Page 78 of A Serpent in the Garden

“I’m not afraid of your mother, boy.”

Open air met the back of my head. It dangled off the cliff bank, over the river of the In Between. If I didn’t die in the water of rapid old age, I would die of frostbite, because I was cold all over from the fight Remy was putting up. Knee to Marcic’s metal-coated groin, arm struggling out from under his gloved fingers. But he was limited in my body, his strength at half-mast. Not enough to throw Marcic off.

A bright white crack; Marcic howling with a sudden shock of pain. The side of his face crusted with frost, one eye ice blue and dead-looking. He pulled back enough for me to draw in a deep breath, but my legs remained pinned beneath his weight, the bulk of his heavy armor.

Mother, Remy grunted, as if she were locked up in my head right beside him, if you can hear me—

Marcic’s weight disappeared. It was there and then it wasn’t, and a fresh howl rent the air. An ominous crackling; a whoosh of sudden flame; a well-mannered, black-humored voice calling over the screams spiraling to the sky.

“I’m sorry,” the voice said. “I really can’t allow you to manhandle my brother’s host.”

Marcic was a thrashing silhouette through the leaping flames but then they were gone in a wink, leaving behind nothing except steaming metal. He would bake alive in there; the armor would be too hot for anyone to remove it—

His body will heal eventually, Remy muttered, as I climbed to my feet. Though I don’t know if his ego will recover.

The screams had drawn more guards, though none seemed inclined to rush to Marcic’s aid or do anything at all other than nervously eye whoever stood behind me.

I backed away from the smoldering wreckage, whirling around to meet the demon who had turned the guard into a pyre. His golden eyes had a watchful quality, amused and slightly cruel, and I knew instantly this was the brother a much-younger Remy had hidden from in the wood.

How can you tell?

Because I’d run from him too.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of his flames, which I was, or those sharpened canines that showed through his smile. He was completely nonthreatening as he gazed down at me, hands behind his back, head ticked to the side as he stood there with a rapidly-widening smile. His was an alarming sort of beauty. That terrible power and the almost sun-struck look of him beneath the monotonous gray sky. His skin shimmered gold, as if he’d been rolled in slivered flakes of it, though even as I watched, his glow dimmed into a low luminosity. Dark hair shining red at the edges in the light wreathing him, full lips a silken pink. Eyelashes flashing black and gold as he blinked; they looked gilt-drenched on top but inky black beneath.

He held out a hand, which I was reluctant to clasp. Would he scald me, leave me with skin that looked like a crusted, burned glove?

His skin was hot when it met mine, as if he stood beneath an angry sun. “Finn,” he said. “Your name, my lady?”

I felt Remy roll his eyes so hard I rather thought they’d fly from their sockets.

“Des. How did you—”

“Find you? A happy accident. Valic lit a fire last night,” he said, as if I had any idea what that meant. “I’ve only just got back. I felt my brother’s presence the moment I stepped into the meadow. I notice nobody rushed over to help you fend off an unprovoked attack.” Finn turned to the cluster of armored guards. “Curious. Almost as if they’ve been warned off. Maybe things have changed in my absence. I thought the guards were meant to break up petty fights. I suppose when the head of the guard is involved the rules don’t apply.”

“He was going down to the In Between,” one of the guards piped up. “Likely getting ready to let loose another crowd of damned.”

“And yet the In Between appears unmolested.” Finn peered around me down the stone staircase. “I thought we’d been keeping it locked up tight since Remy broke it open? The ferryman’s been complaining far and wide about having to use a key.”

Nobody appeared to have much to say to that, which Finn seemed to expect. He turned his smile back on me, held out his hand. “Come,” he said as I took it. “I haven’t been home for months. Haven’t seen my brother in even longer.”

I took a quick glance around at the guards, but they all seemed too wary of Finn to stop me leaving.

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” he said. “They have no reason to detain you. Marcic probably told them to stand down the moment he spotted you wandering. He hates my brother.”

“Where are we going?”

“Elsewhere.” And when I still looked bemused, squinting up at him through his golden glare: “To Flame. I want into my apartments and out of these clothes.”

“She wouldn’t like Flame, Finn,” Remy said, our voices mingling.

“No? I wouldn’t let her burn.” Walking through the meadow now, the grass grading from emerald to parched, phlegmy yellow; Finn reached out with his free hand to pat every hellhound we passed. “I’ve come to quite like humans lately.”

“It’s not the flames, it’s the suffering,” Remy insisted.

“Afraid I don’t hold sway over the screams.” Finn squeezed my hand as if in reassurance, tipping down at me what he probably meant as a disarming smile. “You’ll hear nothing from my apartment, though. I would blink you straight inside if I could, but it doesn’t work like that, unfortunately. Security reasons.”

Through the gates and into the crowd-clotted antechamber, and Finn held my hand all the while. He was dazzling to behold, beautiful once you got over the general shock of him, a face made of angles and arches, a smile that looked somehow angelic and sinful.