I don’t move. I can’t. Koré’s words have wrapped around me, holding me fast as the Gentle Lord’s power. The words I should have said years ago, but I was never strong enough to say: I should have stopped you. I’m sorry. You’re dead.
My cheeks are wet.
I should be strong enough. I am always strong enough. But now there are tears running down my cheeks, because I have lost Anax and my sisters, because they have suffered so much from me and none of them needed to. Nobody needed to suffer from my mother’s madness. Not if I had been brave or strong enough to say what Koré just did.
For years I have pitied myself because I had no way to make my mother’s spirit rest. Because her duty to make me happy would never be done. And I drove myself near to madness trying to protect people from her. But I never even let myself think that perhaps I should tell her to rest. Perhaps I should tell her that her duty was finished, that it was time for her to be dead.
I was afraid of her, but I was also afraid to lose her, even the last, desperate scraps of her. And now I am weeping, and those tears will call down the demons upon my family.
I stand. My body feels numb and hollow, but I don’t hesitate. I grab Stepmother’s arm and haul her back; she lets go of Koré and stumbles into the wall beside the window.
“You ruined us,” she snarls. “With your sly, fresh face, like her portrait come to life. How could he love me? How could I love him? With you there to remind us every day that I was second best?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. Please leave the house. It isn’t safe anymore.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Now that we’re ruined, you’ll drive us out. But I won’t be a beggar.” She flings the casement open. “I’ll show you how a lady of this house can die.”
“Mother!” Koré screams. I lunge for Stepmother, but it’s too late: she flings herself out, and I only reach the window in time to see her sprawled on the cobblestones below, blood spattered around her head.
Horror claws at my throat. I cannot hesitate now. I grab Koré’s arm and pull her up. “Come,” I say, and drag her out of the room with me. She stumbles and clings to me: she’s afraid because she can’t see anymore.
I hate that she is afraid.
But nothing matters right now except keeping her close to me, because I can see the shadows crawling and writhing at the edges of my vision, and if I hold my newly twin sister close enough, perhaps my mother and the demons will be confused for just long enough.
We stumble into the kitchen. I find an oil can and a packet of matches, and then I drag Koré outside, into the garden. Toward the apple tree, whose pale blossoms are brighter than moonlight should make them, whose branches cast shadows darker than the night. It is lovely and terrible and home, and I drop to my knees amid the gnarled roots. Beside me, Koré falls to her hands and knees.
“Mother,” I whisper, “my darling mother, you’ve taken such good care of me. You’ve given me everything I ever asked for.”
The leaves rustle as she curls around me, caressing my cheeks, my neck, my arms. I lay one hand against the rough bark of the tree.
“Please, there’s just one more thing that I want. I want it more than anything else in all the world.”
And this is my final lie. Because I realize now that I want her to stay with me, even like this, twisted into a mindless, cruel ghost. I have wanted it—if not more than all the world—more than my nurse’s life, and the butler’s and the chambermaid’s. I have wanted it more than Koré and Thea and Stepmother. Even more than Anax.
But now it’s time for me to stop.
“Please die,” I say.
Her cold touch goes still. My heart pounds jaggedly in my throat, but I pour out the words like sugar and cream: “You’re already dead, but you’ve worked so hard and long for me anyway. Please rest. Please leave this tree and rest forever.”
I wait. For a few agonized heartbeats, her touch doesn’t move; it rests cold and heavy as guilt around my neck. Then she begins to stroke me again, to run her bodiless fingers through my hair as she did when I was a little child, and she would untangle me before bed.
Maybe she can’t stop. Maybe she can’t understand me. Or maybe my true mother has never been in this tree at all; maybe her soul rests in Elysium, and what lingers in the tree is not even her ghost but only an idiot whirlwind of love and protection and mine, mine, mine.
Koré’s fingers clench around my hand, human and heartbroken and warm.
“I’m sorry,” I say to my mother that was. “I love you.”
My fingers are steady as I pour the oil down the trunk of the tree, as I strike the match and lift it.
Fire roars up the trunk of the tree and into the branches, faster even than the oil should burn. The heat slams into my face and I drag Koré back. I would run, but then I see the demons, and horror roots me to the spot. They bleed out of the apple blossoms: little tendrils of black shadow that corkscrew and billow through the air like ink dropped into water.
My mother ruled them, and now they are free.
I am not mad yet. I know it is because they have not yet looked back at me, but I can feel their attention swinging toward me. I drop to the ground, pinning Koré underneath me; she struggles and I hiss, “Don’t move.” I shove a hand against her face, feel the mask, and remember she is safe: she cannot see. I squeeze my eyes shut, press my face into her shoulder, and wait.
Their attention crawls over my back and shoulders, ice-cold and multitudinous, like the feet of a thousand rats, like dribbles from an ocean of alien hatred. Suddenly I imagine—suddenly I know—that beyond the parchment dome of the sky waits an abyss of demons, and my body shakes as I wonder if the sky will tear like wet paper and let them flow through.
Mother, I want to call, Mother, save me—but my mother is twice dead and can protect me no longer. Tears squeeze out of my eyes, icy tears that don’t belong to me, and I know that even if I don’t see the demons, their constant, rushing presence will soon shred through the last walls of my mind.
