At first, as Shade dragged me quickly down the hallway, I barely noticed anything but the hammering of my own heart. Every step took me away from the outside world, deeper into the Gentle Lord’s domain; it was like being buried alive. I couldn’t stop staring at Shade’s grip on my arm—it looked like a chance shadow, felt like a breath of air, but pulled me forward as if I weighed no more than a leaf. My stomach curdled at the unnatural horror of the creature.
Deliver us from the eyes of demons. That was the first prayer anyone ever learnt, no matter who you were and which god you prayed it to. Because anyone, duke or peasant, could be attacked.
It didn’t happen often. Not one person in a hundred ever met a demon. But it happened enough.
I remembered the people brought into Father’s study: the girl who huddled in a silent heap of bony limbs; the man who never stopped writhing, silent only because he had long ago screamed away his voice. Sometimes Father could make them a little better; sometimes he could only tell their families to keep them drugged with laudanum. None of them were ever sane again. And those were the lucky ones—or perhaps they should be counted unlucky—who actually survived meeting the demons.
Most did not.
Now I was in the hands of a demon myself. But with each step I took, my heart kept beating. My mind remained. I didn’t want to claw my eyes out of my head, to chew the nails off my fingers. The scream shuddering inside me was easy to suppress. I could think, He said he wants me alive till dinner, and the words made sense to me.
I watched Shade’s profile slide down the wall, rippling when it passed over a door frame. It looked exactly like the shadow that would be cast by a man walking one step in front of me, dragging me forward. But no hand grasped my wrist, only a band of shadow; and no one walked in front of me.
Except this walking shadow.
Nobody knew what the Gentle Lord’s demons looked like, because no one had ever survived meeting them sane enough to tell. But Shade didn’t look like something that could drive people mad with a glance. Slowly, I began to relax.
I started to notice the hallway. First the air: it had the clear, lazy warmth of summer breezes—nothing like the heat from a fire—though I couldn’t see a window anywhere. That was strange enough. Then there were the doors, running down both sides of the hallway. They looked normal at first, but then I realized they were a little taller and narrower than usual. And was it only perspective, or were the lintels actually slanted?
How long had we been walking? I could see the end of the hallway, but it did not seem to be getting any closer.
Was that a faint echo of laughter in the distance?
Suddenly the walking shadow seemed much less terrible than the warm silence of the hallway.
“Are you a real demon, or just a creature the Gentle Lord made?” I asked abruptly. As soon as I uttered the words, I felt stupid: how did I expect a shadow to talk, anyway?
“Or are you a part of him? Do all demon lords have walking shadows when they spring from the womb of Tartarus?” I went on, absurdly determined to make it seem like the first question had been rhetorical. “I suppose it makes sense that things spawned from the dark—”
Shade stopped so abruptly that I stumbled. The silver key twinkled as he unlocked one of the doors; then we stepped through onto a narrow spiral staircase of stone. Cold, damp air washed over me, a little sour, as if someone had once used the room for an aquarium. I looked up—and up, and up. For overhead, the stairs faded into the darkness with no end in sight.
“Does he plan to kill me with stairs?” I muttered. Then Shade pulled me forward and I went quietly, because I knew I would need to save my breath.
We climbed until my legs burned and sweat ran down my neck, despite the cold air. I stopped caring that my face was twisted with effort and my breath came in loud gasps. The world narrowed to the effort of lifting one wobbling foot after another and not toppling sideways into the void. Shade flowed on smoothly and relentlessly. Just when I thought I could climb no more, the staircase ended with a narrow archway into a square room with bare white walls and a plain wood floor. I stumbled through and fell to my knees.
“Please,” I gasped, my throat so dry the word was barely more than a croak.
He dropped my wrist. With a sigh, I collapsed onto my back. For a while I stared blindly at the ceiling and gasped for breath. At last my heartbeat slowed and my breath came easier, while the sweat cooled and dried on my face.
As I began to feel better, I noticed that Shade had knelt beside me, his shadowy form clinging to the walls.
