"Well?" Otto said. "Say something, for God's sake!"
Something inside Eliot snapped.
"What do you want me to do, Otto?" His voice was calm, but underneath his words rippled a tremor of rage.
"Excuse me?"
"What can I do for you that I haven't already done?"
"Eliot—"
"I left my home, my country, for you! I gave up my reputation!"
Otto bristled.
"Eliot, you know we're grateful. I'm grateful. But now you're back—"
"No."
"No?" Otto leaned forward, his hands flat on the table. "Eliot, what do you mean?"
"I can't stay."
It was only after he'd said the words that he knew they were true. It had taken him half a year to realize what should have been apparent to him all along. He had left Hungary a decade ago, and it was no longer his home, no, not even this castle. The rooms here had been warmed by Brynn's presence, but now that she had left every hallway was darkened, empty. And the people on the streets looked at him and saw his scar and saw nothing else after that. Even the Academy had been closed to him.
"Where will you go?" Otto asked. "Back to California?"
Eliot shook his head. He'd never been able to accept Pasadena fully in his heart. It was simply the place he'd escaped to after Clare had died. And now that the university wouldn't take him back, he had no way to live in America anyway. There was no place that he could call home now. There was nowhere he could go.
The world was too small for him, he decided. He took another drink and barely tasted it.
"Where, then?"
"Let me be, Otto," Eliot said. "Go back to Marta and let me be."
"Eliot." Otto's face dropped into sympathy. It was the same face, Eliot decided, that his brother had worn at Clare's funeral. It was the same face that he wore whenever a voter at a rally told him a tale of personal woe. It was not a face Eliot wanted to see right now.
"Let me be!" Eliot cried out, shoving the chair back. It scraped hard against the tile floor and caught one leg at the corner. Eliot heard it clatter to the ground, but he made no effort to right the chair. Otto took a step back.
"Brother, you know I only want what's best for you. If you want me to leave you alone..."
"I do."
"Then I'll go. Please don't do anything rash," Otto said.
"Don't worry." Eliot's mouth tasted dry, bitter. "I wouldn't do anything else to ruin the reputation of the Hercegs."
"That's not what I meant." Otto looked at Eliot up and down, and in his eyes Eliot saw himself as he was just then: drunk, sodden, with red-rimmed eyes and a ruined suit. Eliot sighed deeply and closed his eyes. The world spun and he held onto the kitchen counter to keep himself from swaying.
"I'm sorry, Otto. Give Marta my love. I need to be alone now."
Otto put his hand on his brother's shoulder, but Eliot didn't notice. He noticed the door slamming shut behind Otto, and then he noticed the rain. He took two steps toward the stairs, but realized that he'd left the brandy back on the kitchen counter. After he'd gotten the brandy, he realized that he'd left his glass. Back in the kitchen, he tried to pick up both but the glass slipped out of his hand. He grabbed for it and lost hold of the brandy bottle. Both shattered on the floor, the bottle sending a spray of glass and brandy across his feet.
Eliot stood there for a moment, looking down at the golden liquid, the glinting light off of the glass. It was beautiful, he thought. He slowly eased himself down onto the tile and brushed the glass away from around his feet, making a clearing for him to sit. Broken, every little bit shattered.
He leaned his head back against the oven door and began to cry.
The next morning Eliot woke up cold and aching to a tickling sensation on his nose. Still half-asleep, he scratched his nose and let himself float back into darkness. The tickle came back and he opened his eyes. Staring back at him was a small ash-gray cat.
"Ah! Lucky!" Eliot pushed the cat away, holding his head as a shooting pain lanced through it. Not to be put off, Lucky redoubled his efforts, crawling over Eliot's slumped body and sniffing into his ear. The world smelled like alcohol, and the light coming in from the windows was so bright Eliot was sure it was already afternoon.
"Okay, okay, I'll feed you," Eliot moaned, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. God, he'd never been so hung over. "Be careful."
Lucky was careful, picking his way nimbly through the shards of glass and puddles of brandy on the floor. Eliot followed, his head and neck pounding with agony as he poured Lucky's food into a bowl and got him fresh water. The thought of eating made him sick, so he sat by the kitten and stroked his silken ears as he ate. Lucky ignored him, flicking his tail and purring as he ate. When he was done, he looked up at Eliot with a questioning look.
"She's not here, cat," Eliot said, scratching Lucky under his chin. "She left."
Those two words, so simple, wrenched Eliot's heart. He coughed and bent his knee, standing up shakily. His clothes were still wet from the night before, and he was shivering. His entire body seemed to be turned inside out with pain.
"I need to take a shower," Eliot said, more to himself than to the cat. But his feet led him downstairs to the baths, and he followed them. He hadn't been back down there in a while, ever since—
He did not want to think of that.
