Page 56 of How to Woo the Undead

“Do not roll your eyes at me, Sebastian Rosemont, you’re still on thin fucking ice,” Dahlia hissed as she sauntered out of the kitchen. “Exile me to the Nightmare Realm, we’ll see if I don’t banish you to the fuckingdoghouse.”

Sebastian and Austin shared a look, but he couldn’t speak. Dahlia bellowed her husbands name from in the house and Austin motioned for his maker to go after her. Besides, Austin needed a shower. Then he needed to see Agatha about a sewing pattern. Inspiration had struck and he was too weak to ignore it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hyacinth

“Ah,thereyouare,”Agatha poked her head around the door with a knowing smile on her face. Floating into the bedroom, the candles glowed brighter as they illuminated Hyacinth. Wisps of light danced out of the walls and flooded the room with false sunshine. It was almost cheery.

If it weren’t for the frown on Hyacinth’s face. She sat under her blankets, petting Snuffles, post bath. He was curled up in her lap, indulging in her affection, as he nibbled on a bundle of hay she’d brought into the bed with her. Her hair was still slightly damp, but the rest of her had dried by the time the banshee appeared. “It is not like I can go anywhere.”

“Now, now, that sour attitude is unwarranted,” Agatha harrumphed, floating in with an armful of yarn in varying colors. Hyacinth’s eyes widened in delight, much like a cat seeing a shimmering bauble. The banshee floated in deeper into the room, inspiring a much better mood. She dropped onto the bed with the yarn, causing Snuffles to forgo his current burrow between Hyacinth’s thighs for the nest of pillows at her back. Hyacinth took up a bundle of gemstone-colored yarn. Ruby, that melted into sapphire into an amethyst to emerald, fascinated her as she followed it down to the clothes pin keeping the yarn from unraveling its ball.

“You’re teaching me to knit?” Hyacinth asked. No, she begged. She pleaded for Agatha to teach her with her glittering, kitten eyes that watched everything the ghostly woman did. When Agatha handed over a pair of chunky needles, Hyacinth squealed. “I’m learning to knit!”

“Well, I hope I’m half as worthy of a teacher as you deserve,” Agatha chuckled softly, settling beside the fae woman. She tucked her wings away as carefully as she could to avoid smacking Agatha with how excited she was. The banshee undid the pins in the yarn and let it roll out down their legs. It started with getting the proper loop around her needle. Then it was tension and repetition.

In an hour, she finished a row and watched Agatha like a panther stalking its prey in the woods. When Agatha moved, she moved. She did not try to get ahead, nor did she try to move on her own. After a second hour, she had a rectangle, and her colors wove down in a zigzag motion. She relaxed back against the pillows, talking out the steps with Agatha. They called out each twist, dip, and pull. By the third hour, she had something the length of her forearm and Agatha made them take a break to drink tea.

Hyacinth managed to untangle herself from the bed and find her bunny snoozing in a pillow fort. Agatha took their projects and yarn with them. The pair tiptoed through the darkened halls. The only thing she heard outside the house was wind as it picked up around them.

“Another nasty storm.” Agatha shook her head, taking the stairs slowly. Hyacinth hugged Snuffles close to her chest.

“You don’t think I did that, do you?” She furrowed her brow.

“What?” Agatha snorted, glancing at the dead woman in disbelief. “Why would you think that?”

“Well, Austin was pretty sure the dryad and the spider plant were me…but I don’t think my magic can make storms, can it?”

Agatha made a few faces, first in confusion, then an impressed grimace, only to finally land on a shrug. “I’m not the expert in fae. Now, if you need to know what type of fabric you’ve found in an abandoned house in the middle of the woods? I’m your girl. Or if you need a good cup of tea whipped up.”

Hyacinth snickered, “I guess that’s another question I’ll have to ask Lord Rosemont.”

“Or Greggory.” Agatha shrugged.

“Greggory? Why?” Hyacinth furrowed her brows. The pair made it finally to the first floor.

“He’s the keeper of the library. He’s read every book in that room and all the scrolls. If anyone knows anything about anything, it’s Lord Rosemont or Greggory. In fact, why don’t we go visit him, huh? I’ll brew us up a tea pot and you go see Greggory about fae magic. He’s had a special interest in it since Persephone reared her old head two years ago. Well, then Smith told us about the Old Fae traps in the Endless Woods and there was that one burlesque dancer lady not that long ago in the news? Oh! Greggory would know all about that.” Agatha shooed Hyacinth off to the library without explaining a single one of the confusing words that came out of her mouth.

Hyacinth held up Snuffles to look him in his beady, red eyes. “Doyouknow who Persephone is?”

Snuffles dangled from her hands, completely unfazed. Hyacinth sighed and returned the rabbit to his comfortable spot in her arms. Marching through the hall, she ignored the shifting shadows or the little fingers that reached out from the floorboards. Instead, she focused on shouldering open the massive oak doors. They creaked open stiffly till she steppedinto a wonderland of bookshelves. A crackling fireplace illuminated the whole room in intimate amber light. Ghosts and ghouls skittered out of sight as she stepped through the room. Snuffles wiggled to the point she released him from her arms.

She crouched by the shelves, watching him scamper off. Only, she caught long, pale legs stood on the other side of the bookshelf. She crept down the aisle, going up a shelf to find a pair of crooked shins that stood at uncomfortable angles. As she went up, shelf after shelf, she followed the ghost till she was standing and staring at eyes over a short row of books. Eyes that were milky and lilac. The other woman’s eyebrows were furrowed but this wasn’t Sabine. It was a woman with a shaved head and a burn across the top of her scalp in the shape of the sun.

“Hello?” Hyacinth whispered, pushing up on her toes. The woman’s far away gaze snapped up to her face.

“They’ll come for you. They’ll burn you.” Her voice was soft, raspy, like the lungs were burned out of her body.

“Who?”

“They’ll burn you,” the ghost repeated as she stepped back from the shelf. She took with her a rope that dangled off her throat, the grooves around the back of her neck were as dark as the branding. The ghost stalked away, wandering aimlessly into the shadows of the shelves.

“Oh, ignore that one. She came with Lord Rosemont and Austin from the Badlands. She’s not a bad ghost, but a terrible conversationalist.” A little voice tugged her out of her trance. Hyacinth glanced down to her ankle.Blink, blink.

“Greggory!” she blurted out.

“Hyacinth!” He beamed, prodding her calf with a long finger. “You’re here for a book? Is Austin finally asking you to read them to him?”