Lord of the Last Heartbeat

by May Peterson

  “Can you speak?”

  I shook my head cautiously. Maybe this was temporary. When I used my magic, I sometimes spent almost half a day afterward with my voice not working properly. Magic always seemed to have strange consequences like that. But it’d never been this complete and intense. I wanted to try, to see if I could manage making any sound, to at least know that it would return in time. But I couldn’t in front of this stranger. It was too personal.

  “Here we go, loves. I’ve brought some firewood.” A new voice startled me. A woman stepped straight out of the wall, like an extension of the wood, carrying a bundle under her arms.

  I abandoned the cup, spilling the tea, and yanked the blanket over my head. It was a ridiculously childish thing to do, but there didn’t seem to be any adult actions left.

  “Well, doesn’t he look bright eyed and bushy tailed!”

  Cecilio sighed. “Thank you, my dear. I had just gotten him talking. After a fashion.”

  Then, from the doorway it came. “I hope you can forgive her. We’re not used to living company.”

  Rhodry’s voice. I dropped the blanket and saw him, filling up the door like a black dawn. With his simple presence, he wrote my life back into solidity.

  And this was undoubtedly his house. He looked taller in it, the walls and carpets exalting him. He leaned on the doorjamb, draped in a plush black robe. Dampness sparkled in his hair, and the front of his robe flapped open, revealing a pale expanse of pectorals. I looked away at once, heat rushing to my face. An urge rose in me to look, memorize the smooth muscle shifting unselfconsciously under his skin. This heat was shockingly unfamiliar, like the aura of flames I had felt from him in the opera house, contrasted with how cool his skin was to the touch. As if this could be more surreal, now I was seeing him in his night attire.

  Which brought me back to the pajamas. They felt like satin—I had an unfortunate knack for identifying cheap fabric—and they were dry. They even smelled nice. But if I had them on, someone had to have undressed me. Embarrassment flourished into humiliation.

  Rhodry snagged a chair with one hand and swung it around to sit by the sofa. “Rosemary, could you start a fire? He’s turning pink.”

  I watched the woman—Rosemary—from the corner of my eye. All right, Mio. One thing at a time. Do not explode. Hair in a neat brown bun, dressed in hardy cloth, humming as she kicked old logs from the hearth and slid in her fresh ones. The former was crusted with heavy frost. When was the last time we’d had a cold snap?

  Then I registered what Rhodry had said. Living company.

  They were ghosts.

  Cecilio laughed softly, as if sensing my epiphany. I must have looked like a kicked puppy. One didn’t live in the most haunted city in this hemisphere without having to make room for the dead. But to have it all in a glance, my immortal dark lord and his ghostly servants, gave me a sense of having slipped into another world.

  Rhodry’s smile radiated warmth. “You’re safe now, lemon drop. As can be, anyway. I’ve brought you to my house.”

  You’re safe. The danger’s passed. I gulped.

  “Now. Start at the beginning and tell me what happened, and I’ll see how I can help.”

  Ha. Asking for help was what’d gotten me here in the first place. But the truth? That he deserved. I took a deep breath.

  Cecilio cleared his throat. “He can’t speak, my lord. I thought you said he was a singer?”

  Rhodry frowned. “He is.” At this distance, I could see the reflective silver in his eyes. I could see the light dampen. Reality was catching up with him, too. But deep beneath my silence, I thanked him for not saying he was.

  “Look at me.” His voice was so deep I almost felt it. I obeyed instantly. He cupped my chin in his palm. Oh, dear. My heart jumped into my throat. “Say ‘aahhh.’”

  I opened my mouth, trembling. This entire morning was becoming a roll through intense sensations.

  “I don’t see any injury. Has this happened before? No, don’t try to answer that.” He accepted a cup of tea from Cecilio. “Brilliant. Is there coffee, too?”

  Cecilio’s eyes fluttered. “Of course, my lord.”

  “Smashing. Do bring the rest of my breakfast? Some for Mio, too, please.”

