BEHIND THE CURTAIN

  THE WORLDS BEHIND

  BOOK 4

  W.R. GINGELL

  Copyright © 2023 by W.R. Gingell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art by Natasha Snow Designs

  The Worlds Behind series is the further adventures of Athelas from the City Between series, and consists of 5 books in total. Welcome to the worlds Behind and Between…

  A Whisker Behind

  Behind Closed Doors

  Wet Behind the Ears

  Behind the Curtain

  No Man Left Behind

  If you haven’t already read the series that started it all, The City Between Series, you can begin here!

  CONTENTS

  1. Eclipse of the Sun

  2. Thorn in the Side

  3. Dog in the Manger

  4. Slip in the Stitches

  5. Commission of a Crime

  6. Shot in the Dark

  7. Grit in the Shell

  8. Roll of the Dice

  9. Ducks in a Row

  10. Coming of the Night

  11. Bird on the Wing

  12. Chink in the Armour

  13. Confession in the Sunroom

  Book 5 is coming!

  ECLIPSE OF THE SUN

  “Ex-husband,” Camellia said.

  To YeoWoo, her voice sounded as though it contained a great weariness. She was speaking, however, and that was a very big improvement upon the until-now silent and ashy presence she had been.

  “If you wanted a welcome, you shouldn’t have snuck in through the garden,” YeoWoo said to the human. Now that Camellia was starting to recover, it was best that she had time to do so. YeoWoo might not be able to kill this human in particular, but she could at least give Camellia the time and space she needed to prepare herself for the oncoming storm. “Maybe you should knock at the door next time.”

  She spared a glance at Athelas, who somehow managed to look completely aloof, his grey eyes reflective and emotionless. If YeoWoo hadn’t been quite sure that the secret of Camellia’s past—or at least, a very great deal of it—still lay between herself and Camellia, she would have thought Athelas knew all along. It was more likely, she realised now, that he was running through his head a series of methods of murder and finding it hard to choose between them.

  “No one would have let me in the house if I did,” the man said, interrupting a flow of thoughts that had begun to take the same direction as YeoWoo had assumed of Athelas.

  “Then perhaps you should realise that no one wants you and take the hint,” she said, her teeth very slightly sharpening.

  “I thought it would be better to get it over with straight away instead of beating around the bush,” he retorted. “Look, this is between me and Camellia; I don’t even know you.”

  “No,” said YeoWoo, showing her teeth and a bit of her fur, “but I know you.”

  “Then you should know that I’m the master of this house—or any other that Camellia owns—and you can’t throw me out now that I’m in. I’m linked to this place in ways that you can’t begin to imagine.”

  “Maybe I can’t,” she said. “But you can’t throw me out, either.”

  “We’ll see about that,” the house master said. To Camellia, he said, “This is between the two of us. Why don’t you ask them to leave so that we can have a chat before anyone does anything stupid?”

  “I do not intend,” said Athelas, with a humourless smile, “to do anything…stupid.”

  It seemed to YeoWoo that Camellia woke further. Her shoulders straightened infinitesimally, and her eyelids fluttered in a series of small, rapid blinks. Her brown eyes appeared to focus properly on Athelas, and then shifted to the house master.

  “My guests have their own lives and their own wishes,” she said to him. “They come and go as they please, and I don’t interfere.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the house master, as though he really was sorry. “I thought you might still have that kind of trouble without me.”

  “My guests,” said Camellia, with what YeoWoo wasn’t sure was complete truthfulness, “don’t trouble me.”

  “They’re troubling me right now,” the house master said, with something far more approximate to the truth, if his rueful tone was any guide. “Can’t we have a word by ourselves, Camellia? Your guests will be wanting to go home at this time of day.”

  “We are boarders here,” Athelas said. “A contractual obligation, you understand.”

  His grey eyes flicked over the Australian, and YeoWoo had the sense that he was trying to size up the man and confirm whether he was human or fae—or something else. That would do him no good; the house master was as human as Harrow was.

  “That’s an unexpected development,” said the house master. He gazed at Camellia for a little while before he added, “I thought for a moment that you’d branched out into more exciting contracts, but you’re playing it safe. Contractual doesn’t mean co-owner, though.”

  YeoWoo gave a small crack of laughter that sounded as rude as she’d hoped. “Safe, do you think? Taking in the Steward as a contractual boarder?”

  The house master’s eyes were instantly upon her. “I’d like to know why you told me that,” he said in a pleasant sort of way. “It doesn’t seem very clever.”

  “Neither does making trouble in a house where the Steward is living,” said Marazul’s voice. The merman, who had until now been silent, had been giving off waves of stressful scent, and it surprised YeoWoo to hear him say anything at all.

  She didn’t think she was the only one surprised; a small smile flashed momentarily in Athelas’ grey eyes.

  “See, that’s where you’re getting me wrong,” the house master said, spreading out his hands and advancing further into the room. He stopped in front of Camellia, but YeoWoo, who would have put herself between them had he made any sign of touching her, noticed that he remained a respectful distance from the housekeeper. “I’m not here to make trouble; I’m here to make amends.”

