House of Salt and Sorrows (Sisters of Salt #1)

“Our first priority is getting to the wreck,” Papa said, pacing in front of the large fireplace in his study. Above the mantel hung our family crest. The eyes of the Thaumas octopus glittered in the candlelight, as if it were amused by our predicament.

Cassius, Roland, the sailor, and I perched on chairs scattered about the room. Large maps and ocean charts, held in place at the corners with anchor-shaped paperweights, covered Papa’s desk.

“We need to save whatever lives—and cargo—we can.” Papa nodded to Roland. “Wake every able-bodied man we have, and set sail for the Rusalka immediately.” He peered out the window behind the desk, studying the weather vane attached to the lower gable. “The winds are in our favor, at least.” He tapped the map where the sailor said the ship had struck rocks. “If they hold up, you should be able to reach it in two hours’ time.”

Roland was gone with a click of his heels, taking the sailor with him.

“Papa, what about Old Maude?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we send someone to check on Silas? I can’t remember the light ever going out before.”

He sank into his chair, staring into the crackling flames as he rubbed at the circles under his eyes. “I just don’t understand what is happening. First Eulalie, then the girls. Now this. It’s almost as if…” He shook his head, clearing away his dark thoughts. He looked at me in confusion, as if truly seeing me for the first time that night. “What are you wearing, Annaleigh?”

“I…” I trailed off, unable to truly answer.

He waved it aside. “It doesn’t matter. Old Maude needs to be relit. I’ll wake Fisher. He needs to return and get the light back up and running.”

My mind wandered upstairs to my sisters’ rooms. Fisher had been at the ball with us. Would we find him dancing about his room as well?

“Papa—there’s something else I need to tell you,” I began, but Cassius shifted his head, warning me to stop.

“You have so much on your plate right now, sir,” Cassius said. “Let me go and wake him.”

“That would be very kind of you. I really ought to check on Morella. She was in such a tizzy when Roland woke us. Thank you both.”

I watched him head toward the foyer, his shoulders hunched with too much weight.

“Where’s Fisher’s room?” Cassius asked, drawing me to the task at hand.

“On the second floor, just above the kitchens on the servants’ side.”

We hurried up the stairs, moving aside as Roland clattered down the steps past us, a group of sleepy-eyed footmen following after him.

“You said he was at the ball with you?”

I nodded, leading him down the dimly lit hall. The walls were stark white, the doors plain with brass handles. I’d been to Fisher’s room once, when we were children. Hanna had boxed his ears when she found out. “Is he going to be like Camille and the others?”

“I don’t know,” Cassius answered. “I honestly don’t know what to expect from this night.”

“Was I like…that?” I asked, stopping outside Fisher’s room. I did not want to imagine myself spinning about and contorting into the poses I’d seen my sisters perform. That the Weeping Woman might have somehow forced me to made me want to cry.

“You were,” he confirmed quietly. “I thought it was some horrible prank, but you went through a beam of moonlight and I saw your face….”

“Were my eyes all black?” I asked. My voice felt impossibly small and tight.

“It might have been a trick of the shadows…but it was awful, Annaleigh. It was like you were just…gone. I was so scared I’d lost you somehow.”

I grasped his hand, bringing it to my lips. “I’m here. I’m still yours.”

His mouth curved up in the shade of a smile. “Mine? Truly?”

“All yours,” I promised, and kissed his fingers again.

He drew me in, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I wanted to stay there, wrapped in the warmth and security of his embrace, but we couldn’t linger. Old Maude needed to be lit again.

Blowing out a shaky breath, I stepped away from Cassius’s side. “I’m so scared to open this door.”

“I’ll do it,” he said, twisting the knob and pushing. After a second’s hesitation, he went in.

“Cassius?” I called out when the silence grew loud enough to be deafening. I ducked my head in, squinting in the dark. I could make out a low, narrow bed with a quilt neatly tucked around it and a small desk and chair. Fisher’s clothes hung on a series of pegs on the wall. But no Fisher.

“He’s not in here.”

“Maybe Roland woke him?”

“We would have seen him go down the stairs with the other men,” Cassius said, poking out into the corridor.

“He could have heard the commotion and come down earlier,” I tried, thinking out loud.

I pushed back strands of hair that had come loose from my twisted updo. It just didn’t make any sense. When had I gone from being awake to dreaming such horrific nightmares?

“Do you think he’s in the Grotto? Maybe he went down for the ball and—”

“There was no ball,” Cassius repeated firmly. “He’s not in the Grotto. I checked there when you never came down. It was empty. No people, no parties, no magic door.” He let out a sigh. “There are a hundred places he could be right now, but we don’t have the time to look. The beacon needs to be relit. As soon as possible.”

“I might be able to light it.”

Cassius looked surprised. “You?”

“Papa took me to visit Old Maude often when I was a little girl. I think I remember everything Silas showed me.”

“Get dressed in warmer clothes and meet me in the garden, out from under all the trees. Hurry.”

I raised my eyebrows. He’d said the same thing the night we traveled to the House of Seven Moons.

“We’re going to Hesperus.”