Since I couldn’t sink into the floor, I stepped back and tried to think of something else.
“You’re not part of him,” I said, watching his face. He stared back at me, reactionless. “I don’t think you’re just something he made.” A mere thing would not be able to kiss me against his maker’s will. “You’re somebody he’s cursed, aren’t you?”
Shade nodded, and that set my heart thumping. Somebody who had been cursed could be set free, and somebody who had been set free could think about—
What? Kissing me again, before I trapped myself with the Gentle Lord in his collapsing house for all eternity? It wouldn’t matter at that point if I’d had one kiss or a hundred before my doom came upon me.
And Shade wasn’t thinking of that anyway. He was just glad that he could speak, if glad was the word for someone whose face had gone still as the water beneath our feet.
“We’re both his prisoners,” I said. “You’ve already betrayed him once. That makes us allies, right?”
I could be glad just to have him as an ally. I’d never expected to have even that much.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, then caught himself. “I must always obey him,” he said after a moment. “You shouldn’t trust me too much.”
But those words made trust crackle and grow inside me. A demon or a demon’s shadow would tell me to trust him, not warn me away.
“Then I’ll trust you as much as I can,” I said. “What can you tell me about him? What did he do to you?”
“I can’t . . .” His mouth worked soundlessly until he pressed a hand over it, the skin between his eyes clenching.
“You can’t talk about him? Or yourself?”
“Any of his secrets,” he said lowly.
“What can you tell me?”
Shade seemed to think carefully before answering. “You’ll have to find the other hearts yourself. And be careful.”
I tried to think of a useful question that he might be able to answer. “Is there a time that’s safest to explore the house?”
“Never.” He paused. “But at night, he won’t notice what you do. He stays in his room.”
“Why, is he scared of the dark?”
I meant the words for a joke, but Shade nodded seriously. “Like all monsters. Because it reminds him of what he truly is.”
“Is that why you’re human at night?” I asked. “Because he made you a monster during the day, but the darkness reminds you of what you truly are?”
He looked at me: of course, he couldn’t talk about his nature.
“I’m glad,” I said. “That I got to meet you. I’m sorry you still have to wear his face.” Though you make his face very lovely, I thought, and wanted to sink through the floor again. Instead I went on, “You know what I’m doing. Does he know?”
He tried to answer, but the power of the Gentle Lord held him back, making his mouth twist and then stiffen until finally he gave up, took my hand, and looked straight into my eyes. “You are our only hope.”
I had heard those words from my family a thousand times before, but this time they filled me with tremulous hope instead of desperate rage. For the first time, I was needed by somebody I did not resent: somebody who had not chosen me to suffer, who had not gotten every good thing I ever lacked, but who had risked his life for me instead.
“Then I’ll save you,” I said, and I smiled at him, again without even trying. “If I have to explore this house on my own, you’d better take me back to my room so I can start from there.”
He nodded, and we walked back together in silence. When we arrived at my door, I finally asked him the question that had weighed on my tongue all the way back.
“Who are you?”
His teeth gleamed in a rueful half smile that crossed his face and was gone in a heartbeat. His eyes said, Do you think he’d ever let me tell you?
“Just a shadow,” he said, and kissed my fingers.
Then he melted away into the darkness.
6
Light glowed through the bed curtains. My stomach cramped with hunger. I squinted gritty, tired eyes and rolled over. Breakfast could wait. There was never enough time to sleep now, with my wedding so close; I was up late every night studying and later worrying, and in a moment Astraia would bounce in to wake me, her smile so cheerful my teeth would buzz with anger—
I wasn’t at home.
And I had destroyed Astraia’s smile.
Shame jolted me awake, sharp and cold as fear. I sat up, teeth clenched against the memories. If only she hadn’t given me that stupid smile—how could she, when her own sister was about to die? If only she could have been silent for just one moment—