  Breakfast was a welcome distraction. Cecilio’s tray nearly made me weep: spotted scones under cream; croissants glossy with butter; onion and cheese tart; almonds and eggs and fried potatoes. All told, cream had a certain power of its own.

  Rhodry took a procession of plates across his side table, each one a new meat: cold roast chicken with fennel; two whole silver fish with wedges of lemon; a platter of livers sprinkled with capers; a beef shank juicy with blood. He ate each one delicately with knife and fork, yet they disappeared ludicrously fast. He also emptied cups of both tea and espresso and stuffed his mouth with scones between plates. He still finished before I did.

  I was overcome with an urge to thank him in a way I wouldn’t have been able to even with my voice. My own mother had all but crushed me against the rocks, and this stranger had stepped out of the dusk and pulled me to safety. He deserved something.

  “Now—” His Lordship daintily wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe. The fire crackled eagerly now, the heat reaching me. When Rhodry beckoned, Rosemary rose from the hearth and handed him a book from the table. Cecilio’s brows shot up like caterpillars, and he supplied a pencil. “I’d like to know what happened, if you think you’re up to telling the tale.” Rhodry handed me the parcel like it was a gift. “Who says you need a voice?”

  The book was full of empty pages. All right, then. I took a deep breath. No excuses. I checked to see if the pencil was sharp and began writing it out as best I could.

  I filled two pages with the account. How I was the youngest of the Gianbellicci house, how our family had once been gentry. How we’d fallen into poverty after the dissolution, because the generations had separated my father from the coalition of aristocrats that made up our new Electorate. We were only one of many families that had lost franchise after the war. It felt wrong to condense into a single line how my mother had simply said “no.” With her vision and power, she’d stamped out the dying mage slave trade, in Vermagna and across the nation. She’d organized witches in the streets. The weak new laws had no power to stop her; as I’d grown up, our family had gone from destitute to secure. At the time, I’d only known Tibario and I had started having whole clothes again, my singing lessons had expanded, and Tibario could go to a real school. My parents had seemed to love each other again after the despair of the war. With wit and red-stained magic, she had saved us all.

  I forced myself to write it down. It was unbearable. I hadn’t seen what it’d all cost until I had to sing for her. I hadn’t wanted to see my courageous, unshakable mother as what she’d become—a crime lord.

  I wrote how I’d heard what he said. To make it stop. And in a magical battle, I had. The silence was either a spell I had stumbled on creating, or some odd backward turn my magic had made in my internal crisis. Either way, now it was done. It was behind me—but it would catch up. They would come for me.

  Rhodry frowned while he read. “So your mother is that witch.”

  I nodded.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They won’t get you here. Everyone in this city seems to think that having some loyal street thugs makes them invincible.”

  Rosemary quirked a grin and tucked a tress behind her ear. “But even if she is a witch, it’s no small matter to face a bear-soul on his own territory and three angry ghosts.”

  Three ghosts?

  Rhodry chuckled. “Worse than that is the international scandal that would come of it. ‘Mafia business’ isn’t a pardonable excuse for attacking a foreign dignitary.”

  So that explained his accent. And it surprisingly made me feel better. Mamma understood better than anybody the power of
exposure.

  Rhodry handed me back the book. “One more thing. You mentioned phylactery trading. Is that what she was making you do? Because you said you were a criminal. In what...way?”

  This next part was going to be hard. It was just one word. Just one. I printed it in the center of the next page and lifted the book so they could see it.

  Sorcerer.

  Cecilio took a step back. Rosemary’s eyes widened. Rhodry stared at the page for what felt like several minutes. “So you’re a witch, too.” He didn’t look up.

  I scrambled to jot down an explanation. Just a mage. I can’t control minds, just read them, but it only works when I sing. My mother can possess people if she knows what they’re ashamed of. She was...using me to find those secrets out. But I can’t do it with my voice gone.

  Not everyone even considered heart reading to be truly related to sorcery. It could spy, but not command. Yet I had seen the damage that could do—I’d participated in sorcery, one way or the other. And he deserved to know. No more secrets.

  Rosemary let out a low whistle and began stirring the fire. Regret seemed to curdle the air.

