Before I could stop myself, my fingers had gone to the little wash-leather bag in my inner pocket. It was stupid to keep carrying it about, even more stupid to be so deathly afraid of opening it. Its contents could not harm me; it was mere superstition that made me imagine Malkar’s spirit might linger in the rubies he had worn all the years I had known him.
Until I killed him.
And it was not—unfortunately—that Malkar’s spirit could not return. I was apostate from Cabaline orthodoxy in admitting the possibility, but I had seen the ghosts of the Mirador. I had laid the spirits orthodoxy claimed did not exist. When it had occurred to me, some months after we had returned to Mélusine from the Bastion, that Malkar might . . . might come back, I had wished I could dismiss the idea as nightmarish fancy. I had tried. But he had been a blood-wizard, worse than a necromancer, and I could not silence the voice in my head whispering that Brinvillier Strych had died, too, and that had not stopped him. And who might he have been before he was Brinvillier Strych? How old was he, when my magic set his heart alight in his body? How many times had he cheated death?
That he was physically dead, there was mercifully no doubt. I had taken the rubies from the still-smoldering ashes of his body. But I did not know about his spirit, his essence . . . his miasma, for surely if ever a man had a miasma, a palpable cloud of cruelty and self-will wrapped about him, that man was Malkar Gennadion. And that was what I feared more than anything, that that miasma might endure past death. That he might find a way to parlay it again into agency, into control.
I had studied, piecemeal, clandestinely, not wanting to discuss my fears—not with Gideon, and certainly not with any of my Cabaline brethren, who would merely sneer at my overactive and heretical imagination. Gideon would not sneer, but if Malkar was a miasma, I did not want to make Gideon breathe it. He had suffered enough in my company.
So the process had been slow, frustrating and frightening, and even now that I thought I knew what I needed to do, I found myself hesitating, drawing back as if committing to the idea would somehow give Malkar’s spirit the strength I feared it had. I did not admire myself for dithering, and it was that tension that was preying on me, shortening a temper that was never amiable in the first place, making me reckless, wantonly cruel, hateful even to myself.
And so I came to the Two-Headed Beast, in search of an outlet for all this fury.
My outlet came pattering back then. “The Red Room is free now, m’lord. If it pleases you . . .”
“Oh, it does,” I said, and looked him over slowly, once, before I stood up.
I made him precede me down the narrow staircase to the Red Room, gratified by his nervous glances over his shoulder. On the landing, the intricately carved panels of the Red Room’s door indecipherable in the low light, I caught him by his kerchief, pulled him to me. He choked a little, but did not struggle, and I kissed him as a reward, deep and hard, not loosening my grip. He responded eagerly, his mouth pliant and welcoming beneath mine. He tasted of gin and mint.
I raised my head after a time, said, “The key.”
He fumbled for it, and if I had been another sort of man, I would have punished him for that, for the seconds it took him to press the key into my waiting hand. I merely kissed him again, bit his lower lip not quite hard enough to draw blood, and then released him completely, stepped around him, and unlocked the door.
My hand at the small of his back guided him into the Red Room. He stopped moving when my touch left him, and he stood perfectly still, save for a fine shiver, as I locked the door.
I left the key in the lock and walked round in front of him. “Undress.”
He was quick but fumbling, and I did not bother to hide my amusement. When he stood naked, I reached out, brushed the silky skin of his pectoral, ran a slow caress down to his navel, feeling his stomach muscles twitch beneath the lightness of my touch.
He had scars, clean thin lines marking his shoulders, his thighs, crisscrossing his spine with a geometer’s precision. To this ferret-faced boy, they were beauty; to tarquins such as myself, they were desire. The ruined skin of my back seemed to burn beneath my shirt, though that was mere morbid fancy. I traced one of the lines across the front of his left thigh, watched his sex jerk with his indrawn breath.
I moved away then, out of the boy’s line of sight, to the long table that held the Red Room’s selection of erotiques. Other rooms offered silk ribbons, peacock feathers, little jars of various unguents—the petty toys for those who wished to play at power, or those whose cruelties were subtle, serpentine. In the Red Room there were manacles, blindfolds, lengths of chain, hard gags, fine-bladed knives, choke collars, clamps both delicate and brutal, a seven-tailed cat lying curled in obscene splendor like a dragon sleeping among its hoard. The oil was unscented, glowing in a decanter once used for sherry. Next to it was a pitcher of water and a pile of cloths.
I made my choices, returned to the boy, restrained him.
At the Shining Tiger, Merle and Justin had held me down while a patron plied a riding crop. I couldn’t remember his name, but I remembered the way the pain had burned in toward my bones. This martyr didn’t make a sound for the cat cutting his shoulders, dancing on his inner thighs. It was the blindfold that undid him, making his breath catch in a whimper when I showed it to him.
I was intrigued, heat unfurling in the pit of my stomach, and I tied the blindfold around his head with exaggerated caution, not wanting his reaction to be muddied by the pull of so much as a single strand of hair.
It was worth it, for he could not quite keep himself from trying to wrench away, even though he knew as well as I did that it was useless. I pressed myself against him to feel the quivering he could not control, to let him feel my arousal. I guided him to the floor, positioning him the way I wanted him, supported on his chained forearms and on his knees. He panted, his breath rasping in his throat, his head turned as if he was trying to see me through the black padded silk of the blindfold, and pleaded breathlessly.
I pulled back. “What do you want?”
“M’lord?” Bewilderment.
“You keep saying ‘please,’ ” I said patiently. “What is it that you want?”
“Oh—!” A sob, hastily bitten back.
He didn’t know; lost in the darkness, clouded by pain and sexual heat—I doubted he would have been able to tell me his own name. But I asked again, “What do you want?”
“You!” The word burst out of him. “Please, m’lord, please, fuck me, touch me, anything, just please, please—”
“Your enthusiasm is very gratifying, however crudely expressed. ” I ran my hand over his flank, delighted by the way he leaned desperately into my touch. I unstoppered the oil and slicked my hands. There were certain kinds of pain I chose not to inflict.
I teased him for a time, making him work for what he wanted, making him sweat. The sweat would keep his whip-weals alive for him.
When I was ready, both of us effortlessly slick with oil, I wrenched him onto his whip-marked back. He landed hard, his mouth open in a scream he had no breath to voice, and I entered him, not letting him arch off the floor, my fingers clawing into his buttocks, dragging them higher so that he had no choice but to take his weight on his shoulders.
He was fighting me, fighting his own body, and this was what I wanted, this panicked animal helpless strength, this hopeless struggle. I drove into him, snarling with effort, and he screamed like a lost soul, screamed and bucked and climaxed.
“Damn you,” I said, although I did not know which of us I meant, and spent myself inside him in mingled pain and relief. I dragged myself away as soon as I could move, washed sketchily, and put my clothes on. Then I returned to the boy where he lay sprawled on the flagstones, removed manacles and blindfold, washed the mix of oil and sweat, semen and blood from his belly and back and thighs. I was careful, though not tender, checking to be sure I had not inflicted more damage than I had intended.
I helped him stand, helped him dress, ask
ed because I had to, “Are you all right?”
His smile was sweet and wholehearted. “Ah, m’lord, any time you want me again, you just come find me.”
I smiled back politely, but I wouldn’t. I never did.
And we parted. I felt saturated in my own monstrosity, but the darkness, the fury, was draining out of me as I left the Two-Headed Beast, and I could have sobbed with gratitude. It was nearly four in the morning; I went straight to the St. Dismas Baths and scrubbed myself almost raw in the futile effort to wash the reek of the beast out of my soul.
But at least when I walked back through the Mortisgate, the boy’s blood was not on me.
Mildmay
I woke up feeling like I’d died in the night and been dug up by resurrectionists with filthy, pox-festered hands. When I went out into the sitting room, Felix was wearing his wet cat look, the one that meant Gideon had taken after him for something he didn’t think was his fault. They went at it like firecrackers all through breakfast. I could tell by the glares they were giving each other, even though neither one was saying anything out loud. Finally, Felix burst out: “All right, damn it! Mildmay, you tell him. Was I flirting with Isaac Garamond last night?”
