“It costs a soul.” Her voice caught on the words, and she swallowed hard.
He lifted his glass in salute. “As is proper. If you take a life, you should have to give yours up as well. I couldn’t do that to my friend. But my reputation was failing. Word had gone out that I was so busy helping a miller’s daughter, I was neglecting my duties at the Summer Court. It was obvious that Samara wasn’t paying my usual prices. My competitors were moving in on my territory. I had to do something. And so when the king announced that if Samara would turn one last enormous room full of straw into gold, he would marry her, I agreed to help but only in exchange for something worth the cost of the wish.”
He stared at the pipe in Ari’s hands. “She offered her firstborn child. Neither of us thought it would come to that. She hated the king. If he married her, she planned to drink a tea each month that would keep her from becoming pregnant.”
Ari’s heart sank. “He married her, didn’t he? And despite her precautions, she became pregnant.”
Teague’s smile twisted something inside Ari that felt like grief. “She did. And when the baby was born, our blood-signed contract brought me to her bedside. She was heartbroken at the idea of giving up her daughter. I didn’t want to make her go through with it, but we were both bound by the contract.”
Ari’s skin tingled, and the hair on the back of her neck rose. “She found a way to break the contract.”
The polished marble of Teague’s voice cracked, and rage bubbled out. “I told her how. I trusted that she would use it to spare her daughter and set us both free of the contract. Instead, she used the power I’d given her to banish me from Llorenyae forever.”
Ari pressed her spine into the back of the couch as Teague stalked toward her, but there was nowhere for her to go. Crouching in front of her, he blinked, and the rage that had filled his face was gone, banked behind the ice he wore like a second skin.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Ari said, her voice shaking as badly as the hand that still held the pipe he’d carved to remind him of the friend who’d betrayed him.
“I’m not,” he said softly, his eyes on hers. “It reminded me not to get involved in the affairs of humans unless they could pay my prices. And in case I ever feel myself softening because someone comes along who looks like she keeps her promises”—he smiled at Ari, cruel and cold, and her throat closed until it felt impossible to breathe—“I simply pull out the pipe I had carved from Samara’s bones after I had her taken from Llorenyae, brought to my new home in Súndraille, and killed in front of me, and I remember that humans are liars who can never be fully trusted.”
The pipe fell from her fingers, and he caught it before it hit the floor. They watched each other in fraught silence for a long moment, and then he said, “It’s late. You should get some sleep.” He offered his hand to help her from the couch.
She flinched as she took it, cringing at the way his pale, smooth skin reminded her of the ivory stem of his pipe.
And then she left him holding his creepy pipe and staring after her as she climbed the stairs on shaking legs and wished desperately that she could lock her bedroom door.
THIRTY-NINE
TEAGUE TOOK A long puff on his pipe and stared out the library window at the night sky. Things were coming along nicely. Sebastian had made excellent progress on the tasks set before him, and now Teague had a newly organized workforce with the most obedient, most ruthless employees at the top, and five warehouses full of goods marked for shipment to various kingdoms. He’d offered to toast Sebastian’s accomplishments, but the boy, upon seeing that the princess was already in her rooms for the night, had opted to go to bed.
Not that it mattered. One bout of drinking with a human was enough. He’d had a bit too much wine, shared a bit more with the princess than he’d wanted to, but the fear on her face when she’d left him made it all worthwhile.
Yet another object lesson to keep her obediently under his thumb until his plan was finished.
Teague took another puff on his pipe and considered the excellent progress he’d made at the trade summit. He’d moved freely among the most powerful echelons of society, granting wishes and signing contracts that all promised to benefit him greatly. He’d whispered suggestions in the right ears and planted the seeds for a harvest of wishes he could collect in the very near future.
And he’d done it all with the silent blessing of young Thaddeus, who was frankly looking the worse for wear these days. Not that it mattered. Teague had Súndraille well in hand. His reputation for vicious public retribution and unrivaled power that even the king wouldn’t challenge had spread far and wide. And now he had influential nobility in three other kingdoms who owed him debts that required them to allow him to do in their cities what he was already doing in Kosim Thalas.
Tomorrow, he’d approach a few from Loch Talam and Balavata—those he’d identified today as weak enough and greedy enough to make a wish for their heart’s deepest desire without looking too hard at the consequences. And on the final day of the summit, he’d—
A brisk knock at the villa’s door interrupted his thoughts.
He tamped out his pipe and moved quickly toward the door.
Very few people knew where he lived. Even fewer would dare disturb him without his permission. Either this was a matter of dire importance, or someone was about to die.
He threw open the villa’s front door and stared at the man who stood on his porch, his large hand firmly wrapped around the arm of a petite girl with black curly hair.
Raising a brow, he met the man’s hard, calculating brown eyes—so like his son Sebastian’s except that they never softened. Never hinted at anything beyond the wide streak of viciousness that was the hallmark of Jacob Vaughn’s life.
“Jacob, I’ve been expecting your arrival for some time now.” He stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
“I wanted to come as soon as you sent word that Daan had been killed. But there was a situation with one of our brokers that had to be dealt with personally before I left Balavata. Some things you just can’t trust to an underling.” His voice was just as hard and calculating as his eyes.
“Indeed. And it seems you’ve brought me a present.” Teague turned from Jacob to smile slowly at the terrified expression on the girl’s face. “Cleo, isn’t it?”