Lux (The Nocte Trilogy 3)

I don’t know.

I fall asleep, curled up into a ball, and when I sleep I dream.

I dream of Dare, and I dream of Whitley. I dream that Dare is not at the whim of my uncle. I dream that he is free, he is free

He is free.

Chapter Eleven

The plane ride seems ridiculously long this year and my gawky adolescent legs are cramping when we finally de-plane. I walk stiffly through the cluttered halls of Heathrow.

I immediately find Jones waiting for us and we pile into the dark car that will take us to Whitley. The entire drive, through all of the rolling English hills, there’s only one person I can think of.

Dare.

I’m fidgety and my brother notices. He puts one pale hand out to still my bouncing knee.

“What is your problem, Cal?” he asks, his thin eyebrow raised. There’s concern in his eyes though. I see it before he hides it.

Like always, the concern I see there is for me.

He’s afraid I’m fidgety because I’m manic. He thinks I’m flying high, unable to come down. There’d only been one episode like that this year, and it was months ago, after Mr. Elliott died. I’m better now, so there’s no reason to worry today. Sometimes, I resent their concern. I resent seeing it in their eyes. I resent that their concern is necessary.

I shake my head, though, pushing my annoyance down. It’s not their fault I’m crazy. “I’m fine. Just tired of traveling.”

He nods and he’s not convinced, but he never is. He always, always errs on the side of caution when it comes to me.

He reaches over and grabs my hand and holds it for the rest of the drive.

I can hear his thoughts in the silent car.

If I hold her down, she can’t fly away.

I want to laugh at that.

But I don’t. It makes them nervous when I laugh at unspoken things.

Sabine waits for us as we climb from the car, and she doesn’t look a bit different from last year. She’s still small, still wiry, still has her hair twisted into a scarf. And she still has a thousand lifetimes in her old eyes.

She wraps me into a hug and I inhale her, the smell of cinnamon and sage and unidentifiable herbs from her garden.

“You’ve grown, girl,” her dark eyes appraise me. I have. Several inches.

“You haven’t,” I answer seriously, and she laughs.

“Come. We’ll get you some tea.”

I don’t want her ‘tea’. It’s infused with herbs, and she ships it to my mother for me to drink throughout the year. It’s gypsy treatment, and it makes me sleepy.

“I don’t need it yet,” I protest as she pulls me to the big kitchen.

She doesn’t bother to answer. She simply pushes me into a chair at the kitchen table and she sets about boiling a kettle.

She sits across from me while we wait.

Her fingers drum on the table, twisted and old.

I don’t want to be here.