His cool touch slid across my face and pulled a strand of hair out of my eyes. I batted a hand futilely at the air and sat up in a rush.
“I don’t need a hairdresser,” I growled. My heart was thumping again and the line he had traced across my skin tingled. The touch had felt gentle—but he was still a thing, if not a demon then at least a servant of the Gentle Lord. Like his master, his kindness was only meant to make later torments crueler.
Like Father’s and Aunt Telomache’s kindness in telling Astraia about the Rhyme. It had only made me able to hurt her more.
I hurtled to my feet. “Come on, you need to imprison me,” I said, looking down at Shade, who still crouched low, a blob of shadow against the wall.
He rose slowly, stretching up to stand almost a head taller than me, the same as the Gentle Lord. Then he took my hand but paused; I felt like he was staring at me. Now he was a clear profile, the silhouette of his nose and lips and shoulders crisp against the wall. I suddenly realized that although a monster, he was also something like a man; my face heated, and my free hand grabbed the torn edges of my bodice.
He had been watching when I tore my dress open. Would he still be watching when the Gentle Lord finally—
There was a twinge of pressure, almost as if he were squeezing my hand, as if he were trying to reassure me or apologize. But a demon—or the shadow of a demon—would surely have no use for any such kindness. Then he drew me forward, less violently than before.
The next room was a great round ballroom. Its walls were arrayed in gold-painted moldings; its floor was a swirling mosaic of blue and gold; its dome was painted with the loves of all the gods, a vast tangle of plump limbs and writhing fabric. The air was cool, still, and hugely silent. My footsteps were only a soft tap-tap-tap, but they echoed through the room.
After that came what seemed like a hundred more rooms and hallways. In every one, the air was different: hot or cold, fresh or stuffy, smelling of rosemary, incense, pomegranates, old paper, pickled fish, cedarwood. None of the rooms frightened me like the first hallway. But sometimes—especially when sunlight glowed through a window—I thought I heard the faint laughter.
Finally, at the end of a long hallway with a cherrywood wainscot and lace-hung windows between the doors, we came to my room. I could see why the Gentle Lord called it the “bridal suite”: the walls were papered with a silver pattern of hearts and doves, and most of the room was taken up by a huge canopied bed, more than big enough for two. The four posts were shaped like four maidens, coiffed and dressed in gauzy robes that clung to their bodies, their faces serene. They were exactly like the caryatids holding up the porch of a temple. The bed curtains were great falls of white lace, woven through with crimson ribbons. A vase of roses sat on the bedside table. Their red petals had blossomed wide to expose their gold centers, and their musk wove through the air.
It was a bed that had been built for pleasure, just like my dress, and as I stared at it I felt hot and cold at once. Then I noticed that to the left of the bed was a great bay window that looked out toward my village. I had barely realized what I could see before I was at the window, my hands pressed against the glass. I could see all the buildings, very small and clear, like a perfect model that I could reach out and touch.
It should have been comforting to look toward home. But from outside, the Gentle Lord’s castle was a ruin. Standing here at the window beside my bridal bed, kno
wing I was invisible to the outside world, I felt like a ghost.
I leaned my head against the window, trying not to cry again. Maybe I should feel this way. Right now—no, always—I existed only to destroy the Gentle Lord. Astraia was the stupid one, to think that I was in the world to love her.
Something tickled my elbow. I whirled and saw Shade sliding back along the wall—it was his touch, I realized. He wavered on the wall by the dresser, and though his distorted form made it hard to tell, I thought that he was wringing his hands.
“I’m all right,” I said, stepping away from the window.
Of course I was all right. I had been raised for this mission. I couldn’t be anything but completely all right.
Then I realized I had been speaking to him as if he were someone who cared. I crossed my arms.
“Go tell your lord that you’ve done his will. Or did you want to stay and watch me change?”
