How long had we been walking? I could see the end of the hallway, but it did not seem to be getting any closer.
Was that a faint echo of laughter in the distance?
Suddenly the walking shadow seemed much less terrible than the warm silence of the hallway.
“Are you a real demon, or just a creature the Gentle Lord made?” I asked abruptly. As soon as I uttered the words, I felt stupid: how did I expect a shadow to talk, anyway?
“Or are you a part of him? Do all demon lords have walking shadows when they spring from the womb of Tartarus?” I went on, absurdly determined to make it seem like the first question had been rhetorical. “I suppose it makes sense that things spawned from the dark—”
Shade stopped so abruptly that I stumbled. The silver key twinkled as he unlocked one of the doors; then we stepped through onto a narrow spiral staircase of stone. Cold, damp air washed over me, a little sour, as if someone had once used the room for an aquarium. I looked up—and up, and up. For overhead, the stairs faded into the darkness with no end in sight.
“Does he plan to kill me with stairs?” I muttered. Then Shade pulled me forward and I went quietly, because I knew I would need to save my breath.
We climbed until my legs burned and sweat ran down my neck, despite the cold air. I stopped caring that my face was twisted with effort and my breath came in loud gasps. The world narrowed to the effort of lifting one wobbling foot after another and not toppling sideways into the void. Shade flowed on smoothly and relentlessly. Just when I thought I could climb no more, the staircase ended with a narrow archway into a square room with bare white walls and a plain wood floor. I stumbled through and fell to my knees.
“Please,” I gasped, my throat so dry the word was barely more than a croak.
He dropped my wrist. With a sigh, I collapsed onto my back. For a while I stared blindly at the ceiling and gasped for breath. At last my heartbeat slowed and my breath came easier, while the sweat cooled and dried on my face.
As I began to feel better, I noticed that Shade had knelt beside me, his shadowy form clinging to the walls.
His cool touch slid across my face and pulled a strand of hair out of my eyes. I batted a hand futilely at the air and sat up in a rush.
“I don’t need a hairdresser,” I growled. My heart was thumping again and the line he had traced across my skin tingled. The touch had felt gentle—but he was still a thing, if not a demon then at least a servant of the Gentle Lord. Like his master, his kindness was only meant to make later torments crueler.
Like Father’s and Aunt Telomache’s kindness in telling Astraia about the Rhyme. It had only made me able to hurt her more.
I hurtled to my feet. “Come on, you need to imprison me,” I said, looking down at Shade, who still crouched low, a blob of shadow against the wall.
He rose slowly, stretching up to stand almost a head taller than me, the same as the Gentle Lord. Then he took my hand but paused; I felt like he was staring at me. Now he was a clear profile, the silhouette of his nose and lips and shoulders crisp against the wall. I suddenly realized that although a monster, he was also something like a man; my face heated, and my free hand grabbed the torn edges of my bodice.
He had been watching when I tore my dress open. Would he still be watching when the Gentle Lord finally—
There was a twinge of pressure, almost as if he were squeezing my hand, as if he were trying to reassure me or apologize. But a demon—or the shadow of a demon—would surely have no use for any such kindness. Then he drew me forward, less violently than before.
The next room was a great round ballroom. Its walls were arrayed in gold-painted moldings; its floor was a swirling mosaic of blue and gold; its dome was painted with the loves of all the gods, a vast tangle of plump limbs and writhing fabric. The air was cool, still, and hugely silent. My footsteps were only a soft tap-tap-tap, but they echoed through the room.
After that came what seemed like a hundred more rooms and hallways. In every one, the air was different: hot or cold, fresh or stuffy, smelling of rosemary, incense, pomegranates, old paper, pickled fish, cedarwood. None of the rooms frightened me like the first hallway. But sometimes—especially when sunlight glowed through a window—I thought I heard the faint laughter.
Finally, at the end of a long hallway with a cherrywood wainscot and lace-hung windows between the doors, we came to my room. I could see why the Gentle Lord called it the “bridal suite”: the walls were papered with a silver pattern of hearts and doves, and most of the room was taken up by a huge canopied bed, more than big enough for two. The four posts were shaped like four maidens, coiffed and dressed in gauzy robes that clung to their bodies, their faces serene. They were exactly like the caryatids holding up the porch of a temple. The bed curtains were great falls of white lace, woven through with crimson ribbons. A vase of roses sat on the bedside table. Their red petals had blossomed wide to expose their gold centers, and their musk wove through the air.