Chapter 2 Terms

Nobody moved. Frost crept across the glass until it touched the toes of Elowen's boots. Somewhere above her, a lamp went out with a small, offended sound. She had spent forty-one nights rehearsing this moment. She had imagined cruelty, indifference, lust, even boredom, and she had prepared an answer for each. She had not prepared for hatred. Hatred was personal, and she had never met this man in her life. "I'm told I have my mother's chin," she said. "My grandmother calls it a Marrow weakness. I wasn't aware it came with a grievance." Dorian made a noise like a man swallowing a cough. Lucan Dreyvarr did not look away from her face. "Take her back to the gate." "My lord-" "Put her in the carriage. Send her home with a letter for Odalys Marrow saying that the Devil declines this bride." "Then you'll wait twenty-five years," said Elowen. It was the first thing she had said that he seemed to hear. Slowly, as though turning his head cost him something, he looked at her. "The window opens once in a generation," she went on, and was pleased that her voice did not shake. "On the anniversary of the Night of Ashfall. Eleven months and twenty-nine days from now. Your Rite needs a Marrow bride's blood, freely given, in the year the window is open. If you send me home, the Marrows have no other daughter old enough, and you will wait another quarter century for the next one to grow up." She tilted her head. "I'm told you're patient." "Who told you about the Rite?" "Everyone knows there is a Rite. I am one of the few people who has read what it requires." That was true, or close enough. The Marrow archive had been dusty and silent, and she had read in it until her eyes ached. For a long moment the Devil studied her as one studies a locked door. Then he turned away, and his voice drifted back like smoke. "The Hall of Ash. Now." The Hall of Ash was where the Devil kept his throne, and where, it turned out, it snowed indoors. Ash fell from a ceiling too high to see, soft and grey and slow, gathering in drifts against the walls. The throne at the far end was a single piece of fused black glass, sharp as a broken bottle. Lucan sat in it as if he had been poured there. Elowen walked the length of the hall alone. Dorian trailed ten respectful paces behind her, looking like a man who had placed a bet he was beginning to regret. She was halfway to the throne when she noticed the ash. It landed on Dorian's shoulders. It landed on the floor. But around her it parted, drifting aside in a thin hush, as if she walked inside a bell of clear air. When she stopped, the flakes stopped too, an inch from her hair, and hung there, trembling. On the throne, Lucan had gone very still. "Interesting," he said softly. "Is it supposed to do that?" "No." His eyes were fixed on the ash. "It has never done that." Behind her, Dorian said, very quietly and to no one: "Oh, no." Elowen decided she would think about that later. She could manage only so many frightening things at once, and the Devil came first. "You're angry," she said. "I am not angry." His voice was perfectly pleasant. "I am deciding whether it would be more efficient to kill you or to let you leave." "Killing me ruins your Rite. Blood given freely, remember." "There are ways of making people generous." "Not with this blood." She reached into her bodice and drew out the vial. The glass was no longer than her little finger. Inside it, a thread of dark liquid moved, rising and falling in time with her heartbeat, as if it were alive and keeping count. The effect was immediate. Dorian's hand went to his sword. Lucan did not move, but the ash overhead changed direction and began to fall faster. "Carefully," said Elowen. "It's keyed to my pulse. If my heart stops, the glass breaks, and whatever is inside spoils Marrow blood. Mine, certainly. I suspect the whole line's. I wasn't able to test the second part." Dorian made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh. "You carry your own death as a threat," said Lucan. "I carry it as an invoice." The Devil rose. He did not hurry. He came down the steps of the throne one at a time and stopped a pace away from her, close enough that she could see the grey in his eyes, the ash caught in his lashes, the tiredness beneath the cruelty that no one had ever bothered to look for. This close, she could also see that he was not breathing. He did not seem to need to. "Do you know what I am?" he asked. "A man who needs me." Something in his face shifted. It was not softening. It was a tired, careful calculation, like a man examining a chessboard from the other side for the first time. "Name your terms," he said. Elowen exhaled, slowly, so he would not see how long she had been holding her breath. "One. My own rooms, with a lock, and I keep the only key. Two. Free access to your library, all of it, any hour. Three. A garden, with whatever soil you have." She counted on her fingers. "Four. No one touches me without asking. That includes you, and it includes whoever you send to dress me. Five. I go where I please inside these walls." "That is a very long list for a bride." "It is a very short list for a woman who is going to die here." The words were out before she could stop them. Dorian looked at the ceiling. Lucan's gaze sharpened. "The library is not a sanctuary," he said. "Most of what it holds eats the people who read it." "Then I'll read quickly." "And the garden? What does a Marrow bride plant?" "Herbs." "Nine," said the Devil. Elowen blinked. "Two in your left sleeve. Three in your bodice. Three in the heel of your right boot." His eyes dropped, briefly, to her ribs. "And one against your heart. You are, by my count, the most heavily armed bride to walk into this palace." "You counted." "I count everything that might kill me." It should not have thrilled her. It did, in a small, cold, ruinous way, the way a good chess opponent thrills a player who has been losing to idiots for years. She kept her face still. "Then we understand each other," she said. "We understand nothing." But the corner of his mouth moved, once, and was still. "Your terms are accepted. The wedding is tomorrow at dusk. Dorian will take you to your rooms. You will not remove the poisons. I would be insulted." "I wouldn't dream of it." "One more thing." He had already turned away, and his voice lost all warmth. "The Marrows have always sent me a face I could bear. I will not bear yours. Stay out of my sight where you can." "Whose face is it?" He stopped. For three seconds the whole hall held its breath. The ash hung in the air like a held thought. "Not a question I answer," said Lucan. Elowen nodded slowly, as though he had given her a gift, and filed it away with the nine poisons. Everything was a weapon, if you held it right. "One more thing from me, then," she said. "The east wing. I'd like a tour." "No." It came so quickly that it did not sound like an answer. It sounded like a door slamming. Dorian went very still. Even the ash seemed to recoil. And Elowen, who had spent twenty-four years learning to read the faces of people who lied for a living, understood two things at once. The east wing was the place where Ashfall kept everything it was ashamed of. And the Devil, for the first time since she had met him, sounded afraid. Then, from somewhere deep beneath the palace, very faintly, came three slow knocks. Not a pipe. Not a door. Knocks, patient and deliberate, as if someone had been waiting a very long time to be asked. Lucan's head turned toward the sound. Just slightly. Just once. "Don't," he said, without looking at her, "answer it."