Chapter Twelve #3
My heart almost stops, and, tearing my gaze away from the emptiness of the woman’s eyes, the spell she’s laid over me unwinds. Fear dulls everything but her. She’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Compared to her, he is almost benign.
I look back at him, his lips barely a frown, and catch how his face pulls back up into a pleasant mask so quickly I wonder if I’d imagined the way he stared at her.
Maybe I just wish he’d find someone to hate more than me.
But if she’s forcing him—or encouraging him—to do something he doesn’t want to do, maybe he really does hate her.
“If you like, my queen.” He shrugs to the woman. “Though I’m finding the amusement rather diverting.”
“As you wish.” She ducks her head, yet the coy bow of her smile belies the action; she is in power here, not him. She could pluck me from this very spot right now, and he would have no say. I know this implicitly.
“Now,” she addresses him, “I came for a reason.”
The demon makes to stand from his chair, but she waves him down.
“Sit,” she tells him, then trails her fingers down my cheekbone so that goosebumps dot my body. “I’m not staying long.”
She won’t take me. She won’t take me. And I can’t deny a twinge in me, on me—through me—that is sorry. What kind of power does she—and the red slippers—possess that makes reason so completely fall away?
“What can I do for you?” he asks her, completely ignoring me. I glance back at Mr. Brown, seated at the piano. Quiet, rigid. He doesn’t look at the woman, at any of us. The air tastes of fear, secrets I’m not privy to. I’ve never seen Mr. Brown appear timid before.
The woman turns her attention from me again to the demon, saying in a pouty voice, “I need a new valet, and I’d like you to find one for me. I simply don’t have time.”
“What about Gregor?”
“He became so tedious in the end, I couldn’t stand it.”
“What happened to him?”
She gives a bored sigh, picking at her sharpened fingernails. “He was tossed out.”
He raises an eyebrow. “In pieces?”
Her soft laugh is like tinkling bells, like a shower of stars from the sky, like the sound a delicate lily would make if it were human.
I find myself leaning a little closer even as my befuddled brain makes sense of the words.
In pieces. My stomach drops, and I force myself not to visibly shake.
In my nightmare state, I witnessed him slit two people’s throats, but even that’s not as bad as what she’s saying.
What’d she do—hack the poor man into pieces or rip him apart?
Or, she had someone else do it. Someone else who works for her, like the demon does.
He referred to her as a queen. He bowed to her. She has power I can hardly comprehend.
She made him kill someone yesterday. And maybe too, that couple asleep in their bed. It couldn’t be helped, meaning he cannot tell her no. Meaning he didn’t want to do it. And the way he brushed me off as nothing more than entertainment, in that casual way.
Why do I have the strange, unsettling sense that he’s protecting me from her?
Spinning away, she strolls around. “Orrin, you know me too well, darling. Anyway, please don’t dally. I need someone soon. A young man, pretty. Perhaps you can take his tongue. Gregor talked so much.”
I chew my lip; without my constant application of moisturizing stain from the apothecary, my chapped skin breaks easily. I swallow down the metallic taste of blood.
The woman snaps her attention to me, nostrils flaring. She can smell the blood, I realize too late. Just that single drop. She saunters back over, leans in, far too close. “Scared, little one?”
Ice runs through my veins, and my breath catches as she waits for my answer. Managing one slow nod is the best I can do.
She laughs, tilting even closer. “I like you, you know.” And she is only a breath away when she darts out her tongue and licks the blood off my bottom lip.
Here my knees almost give out, but I steel myself. I am not really me, I’m simply putting on a show. I lower my chin and eyes, not daring to challenge her in any way.
She snaps her fingers, and the silent man in the corner follows her into nothingness.
Her laugh seems to echo throughout the room long after she’s gone.
Long after I’m able to move again, to breathe freely again.
Now he stands close, staring at me. I tilt my face up, meet his eyes, unafraid now.
Maybe he just seems less frightening after her.
In those moments, it was clear she had all the power.
I finally whisper, “You work for her. Don’t you?”
He looks down at me. A lock of hair falling across his forehead softens him, but his face is hard, his jaw clenched. “Yes.”
“She’s terrifying.”
Only silence is his reply. He’s done talking about her.
I clear my throat, take a chance, even though it seems like the worst time to do so.
I’ve spent long days thinking about how to ask him, honing the words over and over again.
“I know I have been a bit…contrary at times.” While I speak, he moves away from me, returning once more to stare out the windows into the now-dark night.
I go on, “You see, it’s not just the books, or lack of diversion.
I’m missing my sister terribly, both of them.
My oldest sister, Aven, she died and I heard that you—”
“I’m not interested in your life story.” He doesn’t turn to look at me, but his frigid voice cuts off my plea. “Go back upstairs.”
I grow more desperate. “But I only wanted to ask—”
“I don’t care!” He whips around, shouting, his fury unleashed. “Not about you. Not about your dead sister!”
Angry tears spring to my eyes. “You unfathomable bastard.”
He looks so furious he could spit fire. He despises me. “You’re done. Go to your room.”
I let the butler lead me away while I cry silently.
All this effort, for nothing. Has my big mouth ruined everything?
No. I shake my head. He was never going to help me.
Any hope I previously held wilts in me like a dying flower, crushed under a demon queen’s shoe.
It’s pointless. I am afraid of him still; however, I now know that I have found something much worse to fear.
And she wants to take me as her plaything?
He’ll probably let her take me, despite seeming to indicate to her I was rather unimportant. He hates me enough. But why? I still don’t understand. I’m through trying.
“I told you, it’s no use,” Mr. Brown echoes my silent realization, almost apologetically, as we stand in front of my room. “You best just dance for him for as long as he wants. Then maybe he’ll let you go.”
“You don’t sound sure.” I look away from him. His rough face. His white hair. How long has he been a puppet for his employer?
He doesn’t answer, only motions me into the room and locks the door behind me. Not that it matters. Still, I’m happy to be alone for the moment.
Inside, I wipe the tears with one shaky hand, hating the wet feel on my face.
Hating the butler. Hating the sight of the locked bedroom door.
Hating the wonderful food and the gentle way Mrs. Minthy washed my hair.
I hate it all, hate the maids, hate the fine furnishings, hate the red shoes. And I hate, hate, hate that demon.
I don’t care about you. I don’t care about your dead sister.
This is futile. He’s not going to help me save Aven. His mistress is another threat to contend with now, instinct warns. I have to get out of here, but that lock on the door has never felt more impassable. And with my hairpins confiscated, I’ve lost any scrap of control I had over this situation.
Then again, maybe I never had any to begin with.