Page 9 of How to Woo the Undead

“May Nexxus have mercy on you awful creatures,” the man stumbled back, “return now from whence you came.”

Austin jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the manor behind him. “I am from whence I came.I live here. You do not. And I will give you one more chance to walk away, priest.”

The man surrounded himself with smoke, turned, and rushed away, yelling obscenities at them as he scattered. Austin rolled his eyes.Priests.He’d been burned at a stake twice in his life. Which wasn’t a lot, but it was annoying that it happened twice. Thankfully, the first time the fire wasn’t hot enough. The second, Lord Rosemont got to him before they succeeded. And from then on, Austin held a deep-seated grudge against clerics. Which maybe made him the judgey one?

“Greggory, go tell Lord Rosemont about that guy, will you? I’m going to go put Remmy up and make sure there’s no one else lurking, okay?”

“You sure you don’t want back up?” Greggory piped up, dropping his mouth hay into Remmy’s flames. It ignited, turning to ash in a moment.

“Positive!” Austin beamed down at his little blue brother and watched him bound off the back of Remmy. He waited till the front door closed before nodding for his Nightmare to walk with him. Austin didn’t like the weird, unease the man left in the air.

A cleric sniffing around the manor? That can’t be good.

They were on good terms with King’s Fall, but that didn’t mean Lord Rosemont was without enemies. Overachieving clerics with a grudge against undead, for one, would never accept them. Wayward wizards with a bone to pick, warlocks of vengeful gods…the list went on. However, for hundreds of years, they’d been living in Rosemont Manor peacefully. They couldn’t just pick up and go anymore. This was their home. They couldn’t abandon the city either.

If the cleric from the woods convinced his order to attack the manor…they’d have to defend it.

“I’m getting ahead of myself,” Austin laughed to Remmy, even though the horse didn’t say a word. “He was a lost cleric who wound up at the wrong house. That’s all.”

Chapter Five:

Hyacinth

“Howdoyoufeelnow that you’ve had a moment to…exist?” Dahlia Rosemont asked as she placed a steaming bowl of something before Hyacinth again for the second day. Blinking was becoming more autonomous, but she could still hear the low murmur in the back of her mind.Blink, blink.Lifting her hand, she took up the spoon with the knowledge she’d not gained herself. Lord Sebastian Rosemont, her creator, explained that while she would need to learn some things from scratch, a lot of her functions and automations were learned skills that the body, and brain she possessed, already knew.

“I do not know how to answer that question,” Hyacinth confessed with a sheepish curl upward in her lips.This is a grimace, yes? Or is this a wince? Are they not the same thing?“I’m not sure I feelanythingother than…”

“Utter confusion?” Melody Rosemont inputted, turning her sketch pad around.Blink, blink.Hyacinth stared down at the paper and traced the image with her eyes. It was an uncanny, exact replica of the face she saw in the mirror.

“Yes, actually, exactly that.” Hyacinth scrunched her brow.

“It’s like coming back from a coma, or in my case, a memory fugue state. Nothing makes sense and it’s like your ears are clogged. Up is down, left is right, and standing makes the floorspin.” Melody shrugged nonchalantly as she took the sketch back across the kitchen table.

“You were created too?” Hyacinth blurted out, hands moving on their own to scoop up some of the soup Dahlia made.

“Well…” Melody trailed off with a wheezy laugh.

“Oh! I know!” Dahlia chirped, jabbing a finger up into the air. “You should speak with Austin! He’d know exactly how you feel.”

“Yeah!” Melody waggled her finger at Dahlia. While the lady of the house wore a black ensemble, including a frilly apron covered in flour handprints, and had her long, pointy ears out on display with dangling earrings. Melody was in a short red sundress, her wild mane down behind her shoulders. Paint was dried and smudged across the bridge of her tan nose, and there was a swipe along her jawline.

“Who?” Hyacinth asked, taking a tentative sip of soup. She’d learned not to just toss it back. Lord Rosemont told her the teabag itself would dissolve and isn’t the worst thing she could have swallowed. She still burped up Earl Grey for hours afterward.

“Austin, he’s Lord Rosemont’s first creation. I’m surprised you haven’t met him? He was the one who found you.” Dahlia put her hands to her hips, inspecting Hyacinth.Blink, blink.Hyacinth took another sip of the broth. It was thicker than the liquidy base she had yesterday, and it was flavorful enough to sooth the itch in the back of her throat, but there was nothing of sustenance in it. There was no reason to the thought, but she craved to bite into a giant turkey leg. The roasted kind and glistening with herby butter over a bed of mashed potatoes and green beans. Saliva pooled in her mouth despite never having neveractuallyeaten it. Not as Hyacinth, at the very least. Shewasn’t sure how to explain exactly what she wanted, so she sipped her soup instead.

“Found my vessel, you mean.” Hyacinth peeked down at her body, dressed in a simple, lilac silk dress that dangled from a ribbon wrapped around her throat. It had sleeves but the banshee ghost was kind enough to pin them up to her shoulders with little clips while she ate.Agatha.Hyacinth was slowly learning their names. Agatha was wrangling her hair into a pair of loose braids, two large ones that fell against her shoulder blades.

“And was there when you awoke.” Agatha added as she finger brushed the shorter, choppier layers of her hair to frame her face. The long white stripe that framed the left side of her face curled in a different direction than the rest until Agatha touched it. Like everything bent to the ghostly banshee’s will, it lay correctly.

“You should meet him. Austin’s a real sweetie. Bet he’ll understand this vague feeling in your gut. Help you work through being alive. Ya know.” Melody nodded, climbing to her feet. “Wonder where he is?”

“The lab. Austin’s been busy at work since Hyacinth woke up.” Dahlia strummed her fingers across the table. “You feel up to traversing stairs?”

“I don’t know how feeling up is, but my body isfunctioning?” Hyacinth squinted at Dahlia, almost as if she were asking the question to herself. Dahlia’s lips curled into an amused smile.

“Well, trust me, sometimes that’s all you can ask for,” Dahlia snorted, slapping the table. “Agatha, you mind walking her down there? If I stop paying attention to this brew for even a second, it’ll turn everything orange.”

“Turn…everything…orange? What are you making over there?” Melody scoffed, pivoting around in her seat. “You witch.”