Stop that, Archie thought wildly. No reply from Damaris. Actually, nothing from Damaris at all, not even the vaguest hint of him in the back of Archie’s mind as he had been constantly. Perhaps he was asleep; Archie had no idea if demons slept and now he thought about it, it would be awfully inconvenient for a succubus demon if he had to sleep at night.
After parting ways from his father, Archie wondered belatedly if that meant those thoughts had been his own.
CHAPTER NINE
DAMARIS’S PRESENCE MADE himself known to Archie in the late afternoon, before he was meant to attend Prince Ixthan’s winter gathering. He mistook it for hunger at first, though he’d only just eaten, before realizing that the gnawing feeling was at the back of his mind instead of in his stomach.
What’s wrong?Archie asked, alarmed.
No reply, but it didn’t feel like before, when Archie couldn’t feel Damaris at all. This time he could tell Damaris was there, just not answering. He put down his book and brought up his mental image of his tower. He’d been imagining it every free moment he had, building it stronger brick by metamagical brick. Now, he carefully imagined easing a window open and peering out.
The feeling intensified, an ache that seeped into the very bones of Archie’s skull; his ears and nose felt stuffed and there was a pressure behind his eyes. He hissed, and the vibration of the sound made it worse. He felt Damaris not as a singularpresence but in wisps, as if the demon was in his shadow form, swirling in a corner of his mind.
“Damaris?” whispered Archie, panic rising. “What’s happening?”
The shadows moved as one but also as many, heaving together in one nauseous lurch of Archie’s stomach. A sound, though it was not a real sound but one that reverberated off the inside of Archie’s mind, arrived as a thick growl, barely recognizable as the dry, enunciated voice Archie had come to know as Damaris’s.
I hunger.
Archie understood, instinctively. He had never felt the full force of Damaris’s hunger before, the demon must have kept his own magical fortifications and anything Archie had felt up until now had been carefully controlled, deliberately revealed to him by Damaris. But Damaris’s shield was down right now, so Archie felt it too, as hunger, as need, asdesire. It was so overwhelming, his entire body cramped up. Was this what a demon’s real appetite was like?
As quickly as it had consumed him, it was gone. Simply just cut off, as if a door had been closed. And perhaps it was. Archie was left alone with only the pounding of his heart, loud in his eardrums. He was starting to understand this magic thing a bit more now. Just as he had no shields to begin with and Damaris had been able to read him easily, he had been able to read Damaris in return just now. Even if only for a moment until the demon had reinstated his own shields.
“That’s… awful,” said Archie softly. His own hunger, the way his eyes wished to linger on men, his unnatural desires weighed on his heart from time to time but it had never felt like that.
No pity. The words came, sharp and vicious into Archie’s mind, hard enough to give him a momentary spike of a headache.
“Stop that,” said Archie, wincing. “I wasn’t, it wasn’t pity. I just… I understand now. In a way I didn’t before.”
Damaris was silent, but Archie felt his presence in his mind. Sulking but no longer angry. The demon was akin to a cat, unable or unwilling to apologize when he lashed out, Archie gathered. The best thing to do was to carry on as before.
Making up for lost time, Archie hurried to get ready. He’d half thought that Prince Ixthan’s invitation had been an off-hand remark, but an invitation had been delivered the day after their strange meeting. It had been signed by the prince himself, which made it official, but the note had been unsealed, which signified that it was an informal invitation. An indication of friendship perhaps, or merely a signifier that it was a genuine invitation and not a formal summons. Archie had turned the note over and over, trying to puzzle out the hidden meanings behind it.
Damaris had been no help, unknowledgable as he was about the unspoken rules of court, and had told him to not go if he didn’t want to. He hadn’t told his mother about it. Unusual, because normally Archie would have taken any opportunity to prove to his mother that he really was doing everything in hispower to be present in society, but he didn’t want to give her any indication of something unusual.
“Master Archie! I didn’t hear your call,” said Nell, starting when he exited his room.
“No, no, I didn’t call, I was in a rush,” said Archie reassuringly as she hastily put down the stack of linens she’d been carrying in order to straighten and retie his doublet laces. She let him go without too much fuss, which she likely wouldn’t have if he’d mentioned whose party he was attending, so he made his escape quickly.
The prince’s rooms were situated across the opposite end of the palace to their rooms. Archie ended up having to flag down a servant to lead the way, winding up to the fourth floor via a staircase he hadn’t even known existed. Archie dismissed the servant with thanks and a coin. The door with the two bored-looking guards stationed in front was presumably the right place. Archie showed his invitation and was waved in with no problem.
The first thing Archie noticed was the heat. The room was kept a notch higher than comfortably warm, the air weighty and everyone inside dressed as though it were the height of summer. Archie handed his coat off to a servant immediately. His skin prickled as he approached the prince, the fine hairs on his arms rising even though there was no breeze.
The party was smaller than Archie had expected, and he was definitely dressed too formally. He’d expected a dance party with mixed company, but he realized now that the invitation was a reflection of the casualness of the gathering. There were fewerthan twenty people, including himself, comfortably all seated in an mixture of stuffed settees and large cushions directly on the carpet. Young men and women sat next to each other alike. The prince himself eschewed the doublet, preferring a shirt and waistcoat, and much of his set presumably took their cue from him. Archie could imagine Charlie’s derisive tones on this fashion already, that any man who went out in just a shirt was indecent.
The decor was the next thing Archie noticed. He was not normally a purveyor of interior decoration, but the style was so different from the rest of the palace that it stuck out. The prince favored gold and green, found in the velvet curtains, overstuffed couches and plush rugs, all patterned in sharp intertwining geometric lines that reminded Archie of the curated hedge maze outside.
The art on the walls featured mountainous landscapes in heavy, thick brush strokes that gave the paintings a raw unfinished look. Even all the ornaments and ironware were twisted in strange shapes, elegant and yet uneven in a way that made the metal look melted.
“Archibald, good, you came!” said Prince Ixthan, rising to greet him, glass in hand. Archie bowed, waiting for Damaris to step forward and take over Archie’s mind. Nothing.
“It was my honor, Your Highness,” said Archie quickly as Ixthan placed a hand at his elbow and pulled him up.Where are you?He thought at Damaris. Still nothing. And not even no reply, there was a strange gap in the place Archie had come to think of as Damaris’s spot in the back of his mind.
Ixthan had waved Archie forward and started to introduce his friends; Archie missed the first few names in his rising panic, and merely mumbled, “Pleasure, pleasure,” as they each inclined their head or tipped their glasses at him. Even though it wasn’t dinner time yet, they seemed to have indulged in drinks already.
“And Earl Damian Lymond,” said Ixthan, indicating the final member, who’d had his back to Archie thus far. Archie had only a moment to place that name before he stood, a familiar curly-haired face he had spent a whole afternoon trying not to look at.
“A pleasure,” said Damian, stretching out a hand. His eyes crinkled with a smile at Archie’s surprise. Archie put out his hand out of ingrained habit, but instead of a shake, Damian pulled his hand in as if Archie were a lady, dropping a kiss to where the back of his hand met wrist. Archie’s face flamed red, and it took everything in him not to recoil and flee.
