Cruel Beauty(34)

And people were dying like this every day. Every day, and I wasn’t saving any of them.

“You can’t save them all,” said Shade. “Any more than I can.”

I let out a laugh that was nearly a sob. “That’s comforting.”

“But you can stop him,” said Shade. “No one else can. That makes you our hope, even if nobody knows about you.”

I sighed. “Say that when I’ve actually managed to hurt my husband.”

“You will,” said Shade.

“I’m not so sure,” I whispered.

He leaned his forehead against mine.

“Trust me,” he said.

And I did.


The next day, I heard the bell again.

I stopped in the hallway, fists clenched, and counted off the peals. One, two, three. I hate my husband. Four, five, six. I’m going to stop him. Seven, eight. I’m going to stop him. Nine, ten. No matter what it costs, I will break his power.

The bell stopped. I waited, taut, a moment longer; then I went on with my exploration.

Shade was right. The way to survive was to realize I couldn’t stop him.

This day.






9


Only a fool would feel safe in the house of the Gentle Lord.

But as the days fell into a simple pattern, I started to lose my fear. Every evening I dined with Ignifex. No matter what I said, he laughed and mocked me in return . . . but no matter what, he was never angry. At the end of each dinner, he asked me if I wanted to guess his name, and I said no. Then sometimes he kissed my hand or cheek—but he never again kissed my neck and he never followed me to my room. And though sometimes I was uncomfortably aware of the exact space between us, or his touch lingered on my skin after he had gone, I never felt the strange current of desire again.

Maybe I had wanted him only because he looked so much like Shade. I told myself that, and after a while I started to believe it.

Day and night, I was free to explore the house—and I went everywhere that I could, for my key opened almost half the doors. I found a rose garden under a glass dome; the roses formed a labyrinth in which I always got lost, and yet—according to the cuckoo clock at the door—I would always stumble out again in exactly twenty-three minutes. I found a greenhouse full of potted ferns and orange trees. The air was thick with the warm, wet smell of earth. Bees hummed through the air; the glass walls were frosted with condensation. I found a round room whose walls were covered in mosaics of naiads and tossing waves, and the air always smelled of salt, and no matter which way I turned, the door was always directly behind me.

Every day I went to look in the mirror and see Astraia, and most nights I visited the Heart of Water at least briefly, to walk on the water and watch the lights. Usually Shade was there too; there were not many things he was permitted to say, but we would sit in companionable silence. He often drew the lights down; sometimes he gave them to me, sometimes wove them into lacy patterns around us, in the air or trembling on the surface of the water. I watched and said very little. At those times, I could almost forget my mission, and I felt no hatred festering in my heart. It was the only peace I’d ever known, and I didn’t want to lose it.

I desperately wanted not to lose it. So I never kissed him again. Occasionally he touched my wrist or cheek, and then I wanted to twine and lock our fingers, to kiss him and sink down into the water and be lost in perfect azure peace. But I didn’t know that he would want it. And every other time I’d loved somebody, it had twisted in my heart. I couldn’t risk it with him.

Instead I sat still beside him, my heart beating fast but my face as calm as his, and only darted him sideways glances. A hundred times I wished I could ask him, Why did you kiss my lips? Why don’t you kiss me again? But the words always stuck in my throat: they were too needy, too selfish, too foolish—and how could I ask for more, when he had already given me so much?

I still wasn’t sure that I loved him. Love—the kind that was holy to Aphrodite—was not something I had ever allowed myself to think about much. If you desired someone, if he comforted you, if you thought he might leech the poison out of your heart, was that love? Or only desperation?

Whenever the knot of emotions in my chest grew too tight, I jumped up and practiced racing from the Heart of Water to my bedroom at a dead run. When the time came, I would have to write all the sigils quickly; as soon as one heart failed, Ignifex would surely notice and try to stop me.

I got faster. I learnt to race through the hallways and pick all the right doors back to my bedroom while barely even looking, and I arrived still breathing easily. And once I was in my bedroom—far enough from any of the hearts that I didn’t have to worry about an accidental reaction—I practiced the sigils, training myself to draw them not just accurately but swiftly, until the motions became like a dance.