Pocket Full of Tinder

by Jill Archer

  Inwardly, I snorted. Acheron had already seen that earlier today when I’d bound him briefly with a bull-worthy nose ring. The river demon snuffled and growled, his toothy grin widening. He pointed at me, thumped his chest, and then motioned toward the torches, but Ari cut him off with a curt, “No.”

  “What did he say?”

  But Ari refused to answer.

  More growls and grunts. Ari’s signature pulsed once, violently and possessively, before he dragged me away, glaring at Acheron the entire time. The river demon laughed; his great barking bursts loud enough to reach the invisible moon in the dark sky above us. Then he snapped his jaw shut and turned his hungry gaze elsewhere.

  The first part of the night passed in a whir of increasing agitation. Drums thrummed, piccolos piped, couples danced, and two by two, people started pairing off and claiming torches. Acheron wasn’t the only one drawn to my blood-red-and-roses gown. I swear, if I were an Angel, I would’ve spent half the night plotting ways to curse Sartabella. No less than three bunyips (two retainers and the Captain of the Guard!) propositioned me. Ari and Yannu nearly came to blows over it, although I could tell Yannu’s heart wasn’t set on seduction. He was only testing our weak spots per his usual, and Ari was too baited to be objective. Malphia also hinted that she wouldn’t mind messing with my mind for the night. And then the Hyrkes started in on me – not as a potential partner, but as a matchmaker. After all, they said, wasn’t that why I’d worn the dress?

  Both Bastian and Rockthorn Gorge’s sommelier approached me about brokering an arrangement with Fara. When I asked her, she surprised me by saying, of the two, she’d have picked the demon over the Angel because he was kinder.

  “But I’m already promised to someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Virtus.”

  Of course. I didn’t know whether to roll my eyes or turn pea green with envy.

  About an hour after midnight, Ari lost his patience and started pulling me toward one of the torches along the wall. He hadn’t left my side all night – and I hadn’t complained. His hands hadn’t strayed anywhere untoward, but nor had he kept them to himself. In other words, he could be forgiven for assuming our dry spell was over and that tonight we’d resume all aspects of our previous relationship.

  Would I have been ready but for my promise to Cliodna? Was I using her as much as she might be using me? And where was she, by the way? If she didn’t arrive soon, I wouldn’t even have an excuse…

  I tugged Ari in the other direction but he was having none of it. His signature swelled with arousal, the effect of which wasn’t lost on me. It would have been embarrassing, but for the fact that every other person with waning magic had already left. I wrenched my hand from Ari’s grip and he turned around.

  “Do not tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

  Second thoughts? I couldn’t afford first thoughts….

  “Noon, you know I love that you’re equal parts eager and reluctant. But not tonight.”

  “I’m not reluctant.”

  “Then you grab the torch.”

  When I didn’t, though, his signature started to crash and I fell apart with it. I grabbed his arm, but instead of pulling him toward a torch, I pulled him into one of the atrium’s curtained alcoves. It was as private a space as we were going to get without heading off to his chambers.

  “I did something foolish,” I said.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “I told Cliodna I’d spend the night with her.”

  I could tell from his expression that he would have believed almost anything else but what I’d just said.

  Let’s face it, I’d done some pretty foolish things. And Ari had witnessed several of them. But this… this seemed to take the cake, as they say. I may have pulled off some extraordinary stunts in the last year or so, but my admission seemed to take us back to the day we’d first met – when I’d moronically decided to jump for a boat that had already left the dock.

  “What?” Ari repeated, nonplussed.

  I started pacing the small area, my skirts rustling as they brushed back and forth against him. He stood completely still, watching me with an incredulous expression on his face.

  “I...”

  Ugh…

  I told him then what I’d done and why. It sounded ludicrous even to my ears.

  “A table?! You said you’d sleep with Cliodna if she repaired a table?”

  “No!” I started rubbing my arms, a sure sign of nerves. “She swore not to touch me – or harm me. And I’m not going to sleep.”

