Chapter 3 An Improvement on Confrontation
AN IMPROVEMENT ON CONFRONTATION
Kat
“Champion of correspondence!”
Kat froze, one hand on the ladder, the other holding the last letter to be sorted, feet firmly planted on the ground.
“Benevolent distributer of recorded truths?”
The lilting masculine voice was coming from the frontmost chamber with those big curtainless windows and the door that led right out onto the street where the general public roamed. Alamar was supposed to be manning the entry, though. Or, uh, demoning it.
“Oh, fine: Mistress of the post, where are you?”
Apparently Alamar wasn’t demoning anything.
The postmaster had been gone for longer than Kat expected.
She’d left the door to the letter sorting room open when she popped in earlier to say she had a quick delivery to make.
But that was twenty-eight letters ago, and that was not quick.
With Brioni also out making deliveries, Kat was left all alone to care for the post. Not a problem—solitude was a joy—except in this exact situation when solitude was interrupted.
The door behind the counter of the entry chamber had been left open too.
If Kat leaned back far enough, she might be able to look all the way from the mail room, through the portal chamber, and into the entry to see whomever was calling for help, but in the two weeks she’d been sorting letters, she hadn’t actually spoken to a single customer, so she froze like a chicken under a hawk’s passing shadow.
There was a perfectly good counter out there for leaving letters and packages on, though, so surely if Kat just waited, the voice would go away.
But of course the voice didn’t go away because then there would be no meet to cute.
“Oh, Alamar, please don’t abandon me in my time of need!” it called again with the desperation of a goat who could maneuver his horns between two fence posts but couldn’t get them back out.
Kat pressed the letter to her chest and crept into the corner nearest the door.
She supposed it was kind of her job to watch all of the post when everyone else was away.
But she was watching it, wasn’t she? That could be done from the back room—there was plenty of post around her for watching, lots of little drawers to make sure weren’t shut on any drayk tail feathers and a floor she needed to keep pristine so the ladders rolled smoothly.
And anyway, Alamar hadn’t instructed her how to run the counter, so that meant she wanted it left empty in her stead, right?
It had been quiet for almost an entire minute. Kat placed the letter on a shelf and took a breath. Silence probably meant he’d gotten tired and given up and—
“I am awash with guilt and wracked with torment, and only you, sweet vixen of the parcels, can deliver me from these chains!”
Oh, fucking hells. Kat scrubbed her hands down her face and bit back her own devastated wail.
There were only two places to go: flee up one of the ladders or traipse out to face the howling demon, and since the ladder only went so far, she shored up whatever courage was languishing in her toes—all the way up to her knees, in fact—and darted out through the portal room to the front chamber.
A demon lay draped over the counter as if he’d been shot in the back.
His long arms reached across it so that lavender hands studded with gaudy rings hung over the edge—her edge.
But there was no arrow jutting up from his fancy wool coat nor a stain of blood for that matter, which would have been a shame because the fine gold detail on the white fabric was actually quite nice.
Kat surveyed the small entry chamber meant for seeing customers.
There was a massive directory tome on a desk and a coordinating seat meant to be waited in, both of which this demon had ignored.
The outdoor lanterns illuminated a busy street, but no one glanced in through the windows.
Business as usual, she supposed, but really she had no idea because she avoided the entry chamber at all costs.
She took one measured, soundless step forward and then another.
The demon remained unmoving except for the breaths he took, which meant he was alive—unfortunate since Kat could have probably dealt with a corpse better than a patron.
Her next step hooked the door with her skirt, and it fell shut behind her with a heart-stopping thud.
Blocked off from the safety of the rest of the post, Kat’s next breath refused to come, and the demon finally roused.
“Ah, Alamar, you’ve not forsaken—” Black eyes lifted to meet Kat’s.
Without irises or whites, demon eyes were perhaps easier to look into than human ones, but Kat never lasted longer than a very brief glance with anyone.
Yet her gaze was held as he rose onto his elbows and perched a pointed chin on his fist. There had been a twist to his features at first, as if he was in moribund pain, but it fell away as he stared at her.
And she stared back, unblinking and unbroken.
