Cruel Beauty(35)

But no matter how I searched, I never found a trace of the other hearts.


Until one morning, five weeks after I arrived, I tried a new door and walked into the vestibule where I had first met Ignifex. And it occurred to me that I was still a virgin, and my virgin knife—still never used to cut a living thing—was right here, albeit embedded twelve feet up in the wall.

I had never believed in the Rhyme before. And when Ignifex had taken the knife away from me, he had treated it like a joke, not the only weapon that could destroy him.

But I suspected my husband would treat being cast into the abyss of Tartarus as a joke. And while he was happy to let me attack him with all the cutlery at the dinner table, he had gotten my knife away from me at once. That didn’t prove that the Rhyme was true . . . but he hadn’t punished or imprisoned me for my previous attempt at stabbing him, which meant it wouldn’t hurt to try.

It took me the whole morning to get to the knife. The house did not seem to contain any kind of ladder, so I had to find furniture suitable for stacking, and that day I couldn’t find a single room with tables, only chairs and stools. It was a rather precarious-looking pyramid that I built, but it held when I climbed it, and finally I was able to grip the hilt of my knife again.

I grinned. Whether Ignifex lived or died tonight, at least he would receive a nasty surprise.

I tugged at the knife. It didn’t move. I tugged again, harder, and then there was the tiniest bit of give. With a grunt, I gave the knife a sudden jerk—and it came out as if it had never been stuck. I wobbled a moment, then fell over backward—

Into a pair of arms. The shock was enough to daze me for a moment, and in that moment Ignifex set me on my feet, plucked the knife from my hands, hid it somewhere on his person, and raised an eyebrow at me.

“I’m starting to wonder if I should ever leave you alone,” he said mildly, dropping a hand to my shoulder.

I stiffened.

“Then don’t,” I said. “Stay right here and never strike another bargain.”

“Oh, you’re that desperate to be with me?” He leaned forward, his hand still on my shoulder. “If you wanted a kiss, you only needed to ask.”

His touch was light, but I felt it as precisely as the lines of a lithograph, with my body for the paper.

“I’m that desperate to stop you,” I said, but the desire for him was back as if I’d never seen what he was capable of doing.

“Desperate enough to kiss me? You are in a terrible state.”

It’s only because he looks like Shade, I thought, but in that moment I knew the words were a lie: this laughing, crimson-eyed creature might wear Shade’s face, but I wanted him for none of the same reasons.

I realized suddenly that his coat was open, and I could see the hollow at the base of his throat but also the leather belts hung with keys that crisscrossed his chest. And Ignifex wasn’t the only one who could turn people’s words against them.

“You boast to me every day about the people you kill,” I said, trying to gauge the location of the keys while keeping my eyes fixed on his. There were two hung high, close to his neck. “Of course I’m desperate.”

“I don’t kill people,” he said easily. “They ask for favors, and I grant them. If they don’t realize the sort of price required by my power, it’s on their own heads.”

Long ago, Astraia once dared me to climb onto the roof. I felt the same way now as I had then, knotting my handkerchief to the weathervane: dizzy and alive, the world swooping around me, my body made of sparks dancing to my heartbeat.

It was monstrous to want him. But to kiss him for the sake of saving Arcadia—that wasn’t entirely evil, was it?

“Then,” I said, “suppose I did ask you?”

“Then,” he said, “this.”

And he closed his lips over mine.

He was my enemy. He was evil. He wasn’t even human. I should have been disgusted, but just like the last time, I couldn’t help myself any more than water could stop itself running downhill. I managed to slide a hand up his chest, get two keys off their strap, and clench my hand around them; then I dissolved into the feeling, and kissed him back just as eagerly.

It was nothing like kissing Shade. That had been like a dream that slowly enfolded me; this was like a battle or a dance. He took possession of my mouth and I took possession of his, and we held each other in a perilous, perfect balance like the circulation of the planets.

The bell tolled in the distance. I barely noticed it—then Ignifex let go of me. I wobbled backward until I hit the wall.

“Some poor soul has called for me.” He bowed. “Until later, my wife.”