Beneath me, Koré shudders and her hands clench around my arms, nails biting deep enough to draw my blood, which has not yet turned cold. She’s desperate and human and mine, and in the madness around us, she’s the only still point. But it’s not enough. Not enough.
And then something spreads over me, like a soft blanket or sudden silence. I can tell the demons are still somewhere near, but they are no longer scrabbling at my mind. Maybe they have shifted their attention. Maybe the last remnants of my mother’s ghost are huddled over me as I huddle over Koré in desperate, incomplete protection.
Whatever it is, it’s enough. The panic leeches from my body; I feel Koré go limp beneath me. From what seems like a very far distance, I hear crashes and the roar of flames. But we are safe, and in each other’s arms we fall asleep.
I wake up cold and stiff. It’s the chill gray hour before dawn. The birds have just begun to chirp; the tang of smoke is heavy in the air. Sometime during the night, I rolled off Koré; she lies beside me now, her foamy golden skirts spread across the grass, her golden mask glimmering faintly in the dim light.
I sit up and catch my breath. The entire house is a smoking ruin. The roof has collapsed; broken beams and shattered windows stand nakedly against the pale sky. I turn the other way and see my mother’s tree also destroyed: the trunk still stands, though charred black, but only a few twisted stumps survive of its branches.
I hear a step behind me.
“Good morning, Maia Alastorides,” says the Gentle Lord.
Fear sparks through my body, snapping my spine straight.
“Good morning,” I say breathlessly.
I don’t look back.
He laughs softly. “I am not that sort of demon. You can look on me and not go mad.”
“Considering my family’s record, I am not so sure of that.”
“It’s true, they made some very interesting bargains. Would you like to see if you can do better?”
&
nbsp; He sounds as if we were all fascinating butterflies pinned to cards for his amusement. No doubt, to the prince of demons, that is all a human life can ever be.
“Is that why you came here?” I ask. “To collect us all?”
“No,” he says. “Your mother’s final death released the demons I had put into her care. They are what I came here to collect. But I always have ears for those in need. Tell me, Maia Alastorides. Isn’t there something you want more than anything else in the world?”
My throat clenches with grief, and I think that I finally understand my mother. Because there are things I want that badly. I want to find Thea, wherever she has fled, and give her back the sister she’s always adored. I want to heal Koré’s sight and peel away the mask and her false shape, so that she can spend just one day in freedom. I want—I want so very, very much—to undo the harm I did Anax, and to heal the bitterness that’s festered in his heart for years.
My mother knew that wishes are always bought with pain. She thought she could shield me from the price, but she was wrong. Maybe I could do better. Maybe I could word my bargain carefully enough that nobody I loved would pay. But somebody would. And I know one thing my mother never did. I know what it is like to live every day and every hour by the fruits of someone else’s wretched bargain. To see people suffer and know, They suffer because I am loved.
I would not do that to the ones I love. Not for anything in the whole wide world.
“There are a lot of things I want,” I say quietly and deliberately. “But I think I will keep what I have.”
The Gentle Lord laughs again. “Then you are wiser than many. Farewell, Maia. I do not think we will meet again.”
And he is gone. I feel it in a sudden relaxation of the air. I let out a great sigh and climb stiffly to my feet. Koré is still asleep; I will need to wake her soon, and then—
Then we will need to find our way in the world with no family, no money, no help. I try to imagine the days ahead, and it’s not fear of ruin that makes my chest ache; it’s fear of the unimaginable blank with every familiar part of life gone. I never thought that freedom would feel so much like grief.
And that’s when I see Anax walk around the side of the house. He’s pale and a little unsteady on his feet; when he sees me, he stares for a few moments as if convinced I’m not real.
“Maia,” he says, and then we’re both running at each other, and a moment later I’m in his arms. He’s squeezing me so tightly I can barely breathe, but it doesn’t matter because he came back, he doesn’t hate me, and he’s whispering things like safe and sorry and dear into my hair.
“Are you all right?” he asks when he finally releases me. “I came back, I saw the house—I thought you were dead.” He’s no longer clutching me to his chest, but he has one hand on my waist and another cupping my chin, and I’m grasping his arms in return. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to let go of him again.
“I’m all right,” I say. “Truly.”
And for the very first time, those words are the truth.
“I found your sister,” he says. “She was wandering the streets. She didn’t even know her own name. If I hadn’t met her at the ball—”
I shudder in fear and relief at once. If he hadn’t remembered that brief introduction, he wouldn’t have known her, and she would be wandering still. She could have been lost forever.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“I took her to the palace. She isn’t hurt otherwise, but she couldn’t tell me what happened, and when I got back, the house was on fire. Nobody could get close. I thought you were dead.”
“I lied,” I blurt out. “When I said I didn’t love you. I’m sorry.”
“I know,” he says. “I knew as soon as I took two minutes to think about it. I was on my way back to your house when I found Thea. I was going to sit on your doorstep and wait as long as it took you to tell me the truth. And I was going to tell you how sorry I was for all the things I said—”
Then I do let go of his arms, so I can grab him by the neck and pull him into a kiss.
“That’s your punishment,” I say when our lips finally part. “You have to let me kiss you as much as I want.”
He laughs. “Does that mean you’ve decided to marry me?”
“Yes,” I say, and it’s a while before we speak again.
Finally I take him by the hand and draw him back toward the ruined apple tree. “I need you to meet my other sister,” I say. “Properly, this time. I love her very much, and you’re going to help me take care of her.”
“If she can make you admit to loving her,” he says, “she must be very—”
Then he sees Koré and stops.
“Do you know,” he says after a moment, “your house gets stranger every time I visit?”
I laugh shakily. “You have not heard the half of it.”
But now I can tell him. Now I can speak to him day after day and not be afraid. I can speak to the whole world, if I want.
And every word I say will be true.
Excerpt from Cruel Beauty
Turn the page for a sneak peek of Cruel Beauty.
I was raised to marry a monster.
The day before the wedding, I could barely breathe. Fear and fury curdled in my stomach. All afternoon I skulked in the library, running my hands over the leather spines of books I would never touch again. I leaned against the shelves and wished I could run, wished I could scream at the people who had made this fate for me.
I eyed the shadowed corners of the library. When my twin sister, Astraia, and I were little, we heard the same terrible story as other children: Demons are made of shadow. Don’t look at the shadows too long or a demon might look back. It was even more horrible for us because we regularly saw the victims of demon attacks, screaming or mute with madness. Their families dragged them in through the hallways and begged Father to use his Hermetic arts to cure them.
Sometimes he could ease their pain, just a little. But there was no cure for the madness inflicted by demons.
And my future husband—the Gentle Lord—was the prince of demons.
He was not like the vicious, mindless shadows that he ruled. As befit a prince, he far surpassed his subjects in power: he could speak and take such form that mortal eyes could look on him and not go mad. But he was a demon still. After our wedding night, how much of me would be left?
I heard a wet cough and whirled around. Behind me stood Aunt Telomache, thin lips pressed together, one wisp of hair escaping from her bun.
“We will dress for dinner.” She said it in the same placid, matter-of-fact way that she had said last night, You are the hope of our people. Last night, and a thousand times before.
Her voice sharpened. “Are you listening, Nyx? Your father has arranged a farewell dinner for you. Don’t be late.”
I wished I could seize her bony shoulders and shake them. It was Father’s fault that I was leaving.
“Yes, Aunt,” I whispered.
Father wore his red silk waistcoat; Astraia, her ruffled blue dress with the five petticoats; Aunt Telomache, her pearls; and I put on my best black mourning dress, the one with satin bows. The food was just as grand: candied almonds, pickled olives, stuffed sparrows, and Father’s best wine. One of the servants even strummed at a lute in the corner as if we were at a duke’s banquet. I almost could have pretended that Father was trying to show how much he loved me, or at least how much he honored my sacrifice. But I knew, as soon as I saw Astraia sitting red-eyed at the table, that the dinner was all for her sake.
So I sat straight-backed in my chair, barely able to choke down my food but with a smile fixed on my face. Sometimes the conversation lagged, and I heard the heavy ticktock of the grandfather clock in the sitting room, counting off each second that brought me closer to my husband. My stomach roiled, but I smiled wider and gritted out cheerful nothings about how my marriage was an adventure, how I was so excited to fight the Gentle Lord, and by the spirit of our dead mother, I swore she woul
d be avenged.
That last made Astraia droop again, but I leaned forward and asked her about the village boy always lingering beneath her window—Adamastos or some such—and she smiled and laughed soon enough. Why shouldn’t she laugh? She could marry a mortal man and live to old age in freedom.
I knew my resentment was unfair—surely she laughed for my sake, as I smiled for hers—but it still bubbled at the back of my mind all through dinner, until every smile, every glance she darted at me scraped across my skin. My left hand clenched under the table, nails biting into my palm, but I managed to smile back at her and pretend.
At last the servants cleared away the empty custard dishes. Father adjusted his spectacles and looked at me. I knew that he was about to sigh and repeat his favorite saying: “Duty is bitter to taste but sweet to drink.” And I knew that he’d be thinking more about how he was sacrificing one half of his wife’s legacy than how I was sacrificing life and freedom.
I surged to my feet. “Father, may I please be excused?”
Surprise caught him for a moment before he replied, “Of course, Nyx.”
I bobbed my head. “Thank you so much for dinner.”
Then I tried to flee, but in a moment Aunt Telomache was at my elbow. “Dear,” she began softly.
And Astraia was at my other elbow. “I can talk to her for just a minute, please, can’t I?” she said, and without waiting for an answer she dragged me up to her bedroom.
As soon as the door had closed behind us, she turned to me. I managed not to flinch, but I couldn’t meet her eyes. Astraia didn’t deserve anyone’s anger, least of all mine. She didn’t. But for the past few years, whenever I looked at her, all I could see was the reason that I would have to face the Gentle Lord.
One of us had to die. That was the bargain Father had struck, and it was not her fault that he had picked her to be the one who lived, but every time she smiled, I still thought: She smiles because she is safe. She is safe because I am going to die.
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