Maybe he didn’t know—not every demon was aware six humans now resided in Heck. He tipped his head slightly like an innocent creature awaiting a command. All of his floppy desperation had disappeared, and he looked prepared to receive nothing short of a treat.
What am I doing? Why the fuck can’t I speak?
“Well, you’ve certainly changed, haven’t you, Postmistress?
” Full lips drew into a wide grin to crease his sharp features, perfect teeth on display and the merest hint of fangs catching the lantern light.
Silvery brows rose beneath a rogue curl of equally silver hair, the rest of it swept back and tucked around curling horns a darker purple than the lavender of his skin.
The tip of his tail peeked up over the edge of the counter, lavender too except for a tuft of matching silver hair at its end.
Kat dropped her gaze to the floor, terror and anxiety and embarrassment all swirling under her skin, inspiring blotchy patches of redness that were thankfully hidden by her long sleeves and high collar.
She would have bolted if that wouldn’t cause her a worse kind of shame, so she just swallowed hard and waited for whatever was about to happen to be over.
“I must say, gold certainly suits you.”
Gold? Kat’s fingers instinctively raked through her hair. Maybe that was how a demon would describe it, but it wasn’t a word she would use for the dull, lifeless strands of brass. “Alamar isn’t here.”
“What was that?”
Despite still not getting a full breath, she tried again, but it only came out quieter.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he lilted, “but it is as if some frisky four-legged creature from your world known for trickery has gotten a hold of your tongue.”
Kat’s brow creased, and as if on their own, her eyes found him again. “Alamar isn’t here,” she snapped. “What do you want?”
He started, just barely, but Kat saw everything in those completely unsubtle brows. They twitched in surprise at the sharpness of her words—not as much surprise as what rolled over in her belly, though. Sharpness was not one of her preeminent traits—it wasn’t even a post-insignificant one.
His smile, however, never faltered. “Ah, there’s the usual cheery service I expect from Heck Post. Well…
” He drew the word out as he stood to his full height—tall, like most of the demons, but not imposing—and danced long fingers over the counter.
“I suppose you’ll do since you’re here, and I can only assume you’re operating the post in the owner’s stead as opposed to ransacking the place, correct? ”
A jolt of fear shot through Kat—of course she wasn’t burgling the post, but how on earth did he know that she once—no, he didn’t. He couldn’t. No one but Kaly knew the life they’d left behind.
She nodded, biting down on the inside of her mouth and the tight skin there before remembering the scar.
How had she forgotten her scar? She hadn’t bothered to turn that side of her face away or hide behind her hair despite that meeting someone new almost always inspired at least one question she wasn’t at all willing to answer let alone nastier insults and insinuations.
“Marvelous! Name’s Azrion Zizreni, and it’s quite the pleasure Miss…”
Kat stared at his offered hand like a foreign thing and curled her fingers into a fist around the nervous slickness of her own palm.
Hopefully, he would just think humans didn’t know how to shake.
Perhaps she was doing a disservice to humanity, but the other girls would have to make up for her dumber-than-a-dog misrepresentation because she wasn’t willing to do more than flash this demon a bewildered look.
“That’s fine—I’ll just guess,” he said, casually lifting a finger to his temple like his touch hadn’t been turned down.
She felt her brow furrow harder even as her eyes danced over him again, catching on the open neckline of his shirt, more buttons than was respectable undone and tattooed skin peeking out.
“I imagine you have a human name, and you’ll forgive me for not being terribly familiar with them, but I’ve read plenty of your kinds’ texts, so hopefully your eponym was a philosopher of sorcery or a notable noble.”
She shook her head, but he barely allowed a breath for her to interject before going on.
“Human names seem to fall into two categories, but yours can’t be one of the harsher ones—it’ll be pleasant and winsome, surely. Is it…Elizabeth?”
She shook her head again.
“Clearabellintette?”
“I, um…” Kat swallowed, voice shaking, but this time he waited until she took a deeper breath and finished. “I don’t think that’s anyone’s name.”
“The five-hundred-year-old corpse of an alchemist in Farryn who died by dosing too much adder venom would disagree. What about Echinacea?”
“That’s a plant, I think.”
“Theodore?”
That evoked a snort, a small one that even caught Kat off guard. “Do I look like a Theodore?”
He just lifted his silver brows higher and tipped his head to the other side.