Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,37

the seat, holding out a hand. “I’ll help you forget it.”

“No one can do that.” She brought her palm down on the scattered charm, hard enough to sting and rattle the cups. The music and soft murmur of voices washed over them again, deafening after their absence. She pushed past him, pride and practice keeping her pace steady when she wanted to stumble.

She bumped shoulders with a cloaked patron on her way past and murmured a hasty apology. Pale blue eyes flashed in the shadow of a hood as the man glanced at her and she nearly swore; she would have to pass a gossipmonger like Varis Severos with her face uncovered.

She scrubbed away a glaze of tears when she reached the top of the stairs, cursing herself for a dozen types of fool. The damp night air was a welcome relief from the haze below. Spider caught up with her before she left the alley.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It isn’t your fault.” When she didn’t turn, his hands settled on her upper arms, cool and light. She wanted to lean into him; after a heartbeat, she did. It was foolish, worse than foolish. But his touch set her magic tingling, and maybe warm and safe weren’t what she needed tonight.

She led him through her wards. She led him to her bed.

Candlelight warmed his skin to the color of old ivory; shadows pooled in the hollow of his chest, the valleys between his ribs. White ridges of scars crisscrossed his abdomen where her silver blade had opened his flesh. She remembered the blows that had caused them: two before he struck—reflex at stumbling on an unexpected demon—and the third and deepest after, to drive him off. They had managed to sort the situation out before any more became necessary.

“Dead thing,” Isyllt whispered, laying a hand over his silent heart. The scholarly portion of her mind noted the lack of function in undead sex organs, which was only sensible. The rest of her was distracted by the feather-light touch of his claws.

“Necromancer.” He pulled the pins from her hair and its weight slithered down her back. The smell of poppy oil mingled with serpentine musk. “A good match, I think.”

She took a hairpin from him—silver, and sharp—and pressed the tip to his breast. He made a low noise in his throat as skin popped and a dark bead of blood welled. It tasted of death and anise, bittersweet and tingling on her tongue. Spider laughed and pushed her down against the pillows.

She snuffed the candle with a thought; his skin and glittering eyes were the brightest things in the room. She closed her eyes and let the dark take her, darkness and cold and the heat of poisoned kisses.

Kiril came awake with a start, eyes sharpening against the dark as magic crackled around his fingers. A breeze stirred the drapes and a pale stripe of moonlight fell across the end of the bed, silhouetting the slender shape standing there. The shadow moved, and orange demon eyes sparked.

His breath left in a hiss and his hands clenched. “Phaedra—” He rarely spoke her name; it felt strange in his mouth.

The bed shifted under her weight. His throat closed as she settled against him. Her conflagrant perfume had faded to spice and embers; beneath that she smelled faintly of meat, and of nothing.

“I’m lonely, Kiril,” she whispered. Not a seductive whisper, but a lost and childlike one. “So lonely.”

Maybe it was the darkness sparing him her face, or that his defenses were still scattered from sleep. Maybe it was the need in her voice, in her fingers closing in his nightshirt. Maybe it was his own grief and guilt. His arm tightened around her.

“I know.”

“I loved Ferenz. For all my foolish sins, I loved him. He died because of me, and all the vengeance in the world won’t bring him back.”

There was no answer for that save the obvious. He stroked her hair instead. So alien, the press of dead flesh. Of any flesh. There had been no one else in the three years since he broke with Isyllt. She had been all bone-thin angles and clinging sea-wrack hair, sharp-nailed and biting. Phaedra was fuller, softer, stomach and breasts ripened by age and childbirth. He couldn’t control a shudder, so strong he thought his flesh would crawl from his bones.

Phaedra made a choked little sound. “Is it so awful to touch me?”

“Yes. But not because… of what you