so awkward.
When Nikolai and Sebastian wanted to know what had happened to Conrad in the past three centuries, he told them. When they asked about Néomi, he found himself proudly relating his wife's accomplishments. "You've never seen a woman dance as she does. And she'd bought that property by herself - an unmarried woman in her twenties." Even to himself, his tone sounded impressed.
"Chains, drugs, and brute force couldn't control Conrad," Nikolai began in an amused tone, "but a tiny ballerina is domesticating him with ease."
"What are you going to do about her mortality?" Sebastian asked.
"Search for a way to make her immortal." When they gave him uneasy expressions, Conrad said, "I know the odds, but that's a more likely scenario than me following wherever she would go after death." Conrad finished his drink, then contemplated the bottom of his glass. "Do you not think of our sisters when you're here?"
Nikolai and Sebastian shared a speaking glance.
At length, Nikolai said, "We're bringing them back. We have the means to retrieve them from the past. Not to change history, but just to return with them to this time."
Conrad narrowed his gaze. Was Nikolai jesting? "How?"
With utmost seriousness, Sebastian answered, "A mystic's key."
Conrad flinched at the word key.
Sebastian topped off their drinks. "A goddess named Riora gave me one turn of it for the sole purpose of reuniting my family. I know for a fact that it works."
If skeptical Sebastian said it worked, then it did. "And you'd thought of returning my past self as well?"
"Yes, the offer still stands," Nikolai said. "Think of it, we could clear your eyes of the blood completely. And take away all the memories that plague you."