He found his voice. “They didn’t know. Not them, not Sare, not any of the others.” It shook less than he’d thought it would. “I give you my word they didn’t know.”
“Your word,” Asmodeus said, thoughtfully, readjusting his glasses on his nose, “would seem to be rather worthless.” He looked at Nadine and Leila—Leila fearful, Nadine holding herself straight—she wasn’t afraid; she was angry, so angry that she shook. At Thuan, quite probably, and quite rightly. “You may go, though keep silent about this. I’ll have a word with Sare later.”
They both slipped out so fast they might as well have been running. Nadine threw Thuan a glance that he couldn’t interpret on her way out, as if she wanted to say something and didn’t dare.
The doors closed again, and now it was just Thuan, and Asmodeus. Something was tightening around him: magic drawn from the room, the same thing he’d felt outside it, a hook drawn into his heart, old and merciless, pulling and hollowing him out until it was all he could do to stand without falling to his knees.
Asmodeus unfolded his body from the chair, slowly, lazily, like a tiger shifting from its rest. As he stalked closer to Thuan, the shadow of dark, ethereal wings unfolded behind him, and a reddish light glinted on the frame of his horn-rimmed glasses. The magic that was holding Thuan tightened. He breathed deeply, rapidly, but none of it reached his burning lungs. The khi currents in the room were stunted and exhausted: no water he could draw on, nothing that would save him. . . .
“You’re lucky,” Asmodeus said, softly, “that I need a consort, for the time being.” He ran a hand across Thuan’s right cheek, a touch of warmth that became sharp as his long, elegant fingers raked the skin from eye to chin. “We would be having quite a different conversation, otherwise. One that you wouldn’t find so comfortable.”
Thuan tried to speak, but no words would come. If this was Asmodeus’s idea of “comfortable” . . .
“You’re also lucky that the marriage contract is binding regardless of what happens between us.” Asmodeus withdrew his hand, and tipped Thuan’s head up; his lips inches from Thuan’s own, until the smell of bergamot and orange blossom filled him to bursting. “Consummation isn’t required, though I’m tempted. You’re not unpleasant to the eye.” He moved away, releasing Thuan, and the magic that had seized him abruptly vanished, leaving him gasping.
He wasn’t going to fall to his knees. He wasn’t going to give Asmodeus the satisfaction of seeing him weak. He said, slowly, hoarsely, “You mock the princess for the rebels in her kingdom. Perhaps you should be paying attention to your own House.”
“And to the spies in its midst?”
It wasn’t as though he could make the situation worse by admitting what he knew. “Someone is running angel essence traffic with the dragon kingdom,” Thuan said. He thought of his tutor Old Bao, made his face expressionless and his voice ring with the tone of one who quoted from the classics, and took his strength from them. All for show, of course. “Through Hawthorn.”
Asmodeus turned to look at him; a brief pause, and in that moment Thuan could have sworn he looked genuinely surprised. Then it passed, and the usual sardonic mask was back in place. “Not I, as you already know. Though it’s an interesting idea. Weaken you enough you’ll agree to anything—”
“You already did that,” Thuan said, more forcefully than he’d meant to. “That’s why I’m here.” Why he was standing, breathing in magic and perfume—intoxicated and weakened by it in equal measures.
“Yes.” Asmodeus watched him, unmoving. “But, as I said, this wasn’t my doing.”
“And you don’t think you should know what is happening inside Hawthorn? One of your dependents is obviously not reporting everything to you.” They were unwise words, but he’d had enough of catering to others’ whims. “I’d call that a slight loyalty problem.”
Asmodeus’s voice was silken soft. “You think to tell me how to run my own House?”
“I’m your consort.” The words were torn out of Thuan’s mouth before he could stop to consider. “Perhaps it should count for something.”
“Or perhaps I don’t need that kind of consort.”