  Rhodry’s pause made me nervous, but when he sighed, it didn’t seem like an angry sigh. “And that’s why you ran.”

  Cecilio still looked anxious, and Rosemary clasped his arm as if to keep him still.

  The pencil was my best friend now; I scribbled as fast as I could. I’d rather lose my voice than keep doing it. Even when Mamma found me, I could never be what I’d been.

  “You don’t have to be frightened now.” Rhodry’s gentle tone surprised me. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  Could he really be so forgiving? It was worth a gamble. I bit my lip and turned the page. I hate to ask more of you. But perhaps I can repay you? I have nowhere else to go. Could you take me on as another servant?

  Rhodry’s eyes darted up from the paper to me, then back again. “What? No!”

  I winced. He’d reacted so well to my confession, I supposed it had given me too much hope. Isn’t there some way I can work for you? I don’t expect any pay. I’ll cook or dust the attic. At least until I find a way out of the city. The families will turn on me if I go back to town.

  He collapsed back in his chair and swiped a hand through damp hair. “Dammit, Mio! I could afford to pay you. But bloody hell, you have no idea what you’re asking.”

  I scrawled a line of frustration over my page. I didn’t want to guilt him. But I didn’t know where else to go. I’ll stay out of your way. I just need time. With my voice gone—I couldn’t finish the thought. I didn’t know who I was with my voice, and thus my powers, gone. I needed a chance to discover that.

  What kind of Mio could harmlessness make possible?

  “My lord, I must protest.” Cecilio sounded on the verge of shrill. “This is no place for the living. Especially a living mage. Not that anyone but you has risen again as a moon-soul, but we both know noble spirits don’t muck about with magic. There wouldn’t even be that chance.”

  “I know.” Rhodry fidgeted. “I’m sorry, Mio, but you would not be safe here.”

  Safety was relative. I don’t care! I began to write, but he was already rising and leaving the room. I wasn’t beaten yet. Throwing off my blanket—the fire not protecting my bare feet from the cold—I raced him to the door. I had some pomp and circumstance left. With all of it I knelt into a bow, head lowered at his feet.

  “What in the hell is he doing?”

  “That’s called bowing, my lord.” Laughter cracked Rosemary’s voice.

  I looked up and indicated my face, my body, to suggest all of my self. I touched the hem of his robe, to say I would be at his service. Oddly enough, he blushed.

  “This is... I’m not sure what this is. But all right, Mio, you win.” He yanked the robe from my hand. “Now get up, you little sprite. Between you and your brother I’d swear we were having a feudal renaissance.”

  He urged me up and deposited me on the sofa. “You can stay here if it’s that or the street. But I have some rules. All right?”

  I nodded enthusiastically. My relief was strong enough that I would have licked his boots clean if he’d asked.

  “You must understand that we are not the only residents of this house. My servants have given much to me, and this is as much their land as mine. But there is another. My wife, Lady Eirlys Bedefyr.”

  Wife? He’d...been married?

  “Rosemary and Cecilio will be kind to you. My wife will not. So long as you do not meet her, you will be safe. If she sees you in her house—” he leaned closer “—she will kill you. And she is an extraordinarily powerful ghost. Do you understand?”

  Oh. Maybe safety wasn’t that relative. I nodded once more and listened.

  “If you are to stay in this house, you must fear Her Ladyship at all times. We will train you to watch for her signs.” When I glanced at the floor to avoid his intensity, he seized my chin again, more softly than he spoke. “Listen to me, don’t look away! You must stay with Cecilio, Rosemary, or myself, at every hour. When you sleep, one of us will watch over you.”

  He relaxed then, a little. “If you would like, you may help Cecilio with his work in the house. Or Rosemary on the grounds, if she feels like it. You must not wander off on your own. You must not go upstairs, or into the cellar. If you disobey any of these, you risk death. If I am there to defend you, I can save you. If she catches you unawares, you are finished. Show me you understand.”

  This time I did more than nod. I tore a sheet from my book and gave my best promise. In the city, I could be beaten by soldiers. Here, I could be killed by Her Ladyship. But here, at least you may guide me. I will respect her. And you, for all you have done.