  YeoWoo would have let out another jeering laugh to show exactly what she thought of that, but all the humour had suddenly drained from her. Camellia had broken free from her husband only after a great deal of thought and anguish, and YeoWoo was quite certain that she still considered herself in some way bound to the man, as ridiculous as that seemed to YeoWoo. The house master come to make amends was far more dangerous than the house master openly antagonistic.

  “What does that mean?” Camellia asked. She had woken quite thoroughly now, but there was a very faint depression between her brows, as though she was thinking at a thousand miles a minute and processing at nearly twice that speed.

  She looked as though she was facing someone of Athelas’ powers, and that worried YeoWoo. She knew a great deal of Camellia’s past, though not all of it, and she would have thought the house master at least a few levels away from someone of Athelas’ calibre.

  “It means that I’ve been trying to find you for years so that I can ask your forgiveness,” the house master said bluntly.

  YeoWoo’s eyes met Athelas’—neither his eyes nor hers, she was quite sure, gave any sign of belief.

  Camellia, however, stilled at once. “I see,” she said, and the dent between her brows deepened. “I would actually rather you didn’t say anything else right now.”

  The house master’s voice lowered; one hand stretched out again, as if to calm a startled horse. “I need to make things right between us, Camellia.”

  “There is no us.” Camellia’s voice was quieter, but there was a sharp edge to it. “Do you think it will help your case if you convince those around me? I don’t think you know who these people are.”

  “That’s why I asked you to get them to leave,” he protested. “Do you want me to get down on my knees in front of everyone? I will, if that’s what it takes.”

  Camellia looked around at them all briefly, and said, “I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but could you all leave the house for a few hours?”

  YeoWoo elbowed Athelas in a reflexive action that forestalled the words she could see forming on his lips. “Will we still be able to get back in?” she asked Camellia bluntly.

  The house only belonged to the house master in one sense that YeoWoo was aware of, but that was enough to make things difficult for anyone leaving and hoping to get back in if he didn’t wish them to get back in.

  Camellia said, “Yes,” without hesitation, and that was a balm of consolation to YeoWoo. She didn’t know if it was such to Athelas, but when she encountered his gaze again, she knew he would follow her. In some way, he had acknowledged to himself that YeoWoo had the lead here.

  “In that case, I shall fetch my jacket,” he said.

  He pushed past the house master, and perhaps YeoWoo alone knew what that tension in his neck meant—the cording of tight, restrained muscles that had drawn together with the desire to slice and stab and kill with every ounce of strength and ability at their command.

  “We’re only going out for a couple of hours,” she said to Camellia. Her voice sounded flat, but she hoped it was a comfort. YeoWoo never quite knew exactly what Camellia thought, despite a friendship of many years, and in this case, she felt tha
t she would rather express what she felt more openly than usual. If the house master took it as a threat, so much the better. In service of that end, she added, “We’ll be back then, ready or not.”

  “I don’t have to go,” Harrow said uncertainly, his eyes moving from YeoWoo to Camellia and back again. “Do I have to go?”

  “You’re coming with us,” YeoWoo said. The night was already complicated, and she had a feeling that if Camellia was pushed into saying too much, it would become tangled past repair. It was very much better if things remained simple, clear, and easy to grasp. “We’re going to eat bingsu.”

  “It’s too cold for bingsu,” said Harrow, his brows pinched together.

  The house master grinned in a way that made YeoWoo want to swipe the expression off his face with a pawful of claws, and said, “It’s never too cold for bingsu.”

  Since that had been just what she was going to say, YeoWoo was unable to do anything else but sweep coldly past him, collecting Harrow on her way, and enter the hallway just in time to prevent Athelas from going back into the sunroom.

  Athelas seemed as though he would have gone around her, but YeoWoo grabbed his arm before he could go any further—by which time the door was already swinging shut behind Marazul, who had exited last.

  “You could have killed him earlier with anything in that room,” she said below her breath. “You know as well as I do that you’re going to do exactly what Camellia asked you to do—because she asked you to. You don’t get to make decisions for her.”

  “I fear,” he murmured—and it seemed to YeoWoo in that moment that he really was deathly afraid— “that she is not in a state to make decisions herself.”

  His eyes were on the door to the sunroom, even though he spoke to her.

  “She’s been in a worse state before,” YeoWoo told him, shifting her skirts so that Marazul and Harrow could pass ahead of them to the front door. “And she’s awake enough now to look after herself. Don’t interfere when she tells you not to interfere.”

  He said icily, “I am not accustomed to confining myself to the wishes of others.”

  “That’s all you’re accustomed to,” she said bluntly. “And Camellia’s not your mistress or your enemy, so don’t let your twisty mind try to worm its way around her requests. We’re going.”

  They left the house together; all four passed the threshold with something of a hesitation, but they passed it and found themselves on the streets a few moments later, where YeoWoo could smell the creeping car exhaust mingling with misaemonji and the scent of cooling bricks in the swiftly chilling evening.

  Athelas didn’t put a glamour on Marazul, and Marazul didn’t ask for one. Both of them were well aware that Peregrine still had someone following the merman around every time he left the house—YeoWoo had, at one point early last week, phoned the elder and told him in a carefully calculated unpleasant sort of way that his fox had gotten lost and could find them at the I Seoul U sign along the Hankang if that fox really wanted to find them again.

  Tonight, there was no desire in her for any such humour. None of them were particularly joyous, if it came to that: Marazul was silent and frowning, Athelas chilly and sharp-edged, and Harrow… The human boy was silent when they left the house, and by the time they got to the street, he was trembling.

  Athelas, as distant as he seemed, was attentive enough to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder; Harrow looked up at him rather blindly.

  “I told you,” he mumbled. His chest rose and fell too quickly, and YeoWoo could smell the scent of panic and fear on him. “I told you that the curse would get out and that it would start to hurt everyone. It’s already running around the house, and now that man is here, too. We shouldn’t have gone away when she needed us.”

  “Camellia,” said Athelas, his voice very cold, “would not have sent me away if she needed me.”

  YeoWoo threw a look at him. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either. Camellia would—and had—sent Athelas away because Harrow needed him; they had no way of knowing if she needed Athelas, and she would have sent him away regardless.

  “He won’t try to kill her,” she said. That was a whole truth, and it was a relief to be able to say it. “He’s dangerous in a completely different way.”

  “Perhaps you could enlighten me in exactly what way he is dangerous, then?” enquired Athelas, with something of a bite to his voice.

  “No, I can’t,” YeoWoo said bluntly. “It’s something you’ll have to hear from Camellia—if she trusts you enough to tell you. All you need to know in the meantime is that if you kill the house master, you’ll kill Camellia. So—”

  “Are you speaking metaphorically, or—”

  “I never speak metaphorically,” YeoWoo said, striding up the street. “It will physically kill her. So don’t do it.”

  Marazul was the first to catch up with her. “What are we supposed to do at this time of day?” he asked. His brow was furrowed, but it didn’t seem to be from any concern about being on the street after dark; he was focused inward. YeoWoo wasn’t surprised when he added, “Will Camellia throw me out to make room for him?”

  “You haven’t been allowed out enough in Seoul if you’re worried about having enough to do,” YeoWoo told him. “And if you think Camellia will throw you out before you’re ready to go, you don’t know Camellia very well.”

  “I don’t know her very well,” he said. “And if it was me, I would probably throw myself out. I don’t have a contract with her like the rest of you.”

  “Camellia only makes contracts with people who need extra protections around them.”

  “Extra protection for them, or for her?”

  YeoWoo found herself sniffing a small laugh. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, and that’s what worries me,” Marazul muttered. “That man said—”

  “Perhaps we might have some discussion,” said Athelas’ voice behind them, “on exactly where we might best spend our time. For example, it occurs to me that—”

  “I’m going to Peregrine,” YeoWoo said. “If anyone knows how the house master got into Korea, and how long he’s been here, it’s Peregrine.”

  “In that case, I’m for the house in Heukseok-dong,” said Athelas, surprising her. His hand was still on Harrow’s shoulder when she threw a look at him. “I believe my lord ought to know of the latest developments.”

  YeoWoo gave another small sniff of laughter. “You’re hoping to wring some information out of them with the news. You think they’ll let you in if you’ve got the boy with you?”

  “I think it very unlikely,” he said coolly. “But I do think it likely that I’ll be stopped before I get there, which will accomplish the same end. My lord is no doubt still having me followed—if he is not following me himself. A sadly suspicious mind, I believe.”

  “Not suspicious enough,” YeoWoo remarked, and found herself disconcerted when the sudden, blank stillness of Athelas’ face informed her that she had hit a particularly sensitive nerve.

  As was his wont, he said only, “Exactly so,” and then turned his head to ask Harrow, “Should you like to meet another fae?”

  Harrow hesitated, surprising YeoWoo. Then he asked, “Are they like you?”

  “Certainly not,” Athelas said. “My lord is far kinder—and certainly more inclined to look after human children than myself.”

  Harrow looked unconvinced, which almost made YeoWoo genuinely laugh. It was no time for laughing, so she said, “I’m for Peregrine. We can meet back at the front steps of the house in an hour and a half.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Marazul said.

  Since YeoWoo hadn’t expected anything different, and didn’t particularly care one way or another, she had already turned and was sweeping away in the opposite direction to Athelas. Marazul caught up with her just a few paces later and asked, “Are we going by the subway?”

  He sounded surprised but amenable.

  YeoWoo bit her lip in irritation; she had been striding away for the subway as usual. In some way over the last couple of weeks, she had accepted that part of herself that was inextricably linked with the world Behind and Between, and even if she wasn’t prepared to give herself up as lost entirely to the human world, she felt for the first time that she was content to use the world she occupied. There was no reason to go back to old habits.