Cruel Beauty

And the kiss.

I hid my face in the lacy folds of a white tea dress and groaned. How could I have done that? Now that it was morning—now that I wasn’t surrounded by the beautiful, impossible lights and staring into those impossible, beautiful blue eyes—kissing him seemed like the most selfish, wanton, stupid thing in the world.

I didn’t care about being faithful to my husband, not when he was a demon who had seized me by force. But even after so little time, I cared very much about what Shade thought of me. And what could he think of me, when I had kissed him so shamelessly? As if I had the right to take from him whatever I pleased, for no reason but my own pleasure.

He had kissed me back—it had felt as if there were only one breath shared between us—but he had shown no sign of desire after. Perhaps kissing me, as well as being kissed, was necessary for him to speak.

I could bear that. I was foolish enough to wish that he would kiss me again, that he would take me in his arms and make feel like I was that fearless, guiltless girl just one more time. I wasn’t foolish enough to imagine myself in love with him.

I straightened up, letting go of the crumpled dress, and closed the wardrobe door. Whatever he had thought of the kiss, Shade wanted to help me. I had an ally in this nightmare house—and thanks to him, I knew how to beat my nightmare husband. Ignifex might be able to watch me during the day, but he could hardly object to my using the key he had given me. I would explore the house by day and crack its riddles when he was confined to his room at night.

First, though, I needed breakfast. Cautiously, I opened the door of my room and peered out. I saw the same hallway as last night: plain white walls with cherrywood wainscot, a parquet floor of interlocking stars and lozenges, narrow windows curtained only with white lace. And running down both sides, doors of every shape and color. The air was still and cool, not rippled by that perilous, half-heard laughter from the day before.

Shade was nowhere to be seen. Neither were any lurking shadows that might conceal demons.

I slipped out quietly, hoping to find my way back to the dining room. If dinner magically appeared on that table, breakfast might as well, and it had been just down the hallway from my room, four doors—or was it three?

The third door was locked and my key would not open it. The fourth as well. When I could not open the fifth door either, I kicked it in frustration and yelled, “Shade!”

The air shivered—or did I imagine it? I spun around, but no shadows moved in the corridor.

I was alone.

Suddenly the hallway felt like a yawning cavern. How did I know, I wondered wildly, if I would ever see either of them again? Ignifex was not human and Shade was his slave. Perhaps it suited his fancy to dine with me once and then abandon me to starve in the endless, twisting rooms of his house. Perhaps I would find food but never see him again until years had worn away my strength and left me weak and wrinkled; then he would come to laugh, and I would never defeat him but only curse him with a toothless mouth and die.

With a great effort, I drew a slow breath. Then I slammed my fists into the door, shaking with rage.

You little fool, I told myself. You are Nyx Triskelion. Avenger of your mother. Hope of the Resurgandi. The only chance your sister will ever have to see the true sky. You cannot give up while there is breath in your body.

If Astraia were here, she would laugh and make a game out of finding her way around the house. If she were abandoned in the house for years, she would pry a wrought-iron bed slat out of her bed and hone it down into a knife. When her hair was turned to gray yarn and her skin to crepe and Ignifex came to mock her, she would stab him and cackle as the blood gurgled out of his chest.

My sister lacked all kinds of sense, but not resolution. She would certainly not give up after trying three doors.

I went on. Ten doors were locked; five opened to my key but didn’t lead anywhere useful. Then I opened a door of dull brown wood, and a breath of warm, fragrant air struck me. I stood on the threshold of a kitchen with red poppies painted around the rim of its walls, and wide windows whose lacy white curtains glowed with morning light. It looked as if the cooks had just vanished, for oatmeal bubbled on the stove next to a pan of sizzling sausages, mushrooms, and capers, while on the table a fresh-baked loaf of bread sat fragrant next to a little dish of olives and a pile of pastries.

I slipped inside, my mouth watering. In moments I was devouring the food—and perhaps it was the hunger, perhaps my fear, but it was the best breakfast I had ever tasted. Certainly the best I’d had in years, for our current cook served up sausages burnt and mushrooms nearly raw. But there could be no complaining, for Aunt Telomache had hired her, so each morning I would chew through the mess in silence while Astraia smiled and thanked the cook and bravely chattered how she loved the sausages so well-done and weren’t the mushrooms wonderfully tender and—

Abruptly, the food was a lump in my stomach; the olives remaining on my plate looked revolting. I swallowed, trying not to imagine Astraia at the breakfast table right now. I had to stop thinking of her. What was the use in remembering her smile, the clink of breakfast dishes, the way she mashed her sausages—I pulled back the curtain, desperate for a distraction.

Pure sky stared back at me. No clouds, no sun, no land or horizon. No anything but warm, blank parchment like the first page of an empty book.

No escape. Not ever. Because the Rhyme wasn’t true. There wasn’t any way to kill the Gentle Lord and escape; all I could do was collapse his house about him. If the gods smiled on me, if they answered the prayers that had been screamed to them for nine hundred years, I would free Arcadia. But I would be locked inside this house, not even able to run, with the parchment sky to smother me and my monstrous husband and his demons to torment me.

I shoved a fist against my mouth and drew a slow breath. I had always known my fate. I had always, always known. It was stupid and useless to be shocked now.

I would never see my sister again. I would never escape my fate. I had a mission to carry out regardless, and it was time for me to start.

I looked back one last time before I left, and that was when I noticed the door next to the stove. It was barely as high as my hip; when I bent down to peer inside it, I saw a low stone tunnel. It curved away to the right, so I could not see where it ended, but diffuse light glowed from the other side.

A breeze blew out the little doorway, caressing my face. I inhaled the warm scent of summer, dust and grass and flowers: the smell of free, open spaces.

It could be a trap, but if this house wanted to kill me, I was trapped already. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled into the tunnel. Once I was inside, I still knew I might be going to my death, but I couldn’t feel worried anymore; and as soon as I rounded the curve, I emerged into a small round room and was able to stand up.