  And I delivered it as I did that first night, tucked in his hand with a kiss on his fingers, as my mother’s loyalists kissed her fingers out of reverence. He flushed again before snatching his hand back. “Enough of that. Respect this: there’s a curse on my house. Any who die here will be stranded, just like I and my wife are.”

  “Your Lordship!” Cecilio hissed. He looked like he could have swatted Rhodry across the neck.

  “Oh, come off, the poor lemon drop literally cannot tell anyone.” He swung his gaze back to me. It still burned, but like light through water. I could almost have said he looked afraid. “I will not let her kill you. But if you respect anything, respect that you’re not immortal like me, or eternal like Rosemary and Cecilio.”

  With that, he left his dishes and stalked away, declaring it bedtime. He had just shown me where the rock and the hard place each were. But it didn’t seem to matter. Before he left, I followed for a moment on bare feet, and bowed again, as a servant should to his master. Rosemary couldn’t contain her laughter any longer. Rhodry groaned and shut the door.

  * * *

  The next few days passed like a soft rain. My mind was bleary and damp, as if it could not decide what to be. I saw little of His Lordship, as he slept through the day. I was shown down the stair to the kitchen and servant hall. Everywhere was strangely cold, reminiscent of winter. Fires were lit in the areas I would stay, but the cold did not appear to bother Rhodry or his ghosts.

  They put me in a little room by the servant’s hall. It had space for a bed, table, armoire, and a draped window. The smallness of it suited me better than I could have imagined. Still in pajamas, I pulled the covers off the bed and wrapped myself up in the corner. I put a chair in front of the door. Curled up as best I could, my body quaked with all the terror it had stored up. Eventually I must have slept.

  The morning seemed to reveal how thin my skin had become. A simple breakfast made me emotional. Oats and berries and tea. I was lucky to have even that. My gratitude was becoming painful, but I held on to it with every muscle. I could name it, and I needed desperately to know how I felt.

  Cecilio searched the stores for clothes I c
ould wear, but it all drowned me in fabric.

  “We can alter them.” Rosemary studied me. “Perhaps.”

  “Are you going to do it? I’ll just bring clothes in on the next supply order. I suppose they’ll have to be doll clothes.”

  I merely listened. It was all I could do anymore, and that made me feel like a doll.

  I attended Cecilio as he trained me on chores. It was like a museum tour, only the exhibit was not the house but this strange purgatory in which it existed. Cecilio spoke to me kindly, and the house was beautiful. Sconces and carved walls, paintings hung at every corner, plush with carpets and curtains over a veneer of golden wood. I was already growing thankful for Rhodry’s apparent taste for hunter green. I couldn’t stand to see anything red, especially red and shiny. A cherry-colored ewer had been in my room, and in the morning I’d had to stow it away in the kitchen to keep from throwing it.

  It was hard to believe such a serene place could be as dangerous as Rhodry had said. It seemed more asleep than anything. Heavy curtains lined every wall, and some rooms had windows boarded up. I hadn’t even considered—His Lordship would want refuge from sunlight.

  The furnishings astonished me. Hanzanese silk and gilded brocades, ornate chairs and tables with clawed feet, aglow with an artisanal, prewar mystique. Cecilio caught me gaping and laughed. He gave me a wide paddle and said the drapes and upholstery needed beating, and not to be delicate about it.

  Apparently the great enemy in these rooms was not dust, but frost. A crust of ice lined the curtain hems. Dark patches marred the upholstery. Canvas shielded some of it, but ice gathered wherever moisture touched—even in the basins of the washrooms, which I was to crack with a rod. “Her Ladyship roams the house some nights, without warning. Even when she does not rage, she brings a new frost each time.” He explained that was why Rosemary toiled outdoors so often, to preserve the gardens from the ice, even though it was weaker outside. I’d seen many ghosts in my time, but none that seemed to have such an effect as the Lady Bedefyr. The fiercest ghosts were infused with awe-striking, often bizarre powers. Apparently the Lady’s was that her presence brought ice and winter.