she knew how ghastly she looked. “I understand the need. One can hardly make a habit of forgiving traitors.”
Savedra flinched again, and color rose in her cheeks. “Even so. Oh, here.” She tugged at her left hand, and Isyllt swallowed as she recognized the ruby glitter. “I don’t need this anymore.” Her right hand glittered too, a magnificent orange sapphire that Isyllt had last seen on Lord Varis.
“You can keep it,” she said, not reaching for the offered jewel. “You should. She was your relative.”
“I don’t want it! Please. It’s a mage stone.”
Isyllt lifted a reluctant hand. The ring was warm from Savedra’s skin. No echo of magic stirred as she closed her fingers around it.
“Thank you.”
“If there’s anything you need,” the pallakis whispered.
“There’s nothing.” Too harsh—she tried to smile. “But thank you all the same.”
She had inherited all of Kiril’s estate that did not revert to the Crown. The thought of walking through his house, of touching his books and his clothes, made her gag. She knew that would fade; she still regretted parting with mementos of her mother, though the sight of them had brought only pain at the time. But for the moment she couldn’t leave her apartment without seeing streets they’d walked together, shops they’d visited.
Staying in was no better—she heard his footstep on her stairs as she tried to sleep, felt the touch of phantom magic at her wards. Once she leapt from bed and flung open the door, but the hall was cold and empty.
Khelséa visited her, bringing food every time. Ciaran came with wine and flowers. Isyllt invited them in each time, but had no heart for pleasant conversation, or the pretense of it. She wasn’t entirely sure she had a heart at all.
On the seventh night, she opened the door to find Varis Severos on her doorstep. He wore white as well; it suited him better than it did Savedra.
“I imagine I’m not someone you most want to see right now,” he said, “but may I come in?”
“Of course,” she said after a pause, stepping aside. “Would you like tea, or wine?”
He grimaced. “Do you have anything stronger?”
She poured them both ouzo while he claimed a chair, and prodded the fire to life before she sat in turn. “How can I help you, my lord?”
He didn’t speak for a long moment, watching the embers fall instead. Behind him, city lights blurred through the windowpane. Finally he emptied his glass in one neat swallow.
“You know they never found Kiril’s body,” he said at last.
She couldn’t stop a wince. “I know.”
“That’s because I took it from the tower.”
That broke through her fugue. Ouzo splashed her fingers as she startled, chilling as it evaporated. She drained the glass before she could spill the rest. “What?” She coughed on the fumes. “Why?”
“Because I know the choice that death brings for the likes of you. And I believe in the freedom to make such choices.”
Her lips peeled back from her teeth, and she wanted to say something vitriolic about his choices and their consequences. She couldn’t find the right words.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if you’re anything like him, you’ll find out eventually.” He smiled wryly. “And I know you are. I left him in a safe place, warded from opportunistic spirits. I returned after the demon days, and he was gone.”
She had understood the possibility since Nikos had told her of the missing body, but it wasn’t any easier to hear again. Her left hand clenched till her scars ached.
“I thought you should know,” Varis said after a long silence. “Now, while you have time to think on it. I know how much you meant to each other.”
“Yes.” Her lips shaped the word but no sound followed. She drew a breath and tried again. “Thank you, my lord.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. The pain in his voice made her flinch. She preferred him glib and mocking. “So very sorry.”
“Yes, well.” She rose, less gracefully than she might have wished, and led him to the door. “We knew the risks when we took the job.”
She didn’t answer the door for the next two days. She wept, raged, flung books and muffled her sobs and curses in pillows. Her magic was still burned to the root, or she might have wrought worse destruction.
The second night she sat down in the ruin of her bedroom and knew she couldn’t stay. Kiril had asked if she could stand to see him as a demon. She knew she could. Even now