Draw One In The Dark(138)

A glimpse in the mirror showed her how fully horrible she looked, with her unwashed hair matted and falling in tangles in front of her face. Witch of the Rainbow Hairdo, she thought and smiled, an odd smile, from pale, cracked lips.



She opened her dresser and got out jeans and a dark T-shirt, and underwear. She lugged everthing to the bathroom, where she realized she still had her red feather earring on. She couldn't remember preserving it through the fight at the castle, but she must have, because she was wearing it.



She took it off and laid it, reverently, on the vanity. Tom had saved that for her.



Under the hot, full shower, she washed rapidly. Shampoo. Twice to get rid of all the grease she'd allowed her hair to accumulate in the last . . . three? four days? And then conditioner. And then soap her body, slowly, bit by bit, making sure every bit got properly scrubbed.



She doubted she had washed . . . since. There was green-red ichor on her legs. And her arms and hands were stained the dark—almost black—red of dried blood. Tom's blood. She watched it wash down the drain, in the water.



Damn. It wasn't only that she'd liked him. It wasn't only that she lusted after him and she'd never had a chance to do anything about it. It was that she'd only realized what he was made of as he was dying.



Oh, not just because he stepped up and offered himself in exchange for his father—and safety for all of them—but because he'd done it without complaint. And as a matter of course. Even the creature . . . the dragon, had told him he had courage.



Why you'd say that to someone who was about to die was beyond Kyrie. Maybe the dragon believed in an afterlife. Maybe he'd thought it would make things easier . . .



She finished showering and dried. Tom's towel was still there, hanging from the hook at the back of the door. She resisted a wild impulse to smell it, to bury her face in it and see if any of his scent remained on the fibers.



But no. That way lay madness. That way lay people who kept the rooms of dead people just the way they'd been when the person died. That way lay widows who slept with their husband's used clothes under their pillows. And it wasn't as if she had the right, even. He wasn't her husband. He wasn't even her boyfriend. Until a few days ago, she would have told people she didn't like him.



She dressed herself, combed her hair, carefully, put her earring in.



The face that looked at her from the mirror was still too pale, and she looked like she'd lost weight too. Her cheekbones poked out too far. But there was really nothing for it, was there? Life went on.



She'd got to the kitchen and put on the kettle, when someone knocked at the kitchen door. She thought it was Keith. He'd taken a key—what did he think she was going to do? try to kill herself? did he think he'd need the key to get in and save her?—but he still knocked before getting in.



"Come in," she said.



"I can't," a muffled voice said. "It's locked."



She reached over and unlocked the door. And . . . Edward Ormson came in.



He stood just inside the door, as if uncertain what he was going to do or say, or why he'd come here at all.



Kyrie turned from the small pan in which she'd just put an egg to boil. Keith must have brought eggs one of these days, because there were two cartons in the fridge. "Do you want an egg?" she asked.



"No, thank you," he said. His skin looked ashen. His eyes, so much like Tom's, were sunken in dark rings. "I've . . . eaten."



She got a feeling that what he was really saying was that he never wanted to eat again. Ever.



"I . . ." He hesitated. He was wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt and looked ruffled and uncertain and a long way from the smooth lawyer who'd landed in town however many days ago. "I would like to talk to you."



"Sit," Kyrie said. "As long as you don't mind if I eat while you talk."



As a matter of fact, though, she got two cups down from the cupboard, and grabbed the sugar bowl, which she put between them. She poured a cup for Edward and said, "Put sugar in it. Even if you normally don't. It seems to help. Keith has been making me drink it."



"Keith . . ." Edward said.



And Kyrie thought that he was going to accuse her of having an affair with Keith right after Tom had died, as if she'd made Tom any promises. And besides, she wasn't. Having an affair with Keith. She'd barely been aware of him here, to be honest, except for his making her eat and drink. And she thought he'd done the dishes once, because everything was out of place in the cupboard.



But Edward grimaced, and ran his hand back through his hair, just like Tom used to do. "Yeah, Keith has been coming to my hotel room every morning, too. And making me eat. He wrangled a key from the front desk somehow. I have no idea what the front desk people think is going on, and I'm afraid to ask." His grimace became an almost smile. "But he's kept me alive, I think. It didn't seem . . . to matter for a while."