Chapter 7
Midnight Widow
Jesstin was somewhere he hadn’t been in years.
Everything looked the same. The derelict monastery, with its cracked stained-glass depictions of the Guardians and of another world, dancing through prisms of light.
Layers of neglect lined the sills and gathered in corners of the cracked stone floor, which was missing more than a few slates.
He’d tried tidying up in the past, but every time he returned, all the work had been erased.
The patterns in the rafters were still nonsensical scribbles, and the only place to sit was the throne covered in autumnal leaves and dust. Always leaves and dust, even after sitting there for hours.
Light pierced through a scene with people larger than trees, hunting quadrupeds larger than them. It seemed to come from the imagination of a child, which made sense, seeing as Jesstin had created the place as a little boy, in his dreams.
“What is this?” Elloven’s wonder echoed through the empty hollows. “Where are we?”
Jesstin hadn’t imagined her voice. That wasn’t how the place worked. Whatever happened there was as close to real as a dream could be.
He was back in the Night Soul, but for the first time, he wasn’t alone.
No point in asking how or why. That wasn’t how it worked either.
Jesstin turned and saw her standing in a beam of light, wearing a long black gown.
The arms were lace, as were the high neck and her veil, which reached the floor.
A midnight widow was the term for women who murdered their husbands, and she was playing the part his mind had cast for her.
“I called it the Night Soul when I was a boy.”
“Night Soul?” She squinted at the noontide illumination streaming in. It was the middle of the night in the waking world.
Time was another thing he couldn’t explain.
“Just a dumb name,” he muttered. He’d only ever conversed with himself there, but the sharp tug, when he was approaching ambiguity or dishonesty, arrived before he could attempt a lie. “I’ve been coming here for years.”
“But what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Jesstin said. “A recurring dream, or so I thought.” He gestured at her.
“We’re dreaming?” She blinked seriously, then laughed. “Sure.”
Of course they were dreaming, because if they were awake, he’d still be ignoring her. “You couldn’t lie in the Night Soul if you tried.”
Elloven lowered a dubious gaze on him. “Really?”
“Try.”
“To lie?” Her dark, absurdly long lashes seemed to sweep the air.
“Yeah. Go on.”
“All right.” A smirky grin followed her skeptical acceptance. “How I miss my dear—” Her eyes and mouth went wide. “I can’t say it. I can’t. I...” She tried again. “Nope. I can’t.”
“You were going to say husband, weren’t you?”
She nodded, laughing. “And you choose to come here? You seem far too infatuated with being mysterious for something so... candid.”
“I don’t choose to end up here. It just happens. Though it’s been a while, until tonight.”
Elloven spun around, taking the place in. “How did I end up here then?”
Jesstin shrugged when her gaze landed on him again. “Dreams never make sense. If you think of it that way, you’re not here at all. You’re just... part of my consciousness.”
“Feels real enough to me,” she replied. “But as a figment of your dream, I would say that, wouldn’t I?”
Jesstin grinned. He felt so easy around her again. Awake, he was too full of anger and frustration to even speak to her, but in the Night Soul, he was as light as a feather and actually happy to see her.
Meanwhile, his corporeal body slept away as the carriage rolled along the westbound path toward the Seven Sisters. With luck, they’d be in the Westerlands when they woke up.
“Sit,” he said. “Stay with me a while.”
“Where?” She nodded at his throne, the only one.
“Ah.” Jesstin snapped his fingers, and an identical one appeared across from it. He chuckled in surprise, as he hadn’t been sure it would work until he tried it. “Well, look at that.”
“Impressive,” she sang and climbed into the tall seat like a child.
He’d been thinking of his own chair when he imagined hers, and he hadn’t accounted for how much shorter and smaller she was.
But if he’d gotten it right, he’d have missed how adorable she looked, grunting and tugging on the massive oaken arms.
Jesstin sat neatly upon his own throne and smiled at the midnight widow, who smiled back. He couldn’t stop smiling. None of the complications of the real world followed him to the Night Soul, and he’d never seen the potential of such a promise before.
“What is it you actually do here? Is there a tradition we should follow?”
“Usually, I...” He waved a hand, frowning. “Sit here and stew in my misery until my mind decides I’ve suffered enough here, and I continue on in my misery wide awake.”
“You don’t look miserable now.”
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re here,” Jesstin said and a great pressure released from his chest.