But he did need Thuan. He’d said as much, earlier: “for the time being.” What did that mean? Thuan had thought the angel essence traffic was the issue, but something else, something larger, was going on. He shrugged. “Then feel free to silence me, in any way you want. I had the feeling you needed me.”
Silence. Then, unbearably close, bergamot and orange blossom; and Asmodeus’s lips on his, a brief, electrifying contact that sent a spike of desire arching through him. Unwise. Unwise.
Asmodeus pulled away and watched him, for a while. His glasses hung slightly askew, fogged with Thuan’s breath. “A morsel,” he said. His voice was toneless, but Thuan was starting to understand that he would never display emotions, unless they overwhelmed him.
“You—” Thuan swallowed. “I didn’t give you permission.”
“Did you not? Then I’ll apologize, if you deem it necessary.”
His entire face felt on fire. This was not only unwise; it was idiotic. Asmodeus didn’t care for him, didn’t have his well-being at heart, was just toying with him. “No,” he said, struggling to gather words. “It won’t be necessary. You left the sketches, in my room. Samariel’s.”
“Samariel is dead,” Asmodeus said. He was leaning against one of the bedposts, his dressing gown slightly parted to reveal the pale skin of his torso. Thuan closed his eyes, trying to breathe normally. “But not unmourned.”
“I didn’t say that.”
They watched each other for a while. Thuan wasn’t sure, afterward, why he said, “It was all earmarked for Clothilde’s use. The angel essence. It’s in your account books. Well hidden, but not impossible to find. The handwriting that entered it is probably recognizable, too.”
“I see.” Asmodeus didn’t move. He took off his glasses, and cleaned them on the lapel of his dressing gown. He looked oddly young without them, oddly vulnerable. How much of his life was a constant act, a constant projection of strength, of sarcasm, lest he be construed as weak? “This is unwise,” Asmodeus said.
“The kiss?”
“The confidences.” He smiled, and it was grave, and unamused. “But thank you.”
“Tell me something, then,” Thuan said.
“What will happen to you? I’m afraid that’s my business.” He sounded almost regretful.
“No.” Thuan exhaled. Pillow talk. Well, that was as close as it was going to get. “What do you want from us?”
Asmodeus moved then, came to stand close to him once more. Thuan breathed in citruses, and bergamot, trembling on the tip of his tongue. He thought it was going to be another kiss, but Asmodeus didn’t even touch him.
“What does anyone want, from another House or kingdom? It’s always the same thing. You’re weak, and ripe for a conquest,” he said. Thuan saw, shining in the gray-green irises, the light of magic, like the beginning of a storm. “If not I, it would have been someone else.”
“Are you making excuses?”
“Of course not. Merely seeking power, to defend what is mine.”
“And I—” Thuan swallowed, tasted bitterness in his throat. “I’m not yours.”
“You’re not a dependent but a consort. A living link to the dragon kingdom in Hawthorn. A necessity.” And then, moving away once more: “You’ll understand that I won’t give you the freedom of the House, given the circumstances.”
Thuan didn’t answer. He wasn’t even sure what he could have said.
“Ask, should you need anything. It need not be an unpleasant imprisonment.”
Except at the point where it ended, but the words remained stuck in Thuan’s throat. “A gilded cage, until my death becomes more valuable than my life?”
Asmodeus laughed. “I like you, dragon prince. More than I s
hould. But you fail to understand: in this House, in this city, death is always more valuable than life.” He laid a finger on Thuan’s lips, held it, unmoving, for a while. “And love, or desire, always less valuable.”
* * *
AFTER the encounter, Thuan lay on the four-poster bed in his own room, staring at the ceiling. There was mold, in one corner, and patches of rusty dampness on the wallpaper. He still could feel desire, trembling in the air. One kiss. One disastrous kiss.
You’re not unpleasant to the eye.
This is unwise.
The kiss?
The confidences.
What had he—why had he even—?
Then again, why had Asmodeus felt the need to kiss him at all?
Great. Thuan was hundreds of years old, and he felt like a teenager dealing with a crush on a schoolmate. Except that he had greater problems. How he’d get out of this room, to start with.
