“I need to ask you some questions.” I took a step back, for the transition from stone to flesh disturbed me.
His gaze sharpened to a leer as he recognized me. “The girl whose eyes are amber. Woken with kisses, I see. You have the look of a woman about you now, shaped by a man’s caresses. Did you escape the marriage, or embrace its carnal pleasures?” His tone had a greasy unctuousness that made me want to wash myself, but fortunately a new thought struck him before he started quoting obscene poetry as I was sure he was about to. Instead, he glanced around with an expression made comical by its wild exaggeration. “Where is the serpent? Where is she hiding?”
“My cousin? I will bring her to torment you if you do not answer my questions. Have you seen my husband? The Master of the Wild Hunt stole him from me.”
A look of cunning creased his features. “I can offer you pleasures the man will surely not have thought of. If you’ll just come a little closer…” His tongue moistened his lips.
I lost my patience and my temper. “Do you really think comments like these make me find you attractive? Or are you deliberately trying to put me off? I love him. If you have the least sliver of a human heart left to you, help me find him. Then you can compose a poem about our travails and triumph!”
His face went so still that for several shaky breaths I thought he had fallen back into sleep.
But he blinked, and spoke in an altered tone, like an impatient teacher scolding a student who is slow to learn. “Best hurry, kitten. You should not have woken me with blood, for the masters crave it and will come seeking it the instant its scent reaches their grasping claws. As it will.”
“I thought my sire was the only master. You serve him, but surely you don’t feed him with your blood.”
“The hunter takes souls, not blood. It amuses him to keep me, because of my knowledge of the law. I was not sacrificed to the courts. Instead I was imprisoned in this terrible state, head separated from body.”
“Yes, I met your body in my sire’s palace.” I shuddered, remembering the way Bran Cof’s headless body had stumbled to serve his master’s bidding. With a gasp, I raised a hand to my mouth. “Blessed Tanit! What terrible thing might my sire do to Vai?”
“You know nothing about the courts and your sire, do you?”
Lowering my hands, I took a threatening step closer. “Tell me what you know!”
His sneer turned mocking as he looked me up and down in a most intrusive way. “For each kiss you give me, kitten, I’ll tell you a secret.”
I lifted the shard of glass. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll smear my blood all over your face for the courts to suckle dry!”
His lips pulled back in a horrible grimace, yet he also laughed with a slightly hysterical rasp. “You know not of what you speak, girl. The spirit courts crave mortal blood, for blood gives them protection from the tides and allows them to sustain their power. You cannot challenge them.”
“We shall see about that!”
It wasn’t until the latch clicked down that I realized I heard voices. It was the work of a moment to hide myself in shadow as a servant showed two men into the room.
Lord Marius and Legate Amadou Barry had come looking, just as Bee and I feared. They did not see me, nor did they notice that Bran Cof’s eyes were tracking them, because Amadou Barry walked straight to the tall windows so he could look out over the rose garden, and his brother-in-law followed him without looking around.
“Whenever I enter these halls, I think of her,” Amadou Barry said on a heaving sigh as he tapped the glass with the knuckles of one hand. “I know I saw her on the street, Marius!”
Lord Marius laughed. “Be warned! Your balls will wither if you praise her cherry lips and golden hair in my hearing.”
“She doesn’t have golden hair! It is as black as a crow’s wing. Her glorious hair falls like a riot of curls down her back, for a riot is surely how the thought of her affects my heart.”
The head of the poet Bran Cof rolled his eyes at this stilted speech in a way that made me want to giggle. Fortunately both men were gazing outside and missed it.
“Bald Teutates! You haven’t a Celt’s gift of poetry, that is certain, Amadou. You mistook another woman’s black curls.” Marius wandered over to the table. He picked up several bottles in turn, clearly astounded that they were all empty. “You must give up this unseemly obsession. Your wedding feast will be celebrated the day after tomorrow. Notable men and their retinues have traveled for days to gorge themselves at the table and toast your virility. You will do your duty, as I did mine when I married your sister.”
