Chapter 3 An Improvement on Confrontation #2
She huffed—had she not been through enough this morning with her sister? “No.”
“Oh, but it’s such a pretty name. Are you quite sure?”
“I said, no.” She snapped her teeth on the disquieting sharpness that took over her voice again, the rest of her words coming out in a frantic tumble so he wouldn’t continue.
“It’s really not important, especially since you were so upset just a moment ago.
Tell me what you need, and then you can be on your way. ”
The demon drew himself up straighter and clasped his ringed hands behind his back.
Kat’s stomach clenched, mouth clamping shut on an apology she was too afraid to make—if only she’d been too afraid a second before. Now he was going to yell at her, call her something awful, strike her, and she squeezed her eyes shut to prepare for the worst.
“I would be humbled, Postmistress Stand-in, if you would do me the courtesy of having these delivered.” His voice had gone soft and amiable, and it draped itself over Kat’s hastening fear like a well-worn sweater.
Well, she certainly wasn’t expecting that.
Kat opened her eyes, and it was like seeing the post’s entry anew: the pleasant way the moonlight hit the windowsill, the satisfying arrangement of colored twine on a shelf, and the bundle of flowers on the counter.
She’d been too distracted by the demon and her own nerves before, but the bunch of long-stemmed blooms were stunning—a shimmery yellow with veins of crimson like basting stitches along their edges.
She reached out to touch a soft-looking petal but stopped. “Brioni can deliver these.”
“I actually need a separate delivery for each flower by twelve individual drayks arriving in approximately five-heartbeat intervals.”
Kat’s mouth fell open, and she waited for the joke to come, but no laughter followed.
She wasn’t usually very good at catching jokes, but that seemed off, even to her.
“I don’t think the drayks can do that.” She couldn’t imagine it was possible even with magic, not after she’d seen so many of them land ungracefully on the roost.
“Alamar has done something like this for me before. Surely we can work something out…Giselle?”
She shook her head. “Who do you want them sent to?”
“Melora Thiemos.” He took a deep breath, and the dire voice that had called for Alamar, playful and pained all at once, came back with a vengeance. “The light of my life.”
Kat took in the tinkling jewelry hanging from one of his pointed ears and the glossy sheen of his horns.
He would make for a good mark, that was until her gaze fell back to his eyes.
It wasn’t Kat’s way to search anyone else’s face and least of all their eyes, but there she was, staring into that forever blackness with absolutely nothing looking back at her.
Gods, what do I care? If he wants to annoy some demon with twelve cranky drayks, then so be it. “Can you write down the district and neighborhood for me?”
He narrowed his gaze at the parchment and quill she passed him. “Oh, I suppose you aren’t familiar with the sixteen houses, are you? Melora can be found at the Thiemos estate. Alamar will know.” He reached into a coat pocket and produced a handful of coins.
Kat hadn’t made a single transaction in Heck, but she still knew a lot of coin when she saw it, and what was dumped onto the counter was a lot of coin. “I, uh…” She cleared her throat. “I don’t actually know the price.”
“That’s about how much it cost me last time, not counting the humility, which is priceless, but you, my darling, can have it for free.” He placed fingers atop two of the coins and slid them closer to her. “Plus a tip for the very best assistant I could ask for, Miss Apricot.”
“That’s not a name,” she said with a sigh, no longer afraid to appear put upon. “An apricot is something humans eat.”
“Oh, does that preclude you, then?” The demon winked, and Kat froze.
She didn’t know what that meant—was she supposed to laugh? Or was it a threat? If so, she’d never been threatened so…genially before.
“Ha, ah…” He rapped his knuckles on the counter, gave the whole of the chamber a quick glance, and then nodded without meeting her eyes. “And, uh, you have a phenomenal day…you.” He turned and strode toward the door. Finally, he was leaving.
“It’s Kat!”
The demon stopped, poised just on the threshold. She could see all of him then, the finery of his white coat and the narrow lines of his body beneath form fitting pants, his long tail no longer curling upward but just sweeping the floor with its silvery tuft.
“My name.” She clasped her hands in front of her and drew in her shoulders. “It’s just Kat.”
“Kat,” he said with a pleased grin thrown over his shoulder, and then he was gone.
The post’s door fell shut, but the sound didn’t echo loud enough in her mind to smother the self-deprecation. What in the hells was that? He didn’t care about your name. He just wanted a job done. Idiot.
At least she was finally alone—just like she liked.
Gods, I wish Alamar would hurry up and get back.
When Alamar did finally return, it took much longer than five heartbeats to coax each of the twelve drayks to fly off laden with a flower instead of a letter.
One took two, another wrapped claws around the petals and left the stem behind, and a third opted to deliver a quill instead.
It was better than the last time, Alamar explained, when a confused drayk didn’t take any flowers at all but did lay an egg on the recipient’s head.
Kat had a lot of questions about how many times this particular request had been made, but they all seemed a little too nosy, so she only managed to ask one. “What’s a house?”
Alamar narrowed her black eyes, and Kat groaned at herself for another potential mark against human intelligence.
“I mean, I know what a house is, but what does it mean here if there are sixteen of them?”
“Oh, did Azrion try throwing his noble name around to get you to do something stupid?”
Kat shook her head—she didn’t think so, at least. Unless mailing off individual flowers was stupid, which it most definitely was.
The postmaster huffed. “Some demons believe they come from exceptional stock and have chosen to carry the ancient names of the old ones paired with their given names. They were some of the first to develop Heck into what it is today, nobles they call themselves, and they don’t let the rest of us forget it. ”
Kat nodded in agreement, not that she could possibly know, then dared ask one more question. “They’re really wealthy, aren’t they?”
“Most are, yes. In coin and in magic,” said Alamar, leaning closer and whispering conspiratorially. “And in the ability to be outright assholes.”