Shade bobbed—he might be nodding his head—then flowed away and left me in private. I sat down on the bed with a thump. The room swam around me; suddenly I could not believe that it was real, that I was truly sitting in the Gentle Lord’s castle and I had a little porcelain shepherdess with a blue dress and pink cheeks sitting by the roses on my bedside table.
Astraia had a figurine like that, only with a pink dress.
My nails bit into my palms. There hadn’t been just pain on her face when I left her; there had been utter incomprehension. She couldn’t believe that her beloved sister, who had always smiled and kissed and comforted her, was trying to cause her pain. She couldn’t believe that Father and Aunt Telomache had lied to her, either.
She loved you, I thought savagely. You truly deceived her and she truly thought well of you. Until the very last minute, when you took all love away from her.
This time I didn’t cry, but the icy feeling that lashed through me was worse. I wanted to claw my skin open, I wanted to smash the shepherdess to pieces, I wanted to beat the wall and wail. But that would be losing my temper, and hadn’t I just seen where that led? So I sat still and tense, choking down the misery and fury and shame, until at last the numbness came back.
Then I gritted my teeth, went to the wardrobe, and found the most low-cut dress, a flowing thing of dark blue silk. I had broken my sister’s heart. I would never see her again, so I could never beg her forgiveness. I had let hatred fester in me so long, I didn’t think I could ever learn to love her properly, either. But I could make sure she lived free of the Gentle Lord, no longer afraid of his demons, with the true sun shining down upon her.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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5
Dinner was in a great hall carved of deep blue stone. A colonnade ran down either side; on the left, the rock wall behind the pillars was rough and unfinished, but on the right was a vast wall of stained glass. There were no pictures in the glass, only an intricate swirl of many-colored diamond panes that cast a rainbow of glimmers over the white tablecloth. At the far end of the hall, a great empty arch looked out on the western sky, where the sun hung low. Though the horizon was far away, the sky looked strangely close: its mottling was larger and its surface more translucent, glowing bright red-gold veined with russet.
Amid the glory of that sky was a dark speck. It grew swiftly, until I saw that it was a great black bird, easily as big as a horse. It slowed as it approached the arch, its body melting and changing into a man.
No, not a man: the Gentle Lord. He landed with a whoosh and strode forward, boots clicking on the stone floor as his wings furled and melted into the lines of his long dark coat. For a heartbeat he looked human, and I found him beautiful. Then he came close enough that I could make out the cat-slit pupils in his crimson eyes, and my skin crawled with horror at this monstrous thing.
“Good evening.” He stopped at the opposite end of the table, one hand resting on the back of his chair. “Do you like your new home?”
I smiled and leaned forward, my elbows on the table and my arms pressed in to push up my breasts. “I love it.”
His smile crinkled, as if he were just barely holding back laughter. “How long have you been practicing that trick?”
Don’t stop smiling, I thought, but my face burned as I realized how childish I must have looked.
“And was it your aunt who taught you? Because between you and me, I’m fairly sure that a lonely cat could resist her charms.”
The horrible thing was that she had given me the idea—but he didn’t need to say it that way. As if I were anything like Aunt Telomache. As if he had any right to criticize her.
He said something else, but I didn’t notice; I was staring down at my empty plate, breathing very slowly and trying not to feel anything. I couldn’t lose my temper again. Not here, not now.
It was like ants crawling under my skin, like flies buzzing in my ears, like an icy current trying to drag me away. I listed off the similes in my mind, because sometimes if I analyzed the feeling enough, it would go away.
His breath tickled my neck, and I flinched. Now he was at my side, leaning over me as he said, “I’m curious. What advice did your aunt give you anyway?”
Strategy was suddenly nothing to me. I snatched my fork and tried to stab him.
He caught my wrist just in time. “That’s a little different.”
“I’m sorry—” I began automatically, then looked into his red eyes.
He had killed countless people, including my mother. He had tyrannized my country for nine hundred years, using his demons to keep my people in terror. And he had destroyed my life. Why should I be sorry?