  “Then what are you going to do? What does Cliodna want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  Ari didn’t say a word. He just kept staring.

  “Ari, don’t you get it? If I fix the table, I can go back.”

  “Go back? To St. Luck’s?”

  “Yes. And to Megiddo.”

  Understanding was starting to dawn on Ari’s face but it was mixed with something else I didn’t like – sympathy. He walked back to a bench that was pushed against the wall and sat down. His signature was soft as he patted the seat next to him.

  I sat down, smoothed my skirt, and faced him, ignoring the feeling in my stomach. It wasn’t a good kind of anticipation I was feeling. It was the bad kind.

  “Noon,” Ari said softly, “you know you can’t ever really go back, don’t you?”

  I made a half-hearted, noncommittal gesture. Ironically, Cliodna had said something similar.

  Sometimes we can’t have things back the way they were.

  “Are all demons so fatalistic?” I asked, wringing my hands. Slowly, gently, Ari pried them apart and clasped them in his.

  “Why is looking forward fatalistic?”

  I shrugged and tried to pull away, but he held tight.

  “You are the smartest and bravest person I know,” he said. “And, most of the time, you make excellent decisions. But when you make decisions based on fear—”

  “Fear keeps us one step ahead of the blade,” I scoffed.

  “Nouiomo, listen to what I’m saying. I listen to you when you call me out on my poor decisions. That’s what people who love each other do.”

  I’d been looking at my hands, but with those words, I looked up and what I saw in Ari’s face and felt in his signature shattered my self-control. Without thinking, I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder.

  Ari scooted me onto his lap.

  “It’s not fear of the next five minutes that screws you up,” he continued. “That you’re able to brush off as easily as my advances.” He laughed to show he was half-kidding. “No, it’s fear of your own future that sends you scrambling.”

  I rested my head on Ari’s shoulder and he put his arm around me.

  “Do you remember what my original plan for tonight was?”

  I froze. “Black Gilliflower?”

  “Real romantic, right?”

  “No.”

  He nodded. “I think we’ve moved past it, don’t you?”

  “You told me it wouldn’t work on you anyway,” I said grumpily.

  But he ignored my complaint, saying instead, “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. All you have to do is answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Think you can do that?”

  I hesitated long enough for Ari to laugh and tell me that question didn’t even count – did he need to get the truth serum out?

  “No. I mean ‘Yes,’” I said, laughing just the tiniest bit too. I so wanted this night to be over, but I had to admit, it was nice being curled up in Ari’s lap. And I’d already told him everything about our relationship. What questions could he ask that he didn’t already know the answer to?

  “You know I’m a demon now. Don’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”

  “Do you forgive me for not telling you that before Rafe cast Revelare Lucere?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Not because I didn’t forgive him, b
ut because his question brought up all sorts of memories and it took a moment to process. My first night here, I’d told him I wasn’t trying to forget, I was trying to forgive, but the truth was, I forgave him a long time ago.

  “Yes.”

  He kissed me then – a sweet, shallow, lingering kiss – before continuing.

  “You know we can’t go back to the way things were last year, right? I can’t go back to Infernus… and, even if Miss Bister allows you and Nova to return to Megiddo this year, it won’t be the same?”

  I shrugged, but Ari let my evasion pass and pressed on.

  “And you know you can’t stay at St. Luck’s forever.” He wasn’t even bothering with questions now. He was just lecturing. “And, as reluctant as you were to go to St. Luck’s, you’re just as reluctant to leave now, aren’t you?”

  I stubbornly refused to answer.

  “See why I thought the Black Gilliflower might be a good idea?”

  I harrumphed, not finding as much humor in the situation as Ari seemed to. But Ari placed his hand beneath my chin and tilted my head up.

  “Do I make you happy?”

  My eyes widened. It was the first question that was truly a surprise. The first had been rhetorical, although I’d answered it, and the rest had been ones I’d been avoiding, but this one was unexpected – and easy.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you love me?”

  My first thought was, how could he even ask? But then I realized that all the times I’d said I loved him were in my head. Sure, he probably felt it in my signature, but those three words could be mighty reassuring to someone who’d just found out the girl they were in love with was spending the night with someone else.

  “Yes. I love you.”

  “Will you marry me?”

  16

  REGINA AMORIS

  I sputtered.

  Had I heard Ari correctly?

  “You know,” he said, “‘I shall take you as mate, for here and ever after, to live and die by your side?’”

  Oh, Luck below, Ari was quoting the demon marital vows. When they mated, they mated for life. Spouses were bound by law and magic. Your debts are my debts, your sins are my sins, your life is my life . . .

  “No!” I cried, jumping up. “You can’t give up centuries of your life for me.”

  But my explanation of why I’d rejected him as well as whatever he was feeling in my signature had him smiling.

  “Yes, I can. I already told you. I don’t want to be treated as a demon or a deity. But I could probably learn to like it if you were by my side. If my life could be like it has been the last three months… but with you in my bed… growing old with me.

  “I don’t want to outlive everyone I love, Noon. You, especially.”

  I resumed my pacing and my red skirt rustled with even greater agitation than before. Damn Sartabella and her red roses!

  “You can’t propose to me on Frigore Luna. It’s bad luck.”

  Ari frowned. “I’ve never heard that.”

  “Well, it is.” I was making it up, but seriously, did Frigore Luna seem like a good holiday for Ari to propose on? “And what will my father say?” I groaned and smacked my forehead. Marriage proposals called for melodrama, right? Would hyperventilating be too much? My fingers started curling inward and I started to feel lightheaded.

  But Ari took my turmoil in stride. “Sit back down.”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  I stopped pacing, but didn’t go near him. I was back to not trusting him. How could he have done this? Asked that? And here I’d been worried about taking our relationship from limbo to declared love. He wanted to take us straight to the altar. My vision started blackening at the edges. I really was hyperventilating.

  I walked over to the bench, sat down, and put my head between my legs. Ari put his hand on my back.

  “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t expect you to say yes.”

  I raised my head up and looked over at him.

  “At least, not at first.”

  I put my head back down.

  “If you were a demon, you’d be the Patron of Reluctance.”

  I don’t know how long we sat like that. Long enough for the noises from beyond the curtain to grow quieter. Finally, I was able to string enough coherent thoughts together to sit up and focus on what Ari had said.

  “Speaking of reluctance… Do you think Cliodna’s out there?”

  Ari shook his head. “She’s not coming.”

  I brightened momentarily, rashly thinking that might mean I wouldn’t have to honor my promise, but then knowledge of the way things worked in Halja and the look on Ari’s face brought me back to reality.

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s hoping what almost happened, will happen.”

  “Which is?”

  He gave me an acerbic smile. “That we’ll take a torch off the wall and head back to my chambers. Or, even better, that we don’t, but you decide not to meet her anyway.”

  “But… Why…? Oh…”

  Ari nodded. “She’s hoping you’ll renege, which, at best, would make your position here tenuous.”

  I stood up. It was time to go then.

  Ari stood up too. “You only need to spend a few hours of darkness with her not to renege.”

  I swallowed, suddenly nervous. “Are you worried?”

  Ari snorted and glanced away for a moment before turning his gaze back to me. “When am I ever not worried about you, Noon?”

  Ari insisted on two things: (1) that we wake Fara so she could cast me up with every defensive spell she knew; and (2) that I not walk up the mountain to Cliodna’s sanctuary alone. After some back and forth, I finally figured out that Ari’s insistence on accompanying me wasn’t because he didn’t think I was capable of taking care of myself (“I’m letting you suffer the consequences of your own deal with the devil, aren’t I?”), it was that he was superstitious (“It’s Frigore Luna, Noon. I don’t want you walking anywhere alone tonight.”)

