I had to think. I had never heard of anybody outwitting the Kindly Ones, but it had to be possible.
“You cheated,” I said. “You’re supposed to be the Lords of Bargains, but you cheated. It’s not a game or a bet or a bargain if there’s no way to win, and there was never any way to guess his name.” My fingers dug into his skin. “He said you were always fair. And you always left hints.”
“But we gave him so much more than hints. Every night in the darkness, we whispered his true name. With your own lips, we told him where to find it.”
I remembered his desperate, wandering voice, the moment before I betrayed him: The name of the light is in the darkness.
“It is not our fault that he was too afraid to heed us. Or that when he did find the courage to listen in the darkness, you betrayed him before he could hear it speak. Or that, once reunited with himself, he was too desperate and too guilty to seek his name any longer. We gave every one of him a thousand chances, child, and he squandered all of them.”
My throat clogged with bitter protests, but I knew they were useless. The Kindly Ones would only further explain their fairness. Shade had always known that they were two halves of a whole. Ignifex had always had the power to join them. I had always had the chance to listen to both of them and put their stories together.
That they had made Shade powerless to start anything, that they had convinced Ignifex there was no point in asking questions, that I had been raised to hate and destroy and never imagine I could save the man I loved—
The Kindly Ones would say it didn’t matter. And maybe they were right. We still could have snatched happiness from our tragedy if we had made the right choices, the right wishes. If we had been kinder, braver, purer. If only we had been anything but what we were.
But I was what I was, and my husband had suffered the fate I had chosen for him.
And now I had the chance to redeem what I’d done.
“Then let me make a bargain,” I said. “Release him, and I’ll pay anything you like.” Fear thrummed across my skin, but I couldn’t stop now. “If it’s mine and it doesn’t hurt anyone, I’ll pay it. Just let him go.”
“Oh?” said the lady. “What do you suppose you have to offer?”
I stared at her, trying to think of something she would consider a sacrifice. “My eyes.”
“Not enough.” She said the words like she was flicking an ant off her dress.
“My life,” I said wildly.
“Not enough.”
“Then I will serve you.” The Kindly Ones always bargained. They had to. Didn’t they?
In my arms, Lux stirred and hoarsely whispered, “No.”
I pressed a hand over his mouth. If he was frightened for me, then it had to be a bargain they would accept.
“I’ll serve you every day until the end of time,” I said. “Just like he did.”
“Do you imagine that we lack servants?” The lady knelt before me with a terrible smile. “Know this, child. There is no price you can ever pay that will suffice to release him from the darkness. He made his choice, and lief or loath he shall have it until the end of time.”
I remembered opening the door, remembered shadows burrowing into my face and hands.
“Then,” I said, and my voice was a little wobbling thing.
One is one and all alone. For nine hundred years, he suffered that for you.
“Then let me make a different bargain,” I said, more strongly. My whole body pulsed with terror, but my love was in my arms and I couldn’t let go. “For my price, I’ll stay with him in the darkness. Forever and ever.”
The lady rose. “And your wish?”
“Nothing. I love him, and I want to be with him.”
“Don’t,” said Lux, his voice stronger.
“I’m not going to start obeying you now,” I told him, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then I looked up. “Just give me the price and nothing else. Just let me be with him and share in his punishment.”
The lady’s eyes widened. “That is a fool’s bargain,” she said. “To pay everything and ask for only helplessness in return. Do you think you will comfort him at all? There is no love in the shadows. It would destroy the purest heart and neither of you is pure. You will hate and hurt each other and become your own monsters.”
Her words hammered into me. Every one of them was absolutely true. Neither one of us had ever been pure, and therefore neither of us was strong enough to defeat the darkness. Even in this new world—so much gentler than the one I now remembered—the traitor threads of anger and selfishness still wove through my heart. I would hate and hurt him eventually, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself.