The Bone Palace

chapter 4

Dawn stole past the windows as Isyllt and Ciaran soaked in her wide wooden tub, and candle-shadows danced across the high-beamed ceiling. Cooling water lapped over her breasts, thick with myrrh and poppy oils; Ciaran’s chest was warm and solid behind her, his clever hands lulling her as he stroked her uninjured shoulder. She’d drained one tub-full already, flushing grime and filth back to the sewers where they belonged. The wet bandage stung the wound, but vrykoloi bites healed fast, and her magic would kill any infection that tried to grow in her flesh.
Ciaran’s lips on her nape startled her awake as the world greyed around the edges. “You’ll drown if you’re not careful.” He nudged her until she sighed and pushed herself to her feet. Tendrils of hair clung to her skin as she rose, like ink bleeding from a brush.
“I should try to find their trail while the sun is up,” she said as he helped her out of the tub and wrapped her in a towel. His touch sent warmth and gooseflesh rippling down her skin in turns; the poison’s effects lingered.
“You should sleep, or you’ll pass out anyway.” He steered her toward the bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind them.
Heavy curtains covered the windows in her room and the hearth was cold. She climbed into the high draperied bed, heedless of wet sheets. Big enough for two, like the tub, but she most often slept alone. When she couldn’t find an excuse not to sleep at all.
Ciaran lay down beside her, wrapping a feather quilt around them. “Will you rest now, or do I have to sing you to sleep?”
Isyllt brushed light fingers over his face, tracing the bruise purpling on his brow. “I nearly got you hurt tonight.” Or worse. “I’m sorry.”
He caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. “If I was afraid of harm, I certainly wouldn’t keep company with you.” She felt his smile. “You can send my payment round to the Briar.” He kissed the hollow of her wrist, humming softly. “Are you going to sleep now?”
She smiled and twined her fingers through his curling damp hair. “Not if you keep doing that.”
He hummed another bar, trailing his lips up her arm to her collarbone. His mouth brushed the uninjured side of her throat and she tilted her head back, ignoring the pain. Her fingers tightened in his hair, her left hand sliding down his back.
She stiffened as her wards tingled. Ciaran chuckled, and she sighed and rolled out of bed, securing her slipping towel. Her stomach tightened as she recognized Kiril, and all the warmth Ciaran’s touch had conjured drained away in a rush.
“What are you doing about at this hour?” she asked as she opened the door, trying to keep her voice light. Her fingers clenched in nubby linen.
Kiril blinked down at her and frowned. He touched her shoulder, brushing the edge of the bandage. “What happened?”
“An unfriendly vampire.” The smell of herbs and magic dizzied her and she leaned into his touch before she could stop herself.
His brows pulled together and he cupped her cheek with one calloused palm. “Are you all right?”
“I will be.” She covered his hand with her crippled one. “They escaped, but I’ll try to pick up the trail after I’ve rested a bit.” His pulse beat against her skin and she tightened her grip on the towel. “It was them. The tomb-robbers. But I didn’t see their faces.”
“We’ll find them.” He turned his hand to catch hers, tracing his thumb over the web of scars she wore like a lace glove. “I won’t let you get hurt again.”
That made her laugh, despite the tightness in her stomach. “I get myself hurt. I learned from the best.”
He smiled ruefully. “True.” His eyes flickered toward the bedroom and the smile twisted. “I’m glad you have someone to look after you.”
“Kiril—” His name caught in her throat.
He squeezed her hand. “I know. I made my choices—I have no business regretting them now.”
“You can always unmake them.”
He laid a finger on her lips. “I’m sorry. I only came to see that you were all right, and to hear what you’d learned.” His face darkened as he touched the bandage again. “We’ll find the ones who did this.” He brushed a damp strand of hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. “But first, rest.”
He turned and left before she could speak.
Tears burned her aching eyes as Isyllt stumbled back to the bedroom. Ciaran pulled her close, stroking her tangled hair while she cried.
“Enough foolish grief for any tragedy,” she whispered against his shoulder.
He rocked her gently and sang her lullabies until she finally slept.
The sun crested the line of the eastern mountains as Kiril left Isyllt’s apartment, chasing away the blue softness of dawn and spilling long shadows across the ground. Fog coiled thick as milk in the streets, slowly unraveling in the light. Smoke drifted across the sky and temple bells tolled the start of morning rites, rousing faithful and faithless alike. The narrow arch of the rear entrance framed the sloping streets and sun-gilt spires, windows sparkling bright as gems. The beauty of the city at daybreak still caught in his throat sometimes, even after so many years. Much the way his hand ached with the memory of Isyllt’s cheek.
For all the familiar morning clatter, this corner of Archlight was too quiet for the hour. Besides the sorcerers who had ridden north with the king, there were always students who chose the uncertainty of a soldier’s life to the certainty of a scholar’s poverty. How many of those two hundred dead might have taken classes when they returned?
He should never have let Isyllt go underground. Which was ridiculous—besides the fact that she was well-trained and knew all the dangers, asking her not to take a risk would only make her more determined to do so. Telling her not to do her job would raise a dozen questions, each sharper than the last. And he had long forfeited the right to ask her to stay out of harm’s way for his sake.
Old fool. And more folly, his resolve still wavered every time he saw her. Three years of nothing but mentor and pupil, as they should have stayed from the beginning. Three years, and she still asked him to unmake his choice. He breathed deep, trying to banish the smell of her hair with the stink of the streets.
He had put her in danger from the very beginning, of course, from the moment he recruited her. Trained her and used her and sent her out to kill or be killed. His loyalty to the king had demanded it, and he never hesitated. She knew the price of the game, he’d told himself, she accepted it. But after the last assignment cost her a hand, and his own relationship with the king grew strained and bitter, he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t see her hurt that way again.
And now his secrets had nearly killed her once more.
He shook such worthless thoughts aside, focusing on the strain in his muscles instead, the creak of his knees as he climbed the winding staircased streets; regrets were useless. His chest burned by the time he reached his house on the far side of the quarter, but it was only the pain of tired lungs, not his traitorous heart. He’d owned the house for years, but only taken up residence the past spring, after the last disagreement with the king finally sealed the rift that had been growing for three years. Mathiros had never forgiven him for Lychandra’s death, for his failure to do the impossible. More bitter still were all the impossible things he had managed that the king had no knowledge of.
Leaves drifted across the broad steps, scarlet and gold against pale stone. They crunched like bone underfoot, clung to the hem of his cloak. Lucky that he’d always been lax about calling servants in, fonder of privacy than swept walks or polished banisters. Careless intrusion now would end badly. A raven perched on the carven lintel, watching him with one coldly curious eye.
The entry hall was dark, drapes and shutters drawn, but Kiril conjured no light as he climbed the curving marble stair. He knew he wasn’t alone before he reached the landing. The ease with which Phaedra passed his wards made his flesh crawl. No matter how softly he walked, the demoness heard him coming.
A fire crackled in the bedchamber hearth and Phaedra lounged on a divan beside it. Her veils lay across the foot of the couch in a shimmer of bronze and ocher silk, and black curls spilled unbound around her shoulders. It was such a meticulously artless arrangement that amusement overcame his irritation.
“Comfortable?” he asked, arching an eyebrow. The fire was too warm after the morning chill, but the cold pained her like an ague. He resisted the urge to throw open the shutters and heavy drapes.
“I am.” She stretched slowly, and he wondered if undead limbs could stiffen. “Though you’re nearly out of wine.” She waved a lazy hand toward the flagon on the table; bangles chimed on her wrist.
He bowed sardonically. “Forgive me. I’m not accustomed to entertaining these days.”
She looked up through eyelashes thick with kohl. “You keep me quite entertained, Kirilos.” Looking at her face was a knife between the ribs every time; he held her gaze for as many heartbeats as he could stand it.
Sorceress, demon, undead—she was treason clothed in stolen flesh. Once she had been a colleague, if never a friend. Now she was the greatest betrayal he had ever committed—of his king, his vows, the memory of those he’d loved. And perhaps most especially of his sanity. But it was his own fault she wore a stolen body; he had destroyed her own years ago.
He could tell himself that she would be in the city without his involvement, that people would still die for her schemes and he wouldn’t be there to stop her. It might even be true. But no one would ever forgive him this if they knew.
He turned before she might scry any hint of emotion on his face, tossing cloak and jacket across a chair. Heat bled quickly through his fine linen shirt, but that brought no comfort. He abandoned all of his tangled thoughts but the most pertinent.
“We have a problem.”
“Oh?” She sipped her wine, glancing at him over the rim of the goblet.
“Your pet vampires bungled things.” He made no attempt to keep the anger from his voice as he related what Isyllt had told him about the ring and the murdered girl and the attack in the sewers. Phaedra’s involvement with the vrykoloi had made him uneasy from the start, and now all his misgivings were given shape. One bloodthirsty demon was bad enough.
Phaedra frowned as she listened, a crease forming between arching black brows. Her eyebrows were much the same as those of her first face, and the prominent lines of her cheekbones. The thought unnerved him—had the resemblance always been there, or was it only a trick of memory? Her skin had been ice white then, her hair straight as a razor. He had never forgotten her face glowing with delight or pallid with anger, nor transfigured in horror as she fell. His hand clenched, as it had the day he’d let her fall.
He turned away from the chasm of memories, so sickened by them that he almost missed her words.
“Fools,” she said softly. “I knew she would be trouble, but not about the ring.”
He gathered his scattered wits. “What did you know?”
“About the girl. About the vrykolos’s… indiscretion with her.” Painted lips twisted. “I didn’t know he was fool enough to give her a royal signet, or I would have searched the body.”
Anger chilled him. “You killed her and didn’t have the sense to do something with the corpse? Even the river would have done the work for us.” He knew better than to antagonize her, but the next words slipped out anyway. “You killed an innocent girl because it was expedient?”
He had the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Then she uncoiled from the couch like an asp, and her eyes sparkled bright as Iskari amber. Demon eyes. “I learned from the best, didn’t I? And none of us were ever innocent. Isn’t that what you told yourself—what Mathiros told himself? That I had brought it on myself? Temptress, harlot, witch.”
Rusty orange skirts swirled around her ankles like a forest fire as she advanced on him, gilt thread flashing. Her perfume burned too, cinnamon and orange and bitter almonds, crawling into his nose. But her hand was cold when it closed on his jaw—no hearth was warm enough to chase the death-chill from her flesh.
“I never called you those things,” he said mildly, controlling his pulse when it wanted to leap. She could break his jaw without effort, and her magic was at least a match for his own—more so in his weakened state. If anyone deserved to take his life, it was Phaedra, but he had no intention of giving it to her.
“No.” Her touch melted from steel to silk, fingertips trailing down his neck, nails rasping against his beard. “No, not you. Do I tempt you now, Kirilos?”
“I have no taste for dead kisses.”
She leaned in, breasts cold and yielding against his chest. “I won’t be dead forever. I’ll be warm again. I can make you young and strong again, too.”
It was not the first time she’d offered; the prospect intrigued and repulsed him. He stepped away, carefully plucking her cold brown hand off his shirt collar. “Not if your schemes are blown before Mathiros returns. We must retrieve what was stolen. Before anyone else is hurt.”
Her mouth curled. “Why aren’t you with your apprentice now, if her health concerns you so?”
“She has others to tend to her.”
She circled him, slow and predatory, running her fingers down his spine. “Poor Kiril. I don’t understand this celibacy of yours.”
“I can’t imagine you often worry about sparing others pain.” Or sparing herself pain, for that matter.
A knock at the door downstairs and the accompanying chime of wards spared them both. Kiril recognized the inquisitive touch of magic and released the lock with a thought, sealing it again after the door had shut.
Varis appeared a moment later, framing himself in the doorway for a beat before stepping into the room. He had always been good with entrances, Kiril thought wryly, and even better with exits. Today he wore a coat of claret velvet with silver embroidery thick on the sleeves and dove grey trousers and high boots. Restrained for him, but it was also much earlier than he usually came visiting. When he moved closer, Kiril saw fatigue shadows beneath his maquillage.
Varis cocked one penciled brow, looking pointedly from Kiril to Phaedra and back again. Garnets glittered in his ears, and white lace rose from beneath his high velvet collar to frame the line of his jaw. “This is a fraught little tableau. Am I interrupting something?”
“Nothing,” Kiril said with a sigh, sinking into the chair on top of his crumpled cloak, “except the litany of our sins.”
A flick of Varis’s slender wrist dismissed those. His rings flashed, pigeon’s blood ruby and orange sapphire, lesser emeralds and topazes, but no diamonds; Varis was one of the cleverest mages Kiril knew, but never a vinculator. “I hear sins and litanies every night, darling. Surely you have something more interesting.”
Not for the first time, Kiril wished that it hadn’t been Varis who’d brought Phaedra to him. If she could only have snared someone else in her schemes, someone he wouldn’t miss if forced to kill. But Varis had always been fascinated by her, and just as fascinated by secrets and clever sorcery and flaunting rules. And he had his own reasons to despise the Alexioi.
Kiril recounted again everything Isyllt had told him about the investigation. He didn’t mention Phaedra’s involvement in the prostitute’s death, though he wasn’t sure exactly why—it wasn’t as though Varis had innocence to preserve. He expected another flippant response, but by the time he finished Varis had paled to a sickly shade of paste.
“Saints and specters,” he whispered. “So that’s it. Damn.” He began to pace, short measured strides scuffing against carpets and clicking on tile. “Your apprentice told the prince, and the prince told Savedra.”
Kiril’s spine stiffened. “Told her what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Everything, I imagine. She was asking about vampires yesterday, with much too convenient an excuse.” He stopped his circuit and flung himself into another chair. Phaedra watched him with an expression somewhere between amusement and befuddlement and Kiril nearly laughed—Varis had that effect on people. The pale sorcerer sighed, rubbing a hand over his scalp. “We know entirely too many inquisitive people.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Phaedra promised. Kiril didn’t have the energy left to argue with her.
Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the hearth. They were, Kiril thought, an unlikely conspiracy. Varis was known for his dissipation and excess, and despite a brief assignment at the Selafa?n embassy in Iskar over twenty years ago no one imagined he might have a political thought in his head. No one remembered or cared about the rumors that had attended his birth: his mother had held the old king’s regard, and been removed from court too hastily; her marriage to her cousin Tselios had also been too hasty, especially to account for Varis’s birth; Nikolaos Alexios had had the same pale blue eyes, so uncommon in Selafa?ns. It could have been the makings of a terrible scandal, but had faded instead into obscurity.
It had taken more than rumor control and royal unconcern to keep Phaedra Severos quietly obscure. She had been a prominent fixture at the Arcanost, famed for her beauty and brilliance and mercurial temper. Her death, and that of her foreign noble husband, would have meant not scandal but ruin for the young Mathiros had the truth of them ever been found out. Preventing that had taken all of Kiril’s resources, and the greatest magic he had ever wrought. He had been paying off the debt of it for three years now, but it had worked: no one outside this room remembered Phaedra, or had any concern about her if they did.
The way no one would remember him. History cared for kings and princes and their scandals, but spymasters were brushed quietly away with dust and pen shavings. The most effective were never known at all. As it ought to be.
“Speaking of care,” Varis said, distracting Kiril from the bitter spiral of his thoughts, “we can’t let you wander around dressed like that.” A wave of his hand encompassed Phaedra’s gown and shed veils. “You’re years out of style, and unseasonal besides.”
“We can’t let her wander around at all,” Kiril said, even as Phaedra plucked at her dress—sleeveless gauzy silk belted below her breasts—with a frown. The shade of orange should have flattered, but her brown skin was unhealthily pale, like tea with too much milk. Or dead flesh through which no blood flowed.
“Things happen,” Varis replied, “as your story so clearly illustrates. It’s impossible that she won’t be seen eventually—we need to make sure that when she is she doesn’t look like a mad vengeful ghost from one of Kolkhis’s tragedies.”
Kiril opened his mouth to argue—And never mind, he thought, that that’s exactly what she is—but Phaedra’s eyes had already widened, shining with manic light. He remembered her wild moods from her first life; death had done nothing to settle them. Some physicians thought that her particular combination of mania, black despair, and violent temper was an illness, an imbalance of humors or aethers. But if it were a physical malady, shouldn’t it have died with her first body? A defect of the soul, perhaps? Or was she simply so used to being mad that it had become habit?
He set the problem aside—he had no time to write a dissertation about her, however fascinating it would be. By now she and Varis were deep in a conversation about fashion and milliners, and how one could be properly fitted without showing one’s face. This was an argument he wouldn’t win, and he had no strength to waste on it. He rose, wincing as his joints popped, and left them to their folly. The demon might have finished his wine, but hopefully she’d left the whiskey in the study intact.
Isyllt woke to a fire dying in the hearth and warm light edging the curtains. Ciaran’s spiced-smoke scent clung to her sheets, but the bed was cold and the house echoed empty to her outstretched senses. Gone back to the Briar Patch to sing for his supper.
Supper seemed a sensible plan—rat’s teeth of hunger gnawed her stomach, and her mouth was parched and aching, but inspection of her pantry found nothing but a bunch of shriveling grapes and a heel of bread gone green around the edges. She’d neglected the market again. If the landlady’s daughter didn’t occasionally offer to go for her, Isyllt suspected she’d starve.
Uncovering her bathroom mirror did nothing to cheer her; her hair hung in rattails around her face and dried tears crusted her lashes. Her eyes were bruised and sunken and her shoulder throbbed. Her bones felt scraped hollow. After running another bath and combing her hair with poppy oil to banish the phantom sewer-stink, she removed the bandage from her shoulder and examined the wound.
A double crescent of teeth-marks, bruised and seeping. More savage than a human could inflict, but not quite animal in shape. Her neck and shoulder were swollen, and the flesh and muscle around the bite ached more furiously than the punctures. Her cheeks were already mottling with fever as her magic fought infection. When it healed, it would be nearly identical to the scar Spider had given her.
Staring at the twin bites, an idea sparked bright enough to make her swear. She swore again as she threw the silk cover back over the mirror, and several times more as she struggled into her clothes. By the time she was dressed, the pain in her shoulder dizzied her and sunset painted low clouds gilt and cinnabar. Not enough daylight to brave the sewers, but early enough that she might still catch Khelséa at her cohort’s headquarters.
Two hours later, she and the inspector sat in the Sepulcher once more. Isyllt sat, at least, perched on the table next to Forsythia while Khelséa measured both bite wounds. The dead woman was holding up well with the chill and a light preservation spell, but someone else in the racks had started to go off; Isyllt wondered if anyone who worked here could enjoy the smell of roses again.
“This is how you tread lightly?” Khelséa said, angling for better light.
Isyllt winced as calipers pressed tender flesh. “It’s progress. I found the bastards, didn’t I?”
“Next time try holding on.” Khelséa turned away, scribbling measurements and rough sketches on a scrap of paper. “These two are definitely different. Your old scar and Forsythia’s don’t match, either.”
“What about the new one?”
Her dark face creased in a frown. “The distension from the swelling”—at this she poked the swelling in question hard enough to make Isyllt yelp—“makes it difficult to get a clear comparison.” She tapped her stick of charcoal against the paper. “But the canines seem to be the same distance apart, and the shape of the jaw is similar. I can’t be certain until you’ve healed a bit, but they may well be from the same vampire.”
“So I found Forsythia’s lover. Charming.” Isyllt let Khelséa replace the dressing, then tugged her shirt up again. “Which explains how she came by the ring, but not how or why—or where—she died.” Her stomach growled as she slid off the table.
“No question how you’ll die,” Khelséa said. “If stupidity doesn’t get you, starvation will.”
“Misadventure, darling, misadventure. So you’re buying dinner, then?”
Most of Inkstone closed at night, but a few taverns and kiosks stayed open for late-working bureaucrats. Isyllt and Khelséa sat beneath a vendor’s awning with plates of olives, bread, and cheese. The air was sluggish with haze, blurring the edges of buildings and bleeding golden halos from the streetlamps.
“What next?” the inspector asked, neatly sucking the flesh off an olive.
Isyllt frowned at her food. Even chewing made her shoulder hurt. “Back to the sewers, I suppose. I have to find the bastard who bit me, and the rest of the stolen jewels.”
“I hope you’re taking more than a minstrel with you this time.”
“Are you volunteering?”
Khelséa’s eyebrows rose. “Can you think of anyone else you trust?”
Maybe Kiril was right. Maybe it was time she took an apprentice. She ripped off a piece of bread and chewed, ignoring the pain. Relishing it.
A shadow fell across the table before she had to answer. She looked up at a tall cloaked figure, face lost beneath a cowl. A stripe of light kissed one pale cheekbone as he tilted his head, and the rich taste of goat cheese turned metallic as blood on Isyllt’s tongue. Her right hand clenched around the diamond’s chill.
“Good evening.” Spider nodded to Khelséa before turning his attention to Isyllt. “I’ve missed the chance to ask you to dinner, but perhaps I can buy you a drink.”
Khelséa tensed, one hand vanishing beneath the table. She might not be a mage, but she had a good nose for danger. Isyllt caught her arm, feeling muscles flex as the inspector reached for her pistol. “It’s all right.”
The woman’s dark eyes flickered from Spider to Isyllt and back again, shining with skepticism in the lamplight. “Misadventure?”
“Exactly.” Isyllt stood, reaching for her purse. “I’ll talk to you before I do anything stupid.”
Khelséa’s hand caught hers, forcing coins back into the bag. “I’m buying, remember. Next time.”
Isyllt nodded, and regretted it quickly. She followed Spider down the dark and misty street, feeling Khelséa’s eyes on her back until they turned a corner.
“What kind of drink did you have in mind?” she asked. She walked slowly, leisurely, but her nerves thrummed with his nearness. Their first altercation had been a misunderstanding, but he made no secret of his appetites. The truce forbade killing, but there were always people who disappeared in a city as large as Erisín. And those like Forsythia, willing to bleed for love or money.
His chuckle made her shiver. “How’s your shoulder?”
“I’ll live.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “He didn’t bite as hard as you.”
He laughed again and took her arm, covering her hand with his. Grey gloves hid his claws, supple as snakeskin and as cold. But only as cold as the night, not the aching chill of death. She touched his arm; it might almost have been living flesh.
“You’re warm. Who did you kill tonight?”
He arched an eyebrow. “There are always willing donors. You should try it.”
She rolled her eyes toward her wounded shoulder. “No thank you.”
“It doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”
She ignored him, and felt his shoulders shake with amusement. They managed to walk comfortably together despite his gangling height. The vrykolos’ magic was a subtle thing compared to human sorcery: instinctual, blood-born instead of studied. It crawled over her skin, wrapping her in his glamour. Alien, but not—as he said—unpleasant. She tried to push the thought aside. She’d slept with a demon once, but she didn’t need to make a habit of it. The Arcanost didn’t look fondly on those who did.
The vrykoloi were unusual among demons. Among the Arcanost’s countless classifications of spirits they were katechontoi—possessors—and more specifically moriens—the possessors of the dead. But they were nothing like the shambling monstrosities that came of unburied corpses. They hungered, but with wit and intellect instead of mindless drive and animal cunning; they lived together in societies instead of warrens, and they had their own secrets and rituals that no living scholar had learned. It was nearly curiosity enough to let Isyllt forget how dangerous Spider was.
Streets wound and twisted like dark ribbons through the city’s core. Elaborate stonework decorated the quarter—gargoyles crouched on roofs, their snarling faces smoothed by years of wind and rain, and lichen-skinned nymphs danced in fountains. Here and there ancient graveyards nestled snug between buildings, tombs worn nameless with time; they had stood before the city sprawled so far, and the builders had simply wrapped the streets around them. Autumn leaves dripped from trees, skittering in the breeze and piling in the gutters till feet and hooves crushed them against the stones.
They left Inkstone, winding deeper and deeper into the city’s heart, where the streets were still busy so late. No one spared them a glance. Spider made no sound as he walked; if not for the strength of his arm in hers, she would have thought him no more substantial than a shadow.
She recognized the path he followed just before they turned into a dark alley mouth. Even so, her shoulder throbbed a warning as they stepped into the shadows. Spider felt her hesitation and smiled, a flash of ivory teeth.
The alley ended at an iron door set in a rough stone wall. Rust traced twisting spirals across the metal, dripped down the frame like dry blood. But for all its age, the door opened soundlessly beneath Spider’s hand. A narrow stair led down, lit at the bottom by dim red light. Smoky air wafted up, redolent of poppies and wine and warm human skin. Spider stood aside, gesturing Isyllt ahead of him.
Kiril had brought her here years before on an investigation. As much to entertain her, she thought later, as for the information they found. The place had been hallowed ground once, a section of catacombs, before a demon infestation led to the burning of the temple and the tombs below. Shops had been built aboveground, but the charred tunnels below remained. Old spells whispered to her as she descended, traces of long-broken magic lingering in the stones.
The patrons called it Sanctuary now, only half joking. It was known for the quality of its wine and opium, and for the darkness of its tables. It was a haven for well-off criminals and those who played at spies. And maybe those who did more than play. Interesting things could be overheard there, if one listened carefully enough.
She stepped out of the stairwell into a long, low room. Music drifted through the air, haunting pipes and low throbbing drums, the musicians hidden behind carved sandalwood screens. Red and violet lanterns stained the smoky haze that shrouded the ceiling. Isyllt stifled a sneeze.
Spider steered her through the foyer to a velvet-curtained alcove. His hooded cloak was standard attire for this place—Isyllt’s bare face and hair felt much too exposed. She kept her hands in her coat pockets, concealing the telltale stone and equally telling injury.
Dark wood paneled the booth, and the light of the single candle slid like water across its well-oiled surface. Spider shrugged back his cloak, revealing a coat of worn grey brocade. By candlelight his face was the color of yellowed bone.
A young woman appeared to take their order. If she noticed that Spider wasn’t human, she gave no sign. An abundance of tact, Isyllt wondered, or were demons really so common in the city? It would have bothered her to think so once, but for the past two and a half years she’d held a steady correspondence with a demon. He sent her presents every summer.
“Have you learned anything?” Isyllt asked when the girl was gone, turning her attention back to the demon across from her. She leaned back against the cushioned seat and crossed her legs.
He waved a hand. “Have some patience, witch. Can’t I enjoy your company for a moment without discussing business? It’s vulgar.”
Isyllt scooped a spoonful of crushed lavender and anise from a bowl on the table and poured it onto the nicked and polished boards. Dusty sweetness filled the air as she traced a sigil of silence through the powdered seeds and flowers. “A vampire lectures me on manners?” She rolled her eyes. “Besides, my company can’t be that enjoyable.”
He leaned forward, crystalline eyes abruptly serious. “You’ve seen my home. Do you think I don’t want something different now and then?” He took her hand, caressing her palm with one gloved thumb. “Do you think I don’t yearn for a little warmth?” His fingers strayed to the hollow of her wrist.
She tugged her hand free. “Yes, wet and pumping from an artery.”
He chuckled, low and dark. “That too.”
The serving girl returned with a tray of liquor and food. Spider pressed coins into her hand and pulled the curtain shut behind her.
“Vulgar business first,” Isyllt said, “or you’ll feel the warmth of Mathiros’s torches.”
Spider sighed. “As you wish.” He uncorked the bottle and a heady green scent filled the alcove. The liquor was the same murky green as the verdigris for which it was named.
Isyllt raised her narrow glass, breathing in bittersweet spices. The fumes burned her sinuses, and the first sip seared her throat with viridian fire and made her eyes prickle. The burn eased into a lingering sweetness and she sighed. “As you were saying?”
Spider turned his glass between long fingers. “What Tenebris said about rabble is true, but there’s more to the matter than that.” He stared at his untasted drink, strands of cobweb-fine hair drifting in front of his face. “You saw her—sluggish as a snake in winter. That’s what happens to us when we age.”
Isyllt took a cube of herb-veined cheese from the tray and waited. For a moment she wondered if he’d lapsed into hibernation himself.
“Aphra and Tenebris only want to sleep, and they would gladly bury the rest of us in their tomb as well, deny us the light. This doesn’t sit well with some of the young ones.”
“So they stray from the fold?” She sipped verdigris, its fire filling her stomach and licking through her veins. At least Spider had good taste.
He nodded, eyes glittering yellow in the candlelight. “Some run off, commit whatever foolishness catches their fancy.”
“Like mortal lovers and tomb-robbing.” She split a date with one fingernail and plucked out the pit. “What do the others do?” she asked, swallowing the sticky-sweet flesh.
He turned serious again—she preferred him mocking. “Some of us want to change things.”
Isyllt raised her eyebrows. “You sound like a revolutionary.”
He stretched closer, folding his long body over the table. “I do.”
A laugh caught in her throat and crumbled dry as dust. Her left hand curled before she could stop it, till healed fractures and silver-pinned tendon ached. She still had nightmares sometimes, though she never admitted them to anyone—dreams of the knife that stole her hand, and the blood and ash that followed.
“Let the elders sleep away the centuries,” he continued. “I’m tired of hiding in the dark, away from the wind and sky, not able to walk the streets for fear of torches and silver.”
Isyllt met his eyes, the impossible yellow of sulfur and buttercups. “You’re serious.”
“I am. I want your help.”
He reached for her hand again, but she pulled back and refilled her glass instead. “Why? What could I do?”
“You have influence in the overground. You know the king.”
She shook her head, and hardly felt her wounded shoulder through the warmth of alcohol in her too-thin blood. “Barely, and through unpleasant circumstances. I don’t have his ear.”
Spider shrugged. “You know those who do. The spirits whisper about you, you know. I’m not the only demon you’ve allowed to live, am I? You treat us like something more than abominations to be destroyed.”
“My service to the Crown sometimes calls for strange bedfellows. But the Arcanost and the temples rule the mages of Erisín, and neither of them countenance demons.”
“They might be made to learn. I want to renew the truce, on better terms.”
“The truce will fall to pieces as soon as Mathiros returns.”
“We’ll catch the thieves, return what was stolen. Find the ones who hurt you.” He took her hand again, held it tight. “We can help each other.”
Verdigris scorched her throat, hitting her stomach with a burst of heat. Her voice was raw when she spoke. “Help me catch the thieves, and we’ll continue this conversation.” It was a lie, she told herself. She couldn’t get involved for so many reasons, not the least of which were her nightmares. But she wasn’t about to admit that.
He lifted her hand to his cold lips. “I knew I could count on you.”
“Show me progress before you add me to your revolution.”
His smile gleamed. “Don’t worry. They’re rabble, as Tenebris said. We’ll track them down.”
“Tonight? The trail is likely already cold.”
“You’re wounded and need rest. Tomorrow we can hunt.” He tilted his head, watched her from under pale lashes. “I thought perhaps we could continue another conversation tonight.”
She shivered. Her blood was spice and fire; the smoky air dizzied her. “You still want to show me your scars?”
“Among other things.”
Isyllt laughed, trying to ignore the tightness in her stomach. Too much drink, too little food. Too much old grief. She should find Ciaran, find somewhere warm….
Spider raised her hand to his lips again, rough tongue flicking over one fingertip. She shuddered, but didn’t pull away. A fang pierced her skin. She closed her eyes, biting her tongue to stay silent.
Spider released her. A jewel-bright drop of blood glistened on his lip. “You look sad, little witch. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “History.”
He unfolded himself from the seat, holding out a hand. “I’ll help you forget it.”
“No one can do that.” She brought her palm down on the scattered charm, hard enough to sting and rattle the cups. The music and soft murmur of voices washed over them again, deafening after their absence. She pushed past him, pride and practice keeping her pace steady when she wanted to stumble.
She bumped shoulders with a cloaked patron on her way past and murmured a hasty apology. Pale blue eyes flashed in the shadow of a hood as the man glanced at her and she nearly swore; she would have to pass a gossipmonger like Varis Severos with her face uncovered.
She scrubbed away a glaze of tears when she reached the top of the stairs, cursing herself for a dozen types of fool. The damp night air was a welcome relief from the haze below. Spider caught up with her before she left the alley.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It isn’t your fault.” When she didn’t turn, his hands settled on her upper arms, cool and light. She wanted to lean into him; after a heartbeat, she did. It was foolish, worse than foolish. But his touch set her magic tingling, and maybe warm and safe weren’t what she needed tonight.
She led him through her wards. She led him to her bed.
Candlelight warmed his skin to the color of old ivory; shadows pooled in the hollow of his chest, the valleys between his ribs. White ridges of scars crisscrossed his abdomen where her silver blade had opened his flesh. She remembered the blows that had caused them: two before he struck—reflex at stumbling on an unexpected demon—and the third and deepest after, to drive him off. They had managed to sort the situation out before any more became necessary.
“Dead thing,” Isyllt whispered, laying a hand over his silent heart. The scholarly portion of her mind noted the lack of function in undead sex organs, which was only sensible. The rest of her was distracted by the feather-light touch of his claws.