  So he trusted Cliodna a scintilla more than the shadows? I wasn’t sure that was reassuring.

  Just before I left, Tenacity came running over to me. Embracing her jester role, she’d taken the night’s theme to an extreme and had come dressed as a dancing skeleton.

  “I heard Fara casting you up. I know where you’re going.”

  “Oh…” Well, that was somewhat unfortunate. My dark-hours visit to the Lady of the Gorge isn’t something I’d normally want my herald announcing, but it wasn’t a secret either.

  “Well, wish me Luck,” I said breezily, preparing to step out. But Tenacity’s next words stopped me.

  “Can I cast something over you?” she asked.

  “Uh…” Botched spells were no joke. I didn’t want to snub Tenacity but… “Now’s not the best time.”

  “But you’re the one who gave me the book.”

  “What book?” Ari asked.

  “Ichabye.”

  “The prayer primer?” His voice rose in disbelief.

  Tenacity nodded and glanced back and forth between us, suddenly looking much less sure of herself. In the month since I’d given Tenacity Ichabye, she’d spent nearly every spare moment with it. So far, however, she had yet to successfully cast a single spell. I imagined, even with Fara’s guidance, the likelihood of a lowborn Hyrke teaching herself faith magic was pretty far-fetched. But I didn’t want to be discouraging.

  “It’s okay,” I said, ignoring Ari. He might feel he was at the end of his rope with me, but if so, he’d just have to make more rope. Besides, Tenacity was his cousin. You’d think he would be a little more supportive.

  “What spell were you thinking of?”

  She seemed embarrassed now that she’d even approached me.

  “You don’t need it,” she said. “Fara’s a fantastic Angel. I’m sure she cast you up with everything you’ll need.” Tenacit
y’s voice betrayed her sincerity. In fact, it would be fair to say that Tenacity probably hero-worshiped Fara.

  “You know what Fara said when she told me I should give you that book?” I asked her.

  Tenacity shook her head.

  “‘Love should be shared.’ So if you memorized a spell from it… I want to hear it.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then recited the words.

  Night’s dark shades will soon be over;

  Still my watchful care shall hover.

  Let your battle cry…

  Be Ichabye

  Tenacity’s spellcasting voice was the opposite of Fara’s – melodious, but also stiffer and more hesitant. Still, there was earnestness laced within it too, and when Tenacity whispered the final word, I felt the spell slip into place. She opened her eyes, looking anxious.

  “Well done, spellcaster,” I said, grinning at her. “Your tenacity paid off.”

  Ari left me when we reached Cliodna’s sanctuary. We could both feel her inside the open-air pavilion, so he wasn’t technically leaving me alone. And besides, I was going to be fine. Fara’s sophisticated, ironclad spells and Tenacity’s simple, guileless one felt like plate armor and a never-ending hug, the latter of which would likely prove the most effective against the affliction I felt in Cliodna’s signature.

  I made my way through the main part of the sanctuary. The birds were quiet; the only sounds were an occasional flutter or flapping of wings and the constant gurgle of the copious bird baths, water fountains, and shallow pools. In other words, the sounds were soothing, but Cliodna’s magic and state of mind were not.

  It didn’t help that there wasn’t one tiny flame lit in the entire sanctuary. No torches, despite the fact that it was Frigore Luna. Although… if Cliodna’s original plan had been to spend the evening alone, then the warmth of a torch would likely only remind her of the absence of a partner.

  Was the Mistress of Temptation lonely?

  I snorted to myself. If so, she had only herself to blame. Hadn’t she read the white paper on the use of honey versus vinegar?

  “You’re late.” Cliodna’s voice came out of the darkness, but faint starlight allowed me to see the barest hint of her outline. It looked like she was sitting behind something – something large and rectangular. Remembering Fara’s theory, I couldn’t help wondering if it was a mirror. Maybe Fara had been wrong and Cliodna was actually obsessed with her own appearance.