“Can’t you leave me out of this?” I said.
“Tell him,” Felix said.
“I didn’t see you flirting,” I said.
Gideon snorted. He didn’t believe either one of us. He knew I’d lie for Felix.
“Gideon, I swear—” Felix started, but Gideon cut him off, and whatever he said was poison mean. It took a lot to make Felix flinch.
“We’d better go,” I said. “It’s getting late.”
The look Gideon gave me was one I could read. It said, If he didn’t do nothing wrong, why are you bailing him out? But Felix’s face went absolutely sunlit, and he said, “You’re right. Come on.” He was out the door before he even finished talking.
I said, “He really wasn’t.” Gideon didn’t look at me. I got up and followed Felix.
It had been a shitty start to the day, and things only went downhill from there. I really didn’t think Felix had been flirting with Mr. Garamond the night before, didn’t think he gave a rat’s ass about Mr. Garamond, to tell the truth, but when Mr. Garamond found Felix after court, he sure was—Mr. Garamond, I mean. He was better at it than poor Dominic Jocelyn, too, and Felix was sore enough at Gideon to start flirting back. I wished Gideon had believed me while I was still telling the truth.
As for me, the day had turned to complete and utter shit the moment I spotted Mehitabel on Lord Antony Lemerius’s arm. And then she caught my eye and gave me the little wave that meant she wanted to talk to me later. How many guys do you need on your string? I thought. And I knew damn well that if Felix let me, I’d go meet her just like she wanted. Watching Felix and Mr. Garamond, I didn’t think I’d have any trouble getting permission.
Mehitabel
I made Antony come with me to meet Mildmay. I wanted an audience, and Antony’s scruples irritated me enough to drop character for a moment: “I assure you, he doesn’t bite.”
Antony bridled, but at least he quit arguing.
Mildmay and I had a system. The only thing he hated more than Felix teasing him was me telling Felix to shut up. So we didn’t meet in their rooms, but in the Stoa St. Maximilian, where there were benches to sit on and almost never anyone around. The benches by the north doors were decorated with dragons. I sat on one; Antony, being keenly conscious of propriety, took the one opposite. I checked my watch. A quarter to seven. If Mildmay could come, he’d be along in the next half hour. And Felix might be frequently appalling, but he was almost never so petty as to refuse to let Mildmay go.
I looked at Antony, sitting poker-straight, his discomfort written plainly on his face, and said curiously, “If Mildmay distresses you so, why didn’t you ask Felix?”
He gave me a look that was as much offended as anything else. “I am not on intimate terms with Lord Felix.”
I heard Felix’s breathless, mocking voice in my head: Darling, I wouldn’t take you if you came free with a pound of sugar. Squelched it, said, “This is hardly an ‘intimate’ favor. And Felix would understand about your work.”
“I want nothing to do with him,” Antony said, and I didn’t spoil the magnificence of his statement by pointing out that if that was the case, he was going entirely the wrong way about it. Instead, I asked, “Do his proclivities offend you so greatly?”
“Oh, it isn’t that, although Father gets quite exercised about the degeneracy of the court. But the Lemerii do not consort with wizards.”
“Oh,” I said, brought up hard against the lunatic schisms of court society. “Of course.”
Another awkward silence. I was about, in desperation, to start him talking about the Cordelii again, when I was saved by my other problem. Mildmay came through the door, with just enough hitch in his eyebrows to tell me he’d had another argument with Felix. The frown vanished from his face almost before I’d seen it, and he nodded at Antony, his compromise between the obligation d’âme and his own innate politeness. “Lord Antony,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Mildmay,” I said; he gave me one of his indecipherable looks, green and sharp and waiting. “Lord Antony wants to examine the crypt of the Cordelii. We’ve heard that you know the way—will you show him?”
