16. Leah #3
As soon as he moves, the tension fades, and I exhale, peeling myself away from the stone. He’s turned his back on me, but I don’t miss the way he rakes his hand along the side of his dark hair, as if trying to drag the very thoughts from his head.
“We’re done for today.” His voice is low and rough, and I say nothing, silently watching him pick up his book before he leaves the courtyard.
The training continues in the days that follow, but he is careful not to repeat that encounter, only entering my mind when we’re not touching. For the next two weeks, I make surprising gains in my strength, and while the Lord of Malice doesn’t fall for my knife trick twice, I learn new ones.
I learn the rhythms of the castle too. The way Viz holes himself up in Syrus’s office, doing his favorite thing—paperwork—and sometimes managing to drag the Lord of Malice into it as well.
I discover Triya has chosen my room as her new napping spot.
The first few days I find her curled up on my bed, I sleep in a chair in the corner.
Eventually, uncomfortable and exhausted, I edge over into a spot beside her, slowly relaxing when she doesn’t seem to mind.
Now I can doze off despite her three huge heads snoozing inches away.
I notice how more nights than not, Asterim heads out into the city to party, returning to eat breakfast and then to sleep for half the day.
When she finally rises, she often spends a few hours of the afternoon sitting on my futon and telling me about all the best places in Malice.
She regales me with tales of her favorite dance halls, taverns, and tea rooms—yes, apparently demons have tea rooms, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t the littlest bit curious about what that looks like.
Sometimes, she talks about the men and women she goes out with—old flames and new flirtations. Eventually, I pluck up the courage to ask her something that occurred to me a few days after she first ambushed me in my room.
“Asterim, you and Lord Syrus…”
“Yes, darling?” she asks, swirling her drink. It’s purple with a wedge of fruit on the rim today. She turned up to my bedroom with two of them in her hand and, when I declined, she drank the first and is now onto the second.
“You and he aren’t…married, are you?”
It takes her a long time to catch her breath because she’s laughing so hard.
“Oh, sweet darkness, no,” she says, grinning. “What gave you that idea?”
I shrug, embarrassed. “It’s just, you seem to be the only person in the castle who doesn’t work for him.
I thought maybe it had been an arranged thing, you know, like me.
” I sigh, sitting down and resting my hand in between the ears of Triya’s middle head.
She sleepily lifts it for an optimal scratching angle while the other two heads sleep on.
“It’s not like I know anything about how demon nobility or demon marriages work. ”
“I live in the castle because Sy and I are very old friends, and he’d get disgustingly morose if I let him—” She stops and takes a sip of her drink, clearly feeling she’s said too much.
I’ve already noticed she doesn’t talk about him much, and now I see that’s deliberate.
“Besides…” She shifts, rearranging the floaty silk gown she’s wearing.
“Demons don’t really go in for marriage. And certainly not the arranged kind.”
“They don’t?” I ask. “Why?”
“Well, we don’t have children very often, so there’s one less reason to bother.
And we’re a practical bunch. Four hundred years is a long time to expect two people not to get sick of each other.
That’s not to say people don’t do it, it’s just rarer than in Strata.
Demons prefer to live in the here and now rather than dwell much on the future. ”
She downs the rest of her drink, and I think to myself that Asterim is the poster child for living in the here and now.
I grow to like Asterim more and more as the days slip by.
She knows exactly who she is and makes no apologies about it.
There’s something calming about being around someone like that.
I also like that she talks a lot and doesn’t ask many questions.
Her visits help pass the time when I’m not training.
That and spending hours reading the books on Infernum’s plants I found stacked up in a pile on one of the library’s reading tables.
I haven’t had the leisure time or energy to just sit and read for years.
It’s weird, and weirder still how the days in Malice start to feel a little bit…
peaceful. I keep waking up expecting Ada to stride into my room and yell at me for slacking on my chores, or to get up and scramble to the city walls because the battle bells are ringing, and that means it’s time to scavenge.
It’s as if I’ve been living like a hunted animal for years, on the run from a hungry predator. Now it’s finally swallowed me up, I’m starting to discover that it’s warm and quiet and maybe not so bad inside the belly of the beast.