You’re weak, and ripe for a conquest. Not that weak. Not that ripe. But Asmodeus had sounded utterly convinced it was the case. What had he been thinking about? Somehow it was tied to Thuan, or the contract. Or to the soldiers that Hawthorn was sending? But there would be a few dozen of them, not nearly enough to take over the palace, even if they were armed with rifles and Fallen magic.
A knock at the door. Thuan was startled awake, before he remembered it was locked.
A key turned, and the door opened. Much to Thuan’s surprise, it was Nadine, carrying a tray with bread and soup, which she set on the table, before going back to the door and closing it.
“You don’t work in the kitchens,” Thuan said, the only thing that would come to mind.
“No, but a few people owe me a few favors,” Nadine said.
Thuan sighed. “Go ahead. I know you’re angry with me.”
“You could have trusted me.” Nadine looked as though she was going to backhand him.
“To keep silent about this? You’re House. Your mother is close to Asmodeus.”
“I’m not my mother.” Nadine sat down on the bed, next to him. She sighed. “And I know the cost of speaking up, Thuan. Don’t take me for a fool.”
“I’m not one, either,” Thuan said, stiffly. “And it’s not like I planned to return, once I’d left.” Except, of course, that it had all gone disastrously wrong.
“You mean after the rather terse message telling us you were leaving?” Nadine shook her head. “I suppose we should be grateful for it, since it was the only evidence we had that you were still alive.”
“As opposed to . . . ?”
“Being disappeared.”
“Sare said—”
“Sare doesn’t know everything that goes on in this House,” Nadine said.
“And you do?”
“More than you, I would guess.”
“That’s not hard.” Thuan shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”
“In Asmodeus’s world?” Nadine stretched, staring at her hands. “Keep silent until he decides that cutting your throat is in his best interests.”
Thuan ran a hand on his lips, remembering the touch of Asmodeus’s fingers on his mouth—the kiss, running through his spine like a shock. “I had worked that much out, thanks.”
“How old are you?” Nadine asked. “Truly. You’re not a teenager, are you?”
Thuan laughed. “Close to three hundred years old. Dragons don’t age as fast as humans. Though we do age.”
“Wise and knowledgeable.” Nadine’s voice was sharp. “You didn’t need any of the lessons, did you? And the infirmary stuff—you’d probably seen it hundreds of times already.”
Meaning that she was angry her time had been wasted, that she’d bothered to teach Thuan things that he’d pretended not to know. “I wish,” Thuan said. “I’m a scholar, and the books I know are in Viet. I’m not a physician. I knew a little about the history of Hawthorn, but not that much. And as to the infirmary . . .” He shook his head. “Trust me, I learned things there. When you managed to knock them into my head.” Whether he’d reuse them was debatable, but that was another problem.
Nadine grimaced, half-placated. “You were a quick study.”
“Mmm,” Thuan said. “How is Leila?”
“She’ll be fine,” Nadine said. “Had the fright of her life, but ultimately there’ll be nothing held against her. Sare, though . . .”
Thuan drew in a short, sharp breath. “He must know that I was planted by the kingdom. Carefully fabricated to infiltrate the House. That Sare didn’t see through me is no failure on her part.”
Nadine grimaced, again. “Try telling him that.”
“I did,” Thuan said, darkly. “Whether it did any good . . .”
“Probably not. Asmodeus doesn’t listen to the disloyal. Except to their screams in the cells.”
Thuan shivered. “Let’s not talk about this.”
Tell me something, then.
What will happen to you? I’m afraid that’s my business.
Nadine was watching him. There was something, in the way she held herself, in the set of her shoulders and the tightness of her jaw.
“You want to ask me something, and you’re not sure if I’ll like it,” Thuan said.
“No,” Nadine said. “I’m not sure how far I can trust you. You’re not Hawthorn. What makes you tick, Thuan?”
What did? He wished he did know. “I’m here because I was asked to be. Because the kingdom signed an alliance with Hawthorn. My first loyalty is with them. Not to the House.”
Nadine hesitated. Then: “Things will change, in this House. Soon.”
It didn’t sound like she meant the conquest of the kingdom, or whatever plan Asmodeus had in mind. Thuan said nothing, well aware that the least word could silence her.
“They could change for you, too,” Nadine said, softly. “We have no interest in the dragon kingdom, except as a means to an end.”
It didn’t make sense. “All right,” Thuan said, slowly. “Though I’m not sure what you think I can do.” He was still dissecting the previous sentences.
“Nothing, for the time being.” Nadine shook her head. “I can’t get you out of this room. I can’t even stay long, else it will be noted. Just . . . you’re not alone, Thuan. Be ready.”
And she left, not looking back.
Thuan went back to lying on the bed, his hands pillowed behind his head. Nadine. Of all people. He wasn’t even sure how to interpret what had happened, or how he felt.
He’d known for a while now that there were different factions in the House: the various courts were endlessly bickering and jockeying for status and power. That one of these factions would turn out to be working against Asmodeus was not a surprise, either, especially when said faction had been very, very careful to keep their accounts out of the House’s official ones. But that Nadine would be involved with them . . .
We have no interest in the dragon kingdom, except as a means to an end. Which meant there were more of them—whoever “they” were—than just Nadine. And also that they were already in contact with the dragon kingdom. With Yen Oanh? He couldn’t imagine it was anyone else: the court’s contacts with Hawthorn had been thoroughly restricted by Second Aunt.
Things will change in this House, soon. How? When? And what had he changed, by telling Asmodeus about the accounts?
And more important, whom should he support, and why did he feel as though he genuinely didn’t know? His fortunes should have been tied to Asmodeus’s, except that Asmodeus had made his intentions of conquering the dragon kingdom quite clear.
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, knowing already that he wouldn’t manage even that, not with the taste of bergamot and orange blossom still on his lips.
NINETEEN
Weight of the Past
MADELEINE sat on the parapet of Pont Saint-Michel, watchin
g House Silverspires.
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, necessary, or even on the way to joining Elphon. But it was her first moment of something that looked like freedom since she’d been dragged back into Hawthorn, and she had to go back.
The House had changed: the ruins of Notre-Dame were now capped by the crown of a banyan tree, its roots extending over the walls of adjacent buildings. In a city of ruins and wreckages, it looked even worse, on the verge of being erased altogether. But it was still alive. Still, a steady stream of people in the House’s red and silver uniforms carried baskets and supplies, going over the Petit Pont, crossing the parvis. There were fewer of them on Pont Saint-Michel, and those few all gave Madeleine a wide berth, seeing the uniform of another House.
It was disquieting, but if she was honest with herself, she had never been very social, in Silverspires. She had spent twenty years cloistered in her laboratory, putting together artifacts and drugging herself on angel essence, waiting for the death she’d been running away from to claim her.
“Madeleine?”
It was Aragon, the House’s chief doctor, and Emmanuelle, its archivist, walking back over the bridge side by side. They’d been in some kind of animated conversation. Emmanuelle was, as usual, half-hidden by a stack of books, which she laid on the blackened parapet.
They both looked unchanged, Aragon prim in a suit that sat awkwardly on his large frame, Emmanuelle tall, elegant as always, her dark skin contrasting sharply with the straight white cotton dress she wore—the only indication of her allegiance a small embroidered insignia of the House on her right shoulder. Both unchanged, while Madeleine’s world twisted and turned, and dragged her utterly beyond the safe or familiar.
She could have wept.
“Sorry,” she said, getting up. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Stay,” Emmanuelle said. “Please.”
“Selene . . . ,” Madeleine said. Emmanuelle’s lover was head of the House; and it was she who had cast Madeleine out, months ago, when she’d discovered her alchemist was also an essence addict.
The House of Binding Thorns Page 25