Cruel Beauty

“But,” I said, and hated my wavering voice. Relief should not feel like fear.

“What?” He was already a pace out the door, but he leaned back in, a few stray locks of dark hair swinging in his eyes. “Already disappointed in your marriage?”

I swallowed. “Well. I had expected more ravishing on my wedding night.”

“I’m your husband. I can wait as long as I please and still have all of you.”

The nightgowns in my wardrobe were made of lace and gauze, cut so they would cling to the body and part in unexpected slits. I rummaged through them until I found a dressing gown of butter-soft red silk. It didn’t even have buttons, just a sash, but at least it was not transparent. Then I paced back and forth without putting it on. Ignifex had as good as said he wouldn’t visit me tonight, but it was my wedding night. What else would he do?

Then again, he wasn’t human. Who knew what he thought about marriage?

My head snapped up at a flicker of motion: it was Shade, sliding along the silver-and-white wall into the room. My whole body was suddenly alive with tension; until this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I had started to believe I would be spared.

“My lord husband needs me again so soon?” I demanded.

Shade wavered a moment and went still.

“Or are you here to prepare me for him?” I crossed my arms to hide how my hands were shaking. “Because what you see now is all your master will get.” Ignifex could strike me down whenever he pleased, but until then I refused to bend.

Shade stepped away from the wall.

For the first step he was only a dark cloud in the suggestion of a human form. Then blobs of darkness branched into fingers and frayed into hairs; they lightened and then grew solid. When he stood at the foot of my bed, he looked almost like a normal man, living and breathing and corporeal. Almost: for he was still formed in shades of gray. His tattered coat was the color of slate, his skin was milky white, his hair was pale silver-gray. Only his eyes were colored, such a deep blue as I had never seen before, their pupils round and human.

His face was sculpted into exactly the same lovely shape as Ignifex’s. But without the crimson cat eyes, without any arrogance or mockery in the lines of his face or the way that he stood, it took me a moment to notice the resemblance.

“You . . .” I was hugging myself now. “How did you . . .”

He gestured at the clock ticking away on my wall.

“Because it’s night?”

He nodded, pointed at the door, and held out a hand. The invitation was clear.

It was one thing for a demon lord to have a living shadow. It even seemed possible for that shadow to take human form at night. But Shade’s eyes were human—and blue, like the true sky that I had only read about. For one foolish instant, I wanted to trust those eyes. I started to reach for his hand.

Then I remembered where I was, and whose face he wore.

“So you can put on his face,” I said. “That means you’re just another part of him.” I dropped trembling hands to my sides and straightened up as proudly as I could. “If you’ve come to ravish me, you will have to do it here, my lord. I will not follow you anywhere.”

His mouth tightened. Then he strode forward; as I flinched back, he dropped to his knees before me in a deep obeisance. He kissed my foot and laid his hands against my knees: the ancient posture of supplication.

Then he looked up at me, his blue eyes wide and desperate.

Once, as a child, I had sat with my ear pressed against the grandfather clock in the sitting room as it tolled noon. The peals didn’t ring through my head; they rang through my entire body, from the bones in my arms to the air in my lungs, until I was nothing but a helpless vibration alongside them.

It felt the same way now. For a short, trackless time I couldn’t move or breathe; I could only stare down at his pale face, his half-parted lips, and echo the thought over and over: He is begging me.

I remembered Ignifex, his arrogance and easy power. He would never beg me for anything. No demon would, unless threatened with the most terrible of fates, and I had no power to harm Shade.

Whatever this creature was, he could not be any part of Ignifex. He could not be a demon. He was a prisoner like me.

I grasped his hands. His skin was cool and dry, surprisingly solid; I could feel the flex of bones and tendons underneath.

To spurn a suppliant was deeply impious; the ritual was as old as hospitality and just as sacred. But that wasn’t why I pulled him to his feet. I knew what I ought to do, of course, but I was already doomed enough that I didn’t much fear the wrath of the gods. When I looked into Shade’s eyes, what I thought was, If he is a prisoner, then he could be an ally.

The Gentle Lord betrayed by his own shadow. I liked that thought.

I still didn’t entirely trust him, but following him was not an act of trust. It was a bet.

“Show me,” I said. “I’m here to die anyway.”

A smile ghosted across his pale face, and his fingers tightened around mine; again I was surprised how human his skin felt. Then he let go and strode away, his bare feet whispering against the floor. A floorboard creaked beneath him, shockingly corporeal, and I flinched. Then I followed him.

After all, I had told him the truth. I was not here to survive.

He led me down the dim corridors of the house; some were lit by pale moonlight slanting through the windows, for the silver-plated moon—as false as the sun—glinted round and full in the night sky. Some rooms had Hermetic lamps or crackling torches. Some had no lights or windows, or—disturbingly—had windows that looked out on utter blackness. In these rooms he snapped his fingers and a little curl of light appeared beside him.

We went back to the ballroom we had passed through earlier. I recognized it by the gilt moldings on the walls, for in the darkness I could not see the ceiling—and the floor was utterly changed. Gone were the mosaics; gone was the floor. Instead, still water filled the room from end to end, deep blue with white-gold glitters—for swirling above the water were tiny pinpricks of light.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

Shade caught my hand again and drew me forward. I followed him two halting steps, expecting my feet to splash into the water-but instead the soles of my feet touched something cool, firm, and smooth, like glass. I looked down: the water rippled around our feet but held our weight. So we walked to the center of a midnight lake and watched the lights swirl around us like a flock of birds.

But as lovely as it was, I could not lose myself in the sight.

“You did not clasp my knees just to show me a pretty view.” I glanced at Shade. He stared away from me, out over the water. “I would bet you risked his wrath to bring me here, too. Why?”

He turned to me then, his colorless face remote. Swiftly and firmly, he seized one of my hands and pressed it against my heart.

The breath stopped in my throat. There was no noise at all but my heartbeat.

He touched my hand over my heart, then gestured at the water around us. It was a riddle, one he was beseeching me to crack, and if only I could think beyond those blue eyes and my pulse pounding in my throat—

And I realized it was not my pulse: it was the heartbeat of a Hermetic working. I had spent hours in Father’s laboratory, finding the four hearts of countless workings, until I could do it in moments with my eyes closed. But that was different. Father’s workings had thready little pulses that hammered swiftly until they snapped, like tiny, fevered clockwork. This was a slow cycle of power, like the circulation of blood inside my body, the turning of sap within a tree.

And I knew.

My breath shuddered into me. I dropped my hand, staring at him. “This is the Heart of Water.”