“Necromancer.” He pulled the pins from her hair and its weight slithered down her back. The smell of poppy oil mingled with serpentine musk. “A good match, I think.”
She took a hairpin from him—silver, and sharp—and pressed the tip to his breast. He made a low noise in his throat as skin popped and a dark bead of blood welled. It tasted of death and anise, bittersweet and tingling on her tongue. Spider laughed and pushed her down against the pillows.
She snuffed the candle with a thought; his skin and glittering eyes were the brightest things in the room. She closed her eyes and let the dark take her, darkness and cold and the heat of poisoned kisses.
Kiril came awake with a start, eyes sharpening against the dark as magic crackled around his fingers. A breeze stirred the drapes and a pale stripe of moonlight fell across the end of the bed, silhouetting the slender shape standing there. The shadow moved, and orange demon eyes sparked.
His breath left in a hiss and his hands clenched. “Phaedra—” He rarely spoke her name; it felt strange in his mouth.
The bed shifted under her weight. His throat closed as she settled against him. Her conflagrant perfume had faded to spice and embers; beneath that she smelled faintly of meat, and of nothing.
“I’m lonely, Kiril,” she whispered. Not a seductive whisper, but a lost and childlike one. “So lonely.”
Maybe it was the darkness sparing him her face, or that his defenses were still scattered from sleep. Maybe it was the need in her voice, in her fingers closing in his nightshirt. Maybe it was his own grief and guilt. His arm tightened around her.
“I know.”
“I loved Ferenz. For all my foolish sins, I loved him. He died because of me, and all the vengeance in the world won’t bring him back.”
There was no answer for that save the obvious. He stroked her hair instead. So alien, the press of dead flesh. Of any flesh. There had been no one else in the three years since he broke with Isyllt. She had been all bone-thin angles and clinging sea-wrack hair, sharp-nailed and biting. Phaedra was fuller, softer, stomach and breasts ripened by age and childbirth. He couldn’t control a shudder, so strong he thought his flesh would crawl from his bones.
Phaedra made a choked little sound. “Is it so awful to touch me?”
“Yes. But not because… of what you are.” He wanted her close and vulnerable if he was to stop her; he pretended that was why he let the words leave his tongue. “You are the worst thing I’ve ever done. Out of a lifetime of murder and lies and schemes. You are the unforgivable deed.”
“Do you want my forgiveness? Are you asking for it?”
“I could never do that.”
“No. You never would.” She buried her head in the crook of his neck; no breath stirred his skin until she spoke. “Hold me. Please. I have bad dreams.”
He didn’t believe in forgiveness, or atonement. But he held the demon in his arms and stroked her hair until she grew heavy and still. And, eventually, after the moonlight had crawled away and died, he slept too.
He stands on a tower of grey stone, overlooking a dizzying drop. The hands on the crenellated stone are not his, but white and slender and ringed with gold and rubies, laced with fine scars. Black hair whips around his face; the stomach beneath heavy skirts has barely begun to round.
The dream is not his own. He knows that, even as it ensnares him. He might escape it, but perhaps he believes in penance, if not atonement.
Far below, beneath the castle walls and the sheer plunge of cliff, the Ardos? River runs cold and wild. The wind tastes of snow, and slices to the bone as it rushes down the winter-dark slopes of the Varagas Mountains. Riders approach from the south, faint with distance on the winding road. They will be here soon.
He turns, trapped in her flesh as he is trapped in her memories, to face the man standing behind them. Ferenz Darvulesti. Tall and lean and hawk-nosed, with deep-set green eyes shadowed by heavy brows. A warrior, swathed in leather and fur and mail with a sword at his hip, but his hands are gentle as they close on Kiril-and-Phaedra’s arms. He speaks, but no sound accompanies the shaping of his lips. There is no sound at all, not even the wind. Only the empty and aching silence of what is past and gone.
The man kisses them twice. Once hungrily, pulling them close till cold steel links bite their flesh. And again, soft as a snowflake on the brow. A kiss of benediction, or forgiveness. Then he turns and strides down the frost-rimed steps, knuckles white around his sword hilt.
Phaedra-and-Kiril raise a hand, and a cloud of ravens bursts from a lower rooftop, fighting the wind on soundless black wings to reach them. They have their own defenses to marshal, even as Ferenz readies his soldiers below. The riders draw ever nearer; this will end soon, one way or another.
*   *  *
Kiril woke to dawnlight and an ache like cold iron in his chest. He could still feel the wind’s bite, the press of rough lips on his mouth. The weight and softness of foreign limbs.
He needed no oneiromancy to parse the meaning of it. A true dream, a memory, bleeding out of Phaedra and into his mind. Whether she did it on purpose as punishment, or whether the pain of recollection was simply too strong to contain, he couldn’t say.
He might have asked her, but the bed was empty beside him, save for the ghost of cinnamon in the wrinkled sheets and a strand of black hair wrapping his fingers like a fetter.