Three Hybrid Brothers Locked Me in Their Tower, and the Man Who Sent Me There Is the Real Monster novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Magnus

I let my father finish writing before I went to the gate.

He signed it at the bottom and dated it.

I folded it into my account book beside the yellow leaf, and I did not thank him.

Then I took his old oilskin from the hook and went out into the rain.

Magnus stood at the gate exactly where I had seen him.

The water ran off his hair and into his beard, and his dressing had soaked through at the elbow.

He held his hat in both hands.

"You'll catch cold," I said.

"I walked the causeway," said Magnus.

"I'm already cold."

"What do you want?"

"I came to ask," he said.

The rain drummed on the oilskin.

"Ask what?"

"If I may come in.

"If I may stand in the yard.

"If you'll let me speak to you without a door between us."

"You've never asked me anything in your life," I said.

"I'm trying to learn the habit," said Magnus.

I looked at him for a long moment.

He was the biggest man I had ever stood in front of, and he was holding his hat like a boy at a funeral.

"You may come in," I said.

"The hut.

"Not the house."

He came in.

I shut the hut door, and the rain dropped to a drumming on the tin.

The stove was low and red, and the cot stood against the wall under its gray blanket.

He stood in the middle of the floor and dripped.

"Take that coat off," I said.

"You're soaking my father's floor."

He took it off and draped it over the chair.

The wet wool smelled of the sea and of him.

He stood in his shirtsleeves with the dressing black on his arm.

The mark of the chain was still on his throat, where the key had hung for twenty years.

I looked at the bare place on his chest.

"You gave it to me," I said.

"Yes."

"You said what I did with it was none of your business."

"I did," said Magnus.

"I left it on a tide table," I said.

"I know," said Magnus.

"Ansel told me.

"I'll leave it where it is until you want it."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it's yours," he said.

I stood by the stove with my hands behind me and studied the man who had kept me for five weeks.

"I said I'd do Rook later," I said.

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