“And my presence doesn’t make you miserable?” she asked slowly. Her head tilted slightly to the side.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a good thing.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I met you, and I find it terrifying... and exciting.”
“You don’t hate me then?”
“It would be easier if I did.” Jesstin’s hands slid along the rough wooden arm. “I’m mad at myself for what happened in Mythgarde. I should never have invited you. It was selfish. Considine and his snide... The weasel got under my skin. I let him.”
“He does that. He’s only here with us because he wouldn’t help otherwise.”
“We’ll ditch him when we get there. In an actual ditch.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Elloven’s cheeks pulled in amusement. “Can’t lie in the Night Soul.”
Jesstin wanted to say more. Each tiny confession was a link in his chain to freedom, even if it wasn’t really real. “Truth can be dangerous.”
“Or liberating.” Elloven frowned and amended her statement. “No, actually, that hasn’t been my experience. Taven says I’m ‘complicated,’ but I just try to see the world both how a realist and an optimist would. I’m sure you think those views are incompatible too.”
“You’ve been through the worst, so you’re never surprised when assholes act like assholes, but you want to believe there’s still good in the world?”
“There is good in the world,” Elloven replied, insistent yet suddenly quite solemn. “Why endure anything if not for the promise of something better?”
Jesstin understood. Unlike Elloven, he was out of idealism though. Seeing the world for what it was, that was a different kind of liberation. A truth no one wanted to believe because it altered their perspective forever.
Once Jesstin had accepted he wasn’t meant for a traditional life, he could outrun the shadows of his disappointments and turn them into something useful.
“What are you thinking right now?” Elloven asked.
“I’m thinking how right you are,” he answered. “There is good, if you adjust your expectations.”
“Are you speaking generally or from your experience as the proud owner of a speculation hall and brothel?”
Jesstin smirked. “Both.”
“I’m surprised they were so quick to hang a rope for one of their own.”
“But I’m not one of them. You are.”
Her kohled eyes knit. “I want to know why you’re so angry about the bond. The real reason.”
Jesstin wet his lips. “Because of what it will mean for you if we can’t find the magic to break it.”
“We will,” she said.
“We might,” he conceded. “But one thing I do know, Elloven, is you and I will never fulfill the terms.”
She sat with that for a moment, drawing her legs up so her lacy arms could circle them. “Because you don’t want to?”
“Oh, I want to,” he said, the truth tumbling out. “But I won’t.”
Elloven nodded to herself, her eyes cast downward.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “But I won’t.”
“I wouldn’t trust men either.”
“That’s not how I see it. It would mean they’ve won.
” Elloven chewed the inside of her mouth as she studied the same stained glass he’d been musing over when he’d arrived.
“But what if I can’t ever know the difference between pain and pleasure?
Seven men have hurt me, and all seven left me different.
One of them believes everything he’s done was an act of love, and I do feel that love, even if it’s not good for me, even if I don’t want it anywhere near me, and it’s horribly confusing.
If I can’t trust myself to know a good heart from a bad one, then I can’t trust myself. ”
Her desolation prompted a dark fantasy of running his broadsword through her tormentors and presenting to her their hearts in a sack. “I’m sorry. I wish I could say I’d never hurt you, but I think I already have.”
“Anyone who makes such a promise makes themselves a liar in the same breath.”
“You’re safe here anyway. It’s not real.”
“Feels real.” An echo of her earlier words. “I gave you my reason. What’s yours?”
Jesstin was relieved even before the words were out. “Intimacy isn’t on my itinerary.” Sesto knew about his code, and Gennady had as well, but he’d never actually sat down and discussed it with them. With anyone. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly wanted to with her.
“Lies are forbidden here, but half-truths are fine?”
“Not a half-truth, just a deeper one. The whole truth is I’ve never been with a woman before,” Jesstin said. He traced both hands down the smooth wood, steadying himself. “And... I never will.”
Elloven’s incredulous laugh never quite formed. “You must be telling the truth, but help me understand. You own a vice tavern. You’re regularly seen publicly with women hanging from you and your... parts.”
“With my cock in their mouths, yes.”
She flinched, but it seemed a conditioned response rather than genuine shock. “I’m no less confused, Jesstin.”
“Everything but fucking,” he said, clarifying with a lazy shrug.
Now she did laugh. “There are ways to prevent children.”
“The last thing I want is to pass my demons off to a child, but no. It’s more of a personal code of principles.”