“But we stopped early. And we could have gone around the gate, forded the river and skipped the city altogether. You don’t like being around other people, I can tell, but you’ve been so interested in everything here. Are you worried about what’s happening in this town?”
“Worried? About this place? Dark gods, of course not.”
Amma twisted up her lips in thought. “But that innkeeper told you something funny was going on—she even said it was demons—and then you made sure we came into town, and you’ve been in half a daze all day.”
“Amma, please, grant me a little more respect than that. I may be slightly intrigued, but I amnotworried. Not about anyone. Ever.”
She spun the feather between two fingers absently, giving him a long look that he could only stand under and feel too seen. Then she shrugged. “Well, thank you for, I guess, re-abducting me today, Damien.”
There was a tickle in his chest, and like so many other strange pokes and prods, he shoved it down and held it beneath the waters of ignorance in his gut until it drowned. “As I said, losing the talisman would be extraordinarily inconvenient.” Distracted, he nearly forgot the Chthonic word and commands to keep her in place, rushing through them on the threshold of her room before finally leaving.
CHAPTER 16
THE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE BUSTINESS OF GODDESSES AND THE FORTUNE OF THEIR FOLLOWERS
Amma lay on the small bed in her room inside The Jealous Gentleman, her hip pouch and silver dagger on the side table at arm’s reach. Disrobed of her leather bodice, tunic, and breeches, she was left in just the thigh-length chemise she always wore beneath her clothes. She climbed out from under the woolen blanket for perhaps the fifth time since she’d tried to fall asleep, too warm one moment, too cold the next.
Staring up at the ceiling when she settled back down, her eyes adjusted to the darkness in the room, the inn beyond her door gone quiet. The previous day had begun with a strange if delightful surprise when she spied Kaz through the window in that rickety, little inn. There was no way the imp was bringing that bread to the child of his own accord—Damien had surely sent him to do that, but he hadn’t said a word about it, so she didn’t mention that she knew. On the road, he’d been easier to talk to, and she’d even seen him smile a few times, and not in that self-absorbed, knowing way, but with some genuine mirth.
And then when they reached Elderpass, Damien had extended trust to her. Yes, those chances were allowed under threat of some unspoken violence, but Amma wasprettysure he didn’t even know what he was promising. But then—Robert. The blood mage would have killed him if she had been a second slower to still his hands, though she had been shocked to be able to stop him at all. It would have been terrible if he’d followed through, yes, but he would have been doing it to...protect her? No, to protect the talisman, but he hadn’t mentioned that when he was attacking Robert, or when he had held her close, or even when he had said, quite pointedly, that she belonged to him—words that struck her deeply but not with the indignation she expected.
Amma reached for her pouch on the side table and slipped out the feather Damien had given her. She held it over her head in the gentle moonlight of Ero coming in through the window. It wasn’t truly black, not under this light that was only just a reflection. Like this, she could see all the colors hidden in the feather—blue, green, purple. Sapphire, emerald, amethyst. Soft and smooth, she ran it between her fingers to watch the colors change, feeling a spark of magic along its stem, and then lay it on her chest under a hand.
It was strange: Damien had promised many times over to kill her, but when he touched her, that intent didn’t even dance under the surface. There was something about his fingers on her skin, even when he was dragging her about, that was so measured. Amma had been caressed in much more carnal ways, but when Damien’s cautious hands were on her, even for decidedly callous reasons, she could feel a neediness in them. And when he let go, it was like he took her skin with him, leaving her exposed and desolate.
Amma’s fingers slid up the feather laying on her chest once more, soft and pliable, then shook her head. She was simply starved for affection herself, that was all. She was completely mad to read any kind of tenderness in his words or actions. He told her plainly, he was only concerned for that stupid talisman, and, for now, she just happened to be its vessel. And anyway, no matter how soft and pliable Damien himself might appear to become, she had to use that to stay alive, to steal the Scroll of the Army of the Undead, and to escape to her home.
She lay the feather atop her things on the side table again, eyes closing. A vision of his face when she had suggested he were reading some romance floated in her mind, making her laugh. He looked appalled, embarrassed even, and she wished she had prodded at him just a little more.Oh, Damien, tell me about the lovers in your book, she could have said.I bet there’s a broody, angry, so-called villain lusting after a coquettish baroness in disguise that he’s taken captive. Come on, read it aloud, I want to hear what happens next.
Amma woke much later in the morning the following day, surprised to have been allowed to sleep so long. Well rested and yet restless, she slipped out of bed and stretched, got dressed, and sat on the edge of the cot, waiting with the feather in her hands. The sunlight in the room was mild, and the feather was black again, but still soft in her fingers. When there was a rap on her door, she stood, stuffing it into the small pouch on her waist.
Damien was leaning against the wall, looking tired and grumpy when she opened the door. His normally pallid skin had a bluish tint under his eyes and his frown was a little deeper than normal. She frowned back sympathetically. “What’s the matter?”
His brow narrowed, but he only grunted. At his feet, Kaz was padding up, ridiculous tongue sticking out of his ridiculous snout. Seeing the dog mask he wore still made her uneasy, but the blow was softened by the too-cute tunic he was still dutifully wearing.
“Kaz, why is Damien so cranky this morning?”
“I’m notcranky,” he groused.
Kaz’s bulbous eyes rolled up from one of them to the other. “Master expended much energy last night. He was up very late and with little success.”
“What were you doing?” Amma stepped out of her room and pulled the door shut, eyebrows raising.
He had been standing there with his head bent, hair falling in his face as he grimaced at the imp, then realized all at once she was so close. He straightened and stepped back, bumping into the opposing door in the inn’s narrow hall. “Nothing.”
Amma clicked her tongue and inched toward him. “Doesn’t sound like nothing. Kaz?”
“Master said he was seeking out the source of the infernal energy.” The dog’s head tilted, pointed ears twitching, and then he snarled, and added for good measure, “Whore.”
Amma pouted at him, and Damien took a very put-upon breath, shuffling another few inches away from her. “It was only more research.” As he raised up a hand to run through his hair, his elbow banged into the opposing door. “Shit.” He pulled back and rubbed the spot.
The door behind him creaked open, and an elderly man stuck his wrinkled head out, eyebrows so large and fluffy he had to be blinded by them. “What? What is it?”
“So sorry,” Amma began, waving at him from behind Damien.
“What’s with this racket, what do you want?” he crowed, waving a fist at the blood mage who towered over him.
Damien’s voice was as sweet as vinegar. “Go back inside.”
