Chapter 34

Idiot. You would think at his age, making fumbling mistakes wouldn’t happen. That was not the case. Bastian was right back to his teen years of thinking his cheeky grin was going to get him anything he wanted.

Nova came back out with a broom and dustpan in her hand. Her face was flushed. He wasn’t naïve enough to think it was in a good way. He’d startled her and likely broken some sacred covenant by invading this space. He jolted and held out his hand. “Let me, please.” She reluctantly released her grip on the broom. “I’m told my social etiquette is lacking.” He started to clean up the shards from the cups. “I do things impulsively without considering the consequences." He was actually quoting his mother.

She hadn’t moved and was now hugging her own waist.

“Like my intruding on your space down here.” He paused to look around. Just the small area he could see told him this was a treasured space, decorated over a long period of time by the keepers that lived safely within its walls. “It was a puzzle of sorts, for me to figure out. Why would you pretend that up there was your home?” He stopped and held her look. “But now I know it is your home, just not the part you revealed to me.” Spotting the dustpan, he stepped closer to get it. He couldn’t even remember when he’d last wielded a broom. Squatting down, he started to pick up the larger pieces. “There’s a very good reason, Nova—” He looked up to see she was finally seeing him again. “—for my need to know that you are safe.” She blinked and then took the broom out of his hand and started to sweep the debris into the dustpan he held. “I’ll finish explaining after we clean this up.”

Standing up, he looked at the broken shards in the faded plastic bin; the date stamp on the bottom had him glance at her again. “You drink tea from antique china cups? So much for popping to a store to buy replacements.”

Taking the dustpan from his hand, she walked by him and went through the door.

Blowing out a breath, he looked around. Tor would have been greatly entertained by this blunder. He turned to follow her when she came back out and walked right past him. He followed slowly as she went back toward the ladder he’d come down. Was he about to be banished from this place? Standing behind her, he watched her pull a level and then punch a code into the panel beside the ladder.

Turning, she paused and looked at him. “No one has been down here since it was built.” She moved quickly by him again.

He watched her go down a hall to the left. Bastian paused in the sitting room and looked around. He recognized furniture from the early nineteen hundred. The carpet, if you could call it that was even older. Ornaments were neatly organized throughout the room and were more popular items from more recent decades.

He walked slowly, glancing in the doors as he went, a bathroom and the other door turned out to be a bedroom. He stood in the doorway. Nova was in the closet. He watched her come back down the ladder and then pause and look at the boxes piled beside it.

She lifted her gaze to him. “It’s clothes and things from previous. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“You could move it upstairs, there’s plenty of empty cupboards and space up there.” He was trying to be helpful, but now that it was out of his mouth, he wondered if it came across as flippant. “I can help some time.” He was going to have to keep Tor away from Nova until his centuries-old charm returned to him and he didn’t turn into a bumbling adolescent in front of her.

“It might be an idea.” She huffed out a breath. “I suppose it’s easier if I don’t have to carry things up and down the ladder when you’re here.”

He stepped back into the narrow hallway. “I do have to ask, how did they get furniture down here?”

Nova shrugged. “I have no idea. I only bring things that fit through the hatch.” She walked by him.

“Hmm.” He followed her.

“There’s a tunnel behind the bookshelf. I suppose they could have used it, but I can’t even bring myself to do more than look at it, so I’ll never know.”

“The tunnel, that I found on old plans, was gone on later plans.” She didn’t stop in the sitting room, or kitchen just kept going. “I’d be curious to see what it looks like on the other side.”

She paused in the doorway. “Have fun with that.”

“I’d ask if you have a fear of being underground, but is it a fear of small spaces?”

Nova frowned. “I don’t know, just that tunnels are not our friend.”

He found it interesting that she said our and not my. Somehow, he knew she wasn’t talking about the two of them, but the soul’s past keepers. He kept going and went through the door she stopped beside. The room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, he didn’t have to read any titles, he could tell by the bindings how old they were. Each keeper must have added to the collection because he could see the ascending decades from shelf to shelf. In one corner there was a single leather armchair, that had to be at least one hundred years old, and an antique table beside it.

Turning, he looked to see the opposite corner had a large desk to match what he surmised was Nova’s contribution. A laptop, desktop computer, and extra monitors sat there. He glanced up to see the cable had been run from the upper part of the building. With a smirk, he went over and looked at the fish tank. “Your fish obligation.”

“They’re quite demanding and opinionated.” She pointed beside the desk at a century old trunk. “The journals are in there.”

Going over, he bent down and ran his hand over the Solrelm emblem carved into the top. “Do you know who put this here?”

“It’s in one of the first journals, but they never said why.”

“I definitely want to read that one.” He opened it with care, making sure not to stress the hinges. The emblem on the top told him at some point he was supposed to meet the keeper of these journals, of that soul. He sent her a surprised look when he saw how many journals were inside. He’d been alive a long time, and he remembered a lot of history, but these books in front of him were history he hadn’t known. Events that had led to this point in time and something told him they had answers to questions he had, and possibly many unasked ones.

“The paper tabs are marking mentions of men vanishing or...” She paused until he looked at her. “...other things I’m curious about.”

That brought him back to the reason he’d had to see her today, the facts she needed to know. The reasons he had to keep her safe. “Before I get lost in these, and I have no doubt I will, we should finish our talk.” He watched the wary look in her eyes, slowly fade to one of acceptance and determination.

“Okay, then I have questions that need to be answered.”

Bastian tried not to smirk and appear cavalier. “Oh, I’m sure they will multiply after I’ve said what needs saying.”

Nova motioned to the door. “My notebook is in the kitchen.”

He inclined his head. “Wonderful, we can have that tea now.” Bastian started for the door, then turned to see her leaning over the desk, clicking buttons on a keyboard.

She looked up at him. “Hust checking on the cameras.”

“You have cameras set up in the neighborhood?”

She nodded. “I don’t like surprises.”

“Mmm, that’s too bad. Surprises keep life interesting.”

She smiled at the screen. “My life has been pretty interesting.”

“I’m about to make it more so.”