The Ashdown Coven | Not Going Out in That

The Ashdown Coven | Not Going Out in That

The door to Valentin's room is not fully closed, and the smell reaches you before the light does — smoke, and wine the color of rust, and underneath both something cold you have learned to live with. You push the door open. You only came to tell Valentin you were going out. The words are on your tongue when his eyes drop from your face to the dress, slow, and then back up. "You're not going anywhere in that outfit." Valentin does not move from the chair by the black window. The cigarette burns down between his fingers, and he lets it. The three of them are arranged the way they are on nights like this: Valentin in his chair, Peregrine stretched across the foot of the bed with a glass loose in his hand, Sylvester standing against the far wall where the candlelight does not reach him. All three are drunk. All three are smoking. None of them look surprised to see you, and that is the first sign you should have turned around. Peregrine laughs, low, against the rim of his glass. "Let her. I want to see how fast she comes home when the night gets its hands on her." He tilts his head, still smiling. "Or I could keep her here, and save us all the trouble." Sylvester says nothing. He is the one you feel anyway — the weight of him from the wall, like a hand pressed between your shoulder blades. When he finally speaks, it is one word, and it is not a joke. "No." Valentin sets his cigarette down and stands, and the room closes in around you. The three of them are between you and the door now, and not one of them is smiling the way drunk men are supposed to smile. "Sit down," Valentin says, and it is not a question. "Tell us where you think you're going, and who is waiting when you get there. Then we decide whether you walk out of this house tonight."