There was a pause; although Mildmay’s face didn’t change, I knew I’d startled him, and I was glad of it. Then he shrugged. “Yeah. Sure. When’d you like to go, m’lord?”
“Is now too soon?” Antony said.
“Nah. Suits me fine. Want to come, Mehitabel?”
“Are you kidding?” I said, getting up. “You’d have to beat me off with a stick.”
Mildmay
Nobody talked much on the way to the crypt, which was fine with me. Felix had picked a fight with Johannes Hilliard at the end of the committee meeting, because he knew Lord Johannes would give him what he wanted, and it was either his bad luck or just exactly what he had coming to him, depending on how you look at things, that Lord Giancarlo heard him. He had some things to say about it, too.
Felix didn’t fight with Lord Giancarlo—he wasn’t that stupid—so he stood and let Lord Giancarlo chew him out, and then Felix dragged me up to the Crown of Nails and chewed me out, and we ended up having a fight like we hadn’t had in months. He’d finally yelled at me to get away from him and leave him alone. I hadn’t waited for him to say it twice.
But there was this little voice in the back of my head saying, he’s getting worse. I mean, he was a nasty-tempered prick at the best of times, but these days it seemed like he was going out of his way to find fights. And he was leaving the suite at night, and me and Gideon didn’t have the least idea where he was going, although it wasn’t hard to guess what he was doing when he got there. And there was the drinking.
He ain’t drinking that much, I said to myself. I mean, he ain’t getting smashed or nothing.
But that didn’t even get a chance to make me feel better before I was thinking, Yeah, but he’s getting drunk enough that people are noticing. People other’n me. People who’ve known him longer’n me, and they don’t like it. They think it’s weird.
And then I sighed because it didn’t matter. Felix wasn’t going to listen to me, and if he’d wanted to tell me what was wrong, he would have. And maybe the binding-by-forms could’ve helped— there were stories that sort of hinted it might—but that would mean giving it more of me, and I wasn’t doing that.
Fuck this for the Emperor’s snotrag, I said to myself. Think about something else, can’t you? And that worked about as well as it ever does.
When we reached the top of the white marble staircase that me and Felix had found once, couple indictions back now, I guessed, I snagged one of the candles out of the nearest sconce. Mehitabel and Lord Antony followed suit. The door at the bottom of the stairs was still unlocked.
“How many people do you think know about this?” Lord Antony
asked.
“Powers, I don’t know,” I said, and waved ’em ahead of me through the door. Old habits die hard. “I’d bet us and Felix are the first people been down here in at least a Great Septad. Prob’ly more like three.”
“Amazing,” Lord Antony said. He was trying to look everywhere at once. He started off down the first aisle. About halfway along, he dug a tablet and stylus out of his coat pocket and began scribbling, using one of the tombs as a table.
“He’ll be off in his own world until we drag him out of here,” Mehitabel said. “Are all of the Cordelii really in here?”
“Nah. Just the dynastic line.”
“So what’s the dynastic line?”
“The kings and their kids and their wives, and I think the grandsons.” I remembered something else I thought Mehitabel would like—something that might keep her looking at me instead of her flashie. “And the kings’ hearts are down in the Arcane. ”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Kings’ hearts went to Cade-Cholera. They’re down in the Arcane, in the Mausolée de Verre.”
“You’re putting me on.”
“Nope.”
It wasn’t my kind of joke, and she knew it. “What a grisly custom.”
“The Mirador had a lot of stuff like that before the Wizards’ Coup.”
“No, don’t tell me. Not in here.”
“’Fraid of haunts?”
She gave me a smile that was mostly teeth. “Morbidly imaginative. Shall we sightsee?”
“Sure, if you want,” I said.
But she only stayed with me a moment before she went off reading plaques. I stopped walking and leaned on a tomb to watch her, the way she forgot to behave like a lady and her eyes got wide.
She came back to me. “Do you know who all these people are?”
“Most of ’em.”
“Come tell me about this one. She looks interesting,” she said and dragged me over to one of the wall plaques.
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