Eliot walked down the marble stairs to the baths where the underground springs welled up. The air grew hotter and damper as he made his way down the steps. No lights illuminated the underground room, and he didn't flick the switch to turn them on. The darkness made the pounding in his head slow down a bit. Instead, he made his way down to the springs by touch, his fingers trailing the brass rails that led down to the marble baths. In the darkness he felt at home, warm.
His hand reached the knobbed end of the rail, and he paused, slipping out of his shoes. He pulled off his clothes awkwardly in the dark, the wet fabric clinging to his skin. The humidity of the room caressed his bare torso and he breathed the darkness in deeply. It felt as though the world was breathing for him, the heavy damp air forcing itself into his lungs, then out. He was not breathing anymore; the world was breathing him. He merged with the air, became part of it, and the room itself became an organism, the marble pressing against his feet just as his feet pressed against the marble, equal and opposite, like he had learned in physics so long ago. In the darkness he could not see his own body, and the skin that normally served as a boundary between him and the outside was invisible.
Eliot took a small, hesitant step forward, his toes sliding on the slick marble surface. Only a few steps stood between the rail and the baths, but the distance seemed longer in the dark. When his foot finally found the edge of the marble bath, he knelt down, touching the surface of the water with his hand. The spring waters absorbed his fingers, melting them into their warm caress. Dizziness threatened to overtake him, and he leaned away from the water, blinking hard in the dark as though he would be able to see if only he squinted hard enough. The dizziness cleared and he breathed shallowly, not trusting his balance just yet. A moment passed in silence, and then he heard a single drip off somewhere near the middle of the baths. A breath escaped his lips before he realized that it must just be the condensation off of the roof of the baths. Still, his heart pounded fast.
Slowly, cautiously, he sat on the edge and eased himself down into the water. The sound of the ripples echoed softly through the room, infinitely louder in the darkness. He was nak*d, completely nak*d, and he pushed himself out into the middle of the baths without thinking.
There was nothing here. No sound save for the slow drip of condensation from the ceiling. No light. He might have been dead.
He lay back and let his body float in the hot water, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Was this how death was? The heat soothed his pains, and he thought that perhaps death would do the same thing, only more permanently. Standing up, he moved toward the deeper part of the baths, one foot in front of another.
A sharp pain shot up through his leg, and he recoiled from it. Something had bitten his foot, the bottom of it. No, there was nothing in the baths, he was being silly. Perhaps he had a splinter of glass in his foot that he hadn't noticed until just now. He touched his foot but felt no cut or glass, only a small welt of pain on his heel. He frowned and slid his other foot forward, sweeping it from side to side. If there was something on the bottom of the baths—
There.
He felt the sharpness with his toes. Taking a breath, he submerged himself into the dark water and felt around for it with his fingers. If it was glass, he couldn't very well leave it here for someone else to be hurt. His fingers scrabbled on the tile underwater, searching. Finally they caught onto the tiny sharp object, and he pulled it up, a chain coming with it.
It was a necklace. His fingerpads moved along the sharp part, and although he was in complete darkness, he closed his eyes as though it would help him visualize the piece of jewelry. Then, all at once, the shape came together under his hands and he remembered. The silver heart, the two diamonds set into the center...
It was Brynn's necklace, the one he had given her to celebrate her nameday. Her Hungarian nameday, that is—Brynn was not a common name in Hungarian, but she'd wanted to join in the fun after one of her friends at the Academy celebrated theirs. She'd lost the necklace somehow, and didn't remember how. Eliot had been a mite irritated at her losing it so quickly, but he never said anything. But she must have lost it after the attack.
"Brynn." Eliot murmured her name, and the whisper floated through the dark air. All at once he felt an overwhelming wave of love and protectiveness, mixed with an undercurrent of anger. Brynn had been the only thing that gave Eliot's life meaning and brightness, and he had let her slip away without even trying. Clasping the necklace in his hand, he moved back through the water and to the steps, leaving his wet clothes behind. He went up the stairs two at a time and flinched only at the brightness of the light.
Naked and dripping, the chain of the necklace dangling from his fingers, he strode across the tile floor to the kitchen. The hot baths had warmed him enough that he didn't even mind the chilly tile under his feet. Still clutching Brynn's necklace with one hand, his other hand scrambled for his phone on the counter. He turned it on and called Brynn. To his surprise, she answered after the first ring.
"Eliot?" Her voice was scratchy.
"Brynn? Where are you? Are you in California?"
"Yes." There was a pause on the phone, and then Brynn broke into sobs.
"Brynn? Brynn, are you okay?" Eliot felt helpless. He wanted to put his arms around her, to cradle her against him.
"She's dead," Brynn said finally, through her tears. "My Nagyi. She had a stroke overnight. She...she..."
"Brynn, I'm so sorry," Eliot said.
"The funeral is this Sunday," Brynn said. "They said she went in her sleep. They said...they said it was painless."
Eliot waited for Brynn to swallow her sobs. Before he could say anything, though, she spoke again.
"Is there anything on the news about the murderer?" Brynn asked.