Chapter Thirty-Eight
The thing about Soyer—even about Elias and certainly about Vico—was that they seemed largely normal.
If I’d passed Soyer on the street, I’d have thought nothing of it.
He wore all black, sure, but he dressed pretty normal.
Elias wore his suits, but he wasn’t too unusual either.
Of course, Soyer’s home, when he’d first taken me there, had seemed normal, if lavish.
Only his cabinet of curiosities was strange, but even then, it was just a room he had but didn’t seem to spend a lot of time in.
With the experience I’d had, seeing what I was seeing in the room in front of me—the grandeur of a bygone age—was an anachronism that shook me to the bone.
There were Persian carpets spread out on the floor, so many that the boring gray concrete had vanished.
In the middle of the room, a sort of tent had been erected that was open on one side, and the roof of it was hung with fancy metal lanterns that all looked fake Eastern.
The tent itself was decorated all over with red and orange silk scarves, a gold one peeking through here and there.
In the center of all of that, on a dais surrounded by scantily clad attendants both male and female, sat Caecilius.
I recognized him by what he was first—the tail, the scales traveling up from it to his belly and shoulders, running over his arms and all the way up to his cheeks.
However, I also recognized the face, though it was changed.
It was the same as it had been in the photograph Soyer had kept in his apartment before it had become ours.
Our eyes met, and Caecilius recognized me right away.
“What a turn of events!” He gestured. “Darlings, bring refreshments for our lovely guest.”
He had an accent not dissimilar to the lawyer’s, also British. He said guest as if it were the vilest insult, hissing as he did.
“I’m not your guest, Cecil,” I said, hoping that would irk him.
It did. I saw him flinch. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. “No? Maybe not. But you came here. Now, what shall we do with that?”
I turned to look at the door, but it hadn’t opened. If the witch was still following us, she was taking her time.
I focused back on Caecilius. “Where are the others?”
I realized how stupid a question that was when I saw his face. He was surprised, then annoyed.
“What others? Have you brought any of those sycophants you’ve amassed around my Leas?”
One of the attendants, a blond boy who looked like he was barely out of his teens, held up a metal tray. There were no drinks on there though, just a withered branch with thorns that looked so sharp, so thirsty, it made me flinch back.
“No, thank you,” I said to the boy.
He cast his eyes down. “But you have to. You have to take it.”
Caecilius cackled. “Oh, you will. Or you’ll wish you had. What others, Amory?”
“My guards,” Elias said.
Caecilius’s eyes flicked to him, annoyed again. “Oh. You. Well, that’s annoying, but it won’t matter much. What are a few less Hawthorne lapdogs? You lot will pick up just about anyone and welcome them to your bosom.”
The boy raised the tray a fraction. “Please take the branch.” He sounded scared. Scared in a familiar way. The fear of getting hurt by someone who had power over your existence. I knew that fear. I’d grown up with that fear without even knowing it.
I didn’t like that. I hadn’t liked it then, but now, after finding myself, I liked it less.
With the flat of my palm, I hit the tray from underneath, causing it to go flying, that branch thing with it. It clattered onto the fancy carpets, and I wished it would leave a mark there.
The boy started trembling, the silk scarf just barely covering him shaking with it.
Caecilius made a reptilian hissing sound. “I apologize. My servants are clumsy. It’s my fault for not training them well.”
He raised his hand and tried for a noble gesture to beckon the boy to him. Still trembling, the boy took a step toward the naga.
Logically, I knew I should be scared out of my mind. For all I knew, there was a witch on the other side of the door just behind us, and Caecilius was right here, clearly powerful if you only considered his physique.
And yet, this whole setup, the commanding attitude, the air of superiority, I’d lived with that all through my childhood, and I had since learned to loathe it.
I grabbed the boy with my free hand. “Stay right here.”
Thaeros gasped. So did the boy, his eyes going wide.
“What is this now, Amory? That is your name, yes? I think something…simpler would suit you better.”
“It’s my name, and it suits me just fine.”
He smirked. “Would you like to keep my servant as your own?”
“I’m not letting him go back to you, that’s for damn sure.” I had no idea what I was doing though. I didn’t know if Soyer would have said this, or if he’d have done this, if it was correct in the world of supernaturals, but it felt right.
Still smirking, Caecilius raised his massive snake’s tail. It whipped through the air, too fast to follow, and before I could quite comprehend, he’d struck another one of his attendants right in the head.
I wasn’t sure if it had been a man or a woman at first. Blood exploded. The head was simply gone. The sight was sickening. The sounds were worse. Someone screamed. Thaeros. Elias was holding on to me and shivering so hard, I was scared he’d tear off the arm of the jacket he’d loaned me.
“There, that’s better,” Caecilius said.
I couldn’t tear my eyes off the blood on the carpets. It soaked into the fabric, made all those patterns look darker. I couldn’t understand why Caecilius would let his rage out and ruin his own carpets. Who did it serve then, this foul display of violence?
I tore my eyes away from the carpet. “You’re insane. You’ve gone mad.”
He laughed. “Oh, you poor thing. I am the only one who isn’t. Now, we should talk. Rather, you should listen, and then after, I will give you a choice.”