I seized the plate and smashed it across his face, then grabbed the knife and tried to stab him left-handed. I nearly succeeded this time, but then he twisted my right hand. Pain seared up my arm and we both tumbled to the floor. Of course he landed on top of me.
“Definitely different.” He didn’t sound out of breath at all, while I was gasping. “You might even deserve to be my wife.” He sat up.
“I notice that . . . even you don’t think that’s a compliment,” I managed to get out. My heart was still pounding, but he didn’t seem about to punish me.
“I’m the evil demon lord. I know it’s not a compliment, but I do like a wife with a little malice in her heart.” He poked my forehead. “If you don’t sit up soon, I’ll use you for a pillow again.”
I scrambled to sit up. He smiled. “Excellent. Let’s start over. I am your husband, and you may address me as ‘my darling lord’—”
I bared my teeth.
“Or Ignifex.”
“Is that your real name?”
“Not even close. Now listen carefully, because I’m going to tell you the rules. One. Every night I will offer you the chance to guess my name.”
It was so completely unexpected that it took me a moment just to understand the words, and then I tensed, sure that his rules were about to turn into a threat or mockery. But Ignifex went on, as calmly as if all husbands said such things. “If you guess right, you have your freedom. If you guess wrong, you die.”
Even with the threat of death, it still sounded far too good to be anything but one of his tricks.
“Why do you even offer me the chance?”
“I am the Lord of Bargains. Consider this one of them. Rule two. Most of the doors in this house are locked.” He drew open his coat, and this time I saw dark leather belts buckled crisscross over his chest, each hung with a string of keys. He took a plain silver key from near his heart and handed it to me. “This key will open all the rooms you are permitted to enter. Do not try to enter the other rooms or you will regret it dearly . . . though not for very long.”
“Is that what happened to your eight other wives?”
“Some of them. Some guessed the wrong name. And one fell down the steel staircase, but she was uncommonly clumsy.”
I clenched my hand around the ke
y. Its cold edges bit into my palm, a sharp little promise. I might have failed at beguiling my husband, but he had still been fool enough to give me a little freedom, and I would make sure he regretted that very dearly.
“Meanwhile, would you care to dine?” He stood and held out a hand.
I ignored him and stood on my own. The warm, delicious scent of cooked meat hit me: sometime during our fight, an enormous roast pig had appeared on the table, its feet reaching up toward the ceiling. Next to it sat a tureen of mock-turtle soup, and all around were platters of fruit, rice, pastries, and roasted dormice.
“How . . . ?” I breathed.
Ignifex sat down. “If you start wondering how this house works, you’ll likely go mad. That could be amusing, I suppose. Especially if it’s the kind of madness that causes you to run naked through the hallways. Do feel free to indulge in that anytime.”
I clenched my teeth as I sat back down at the table. Outrageous though it was, his chatter was curiously comforting: because as long as he was babbling nonsense at me, he wasn’t doing anything.
Whatever invisible hands had laid the table with food had also returned my knife, fork, and plate to their places and filled my glass with wine. I picked up the glass and swirled it, staring at the dark liquid. The thought of eating and drinking here suddenly filled me with dread. Persephone had tasted the food of the underworld just once, and she was never able to leave. But then, I was never meant to leave here anyway.
“It’s not laced with blood or poison.” His smiled flashed; apparently his amusement at my fears was inexhaustible. “I may be a demon, but I’m not Tantalus or Mithridates.”
“That’s a pity,” I muttered, and sipped my wine. “I wouldn’t mind Mithridates. Then I’d get a quick death or a useful immunity.” Legend said the ancient king had dosed his food with a little poison every day, until he could withstand any venom on earth. I wondered if I might poison Ignifex—but what earthly poison could destroy a demon?
“At least be grateful I’m not Tantalus.” He licked his knife, and I couldn’t help twitching. Only scholars read about Mithridates but everyone knew the story of Tantalus, the king who thought to honor the gods by serving them his butchered son. His punishment was an eternity of hunger and thirst, tormented by fruit that hung just out of reach and water that flowed away when he tried to drink.
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