Chapter 11 - Reap and Sow

Lacking a cloak, Eda made do with her borrowed blanket. She wrapped it about her shoulders and crept outside, circling the cabin to shuffle down the narrow walkway. The barge rocked imperceptibly.

She wasn’t trying to be quiet, but the incredulous eyebrow Kit turned her way made her feel like a rampaging ox. “Really,” he drawled, “where are your sea legs?”

“We’re on a river.”

His mouth twitched.

Eda mustered her resolve and sat down, leaving a sensible distance between them.

She’d never have sat uninvited like this with Mr. Night. Demons were dangerous, no matter the mask they wore. But while Mr. Night was unfailingly cordial, Kit’rath Ansellis was brash, sharp-tongued, and lacked a verbal filter. It was oddly reassuring. She’d known him a scant twelve hours, and already he’d shown her his true face.

“What are you doing?” Kit said as she nestled deeper into her blanket. His stare was scorching.

“Sitting.”

“And why are you doing it near me?”

“I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Really. I’ll just throw myself off the side, then.” His scowl bled into a smirk. “Or perhaps…can you swim?”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“Look, if we’re going to be stuck together for a while, I think it’s only fair that we clarify a few things. Starting with the Pact.” She stuck her hand out. “I want to see it.”

To her surprise, Kit didn’t hesitate. A length of parchment appeared with a twist of his wrist. Eda took the Pact gingerly. She’d never held one before. And this is mine.

The rust-red text was long dried. “Is this really your blood?”

“Has to be. In most basic terms, Pacts are blood magic.”

The hurried smudge upon the bottom of the page was hers. Eda’s hand stung in memory. “How do you draft something up so quickly?” She’d always wondered but never dared ask Mr. Night.

“Intention. Not all demons wield enough power to make Pacts, if they have the opportunity to come to this world at all. It’s a skill few are allowed to learn.”

A vague but interesting answer. Eda never considered that some demons could not make Pacts. But Lich had spoken about demon hierarchy. They had societies and power structures, just like the human world. Some were more potent than others. Mr. Night was one of six archdukes in the Otherworld, so his abilities made sense. But Kit…

“Does that mean you’re some sort of noble where you come from?” she asked. “If you can make Pacts and shape-shift?”

His expression shuttered. “I was.”

“Before, you mean. Robin said you’ve not left the human world in twenty years.”

The why was unspoken, and Kit obviously heard it. “Remind me why I shouldn’t just chuck you in the river.”

“Because I might catch cold, then hypothermia, then die. Which would violate the Pact, since you cannot kill me. Uh. You can’t, right?” She scanned the document.

“You’re under my protection until the deal is done. It’s all there.”

It was, she realized.

Clause 3: Until completion of this contract, the bearer of said contract must (1) inflict no grievous bodily harm intentionally upon the signee and (2) prevent such harm from external sources where possible. Premature death of the signee will result in loss of acquired years and deduction of the same from the bearer.

Eda pursed her lips. Fairly usual terms, but he’d certainly left things open to interpretation. What did he consider “grievous bodily harm”? Throwing her in a river probably didn’t count.

A small, traitorous part of her itched to tear the parchment in two. To undo this awful day and get her years back. But Eda knew it wouldn’t tear even if she tried. Nor burn or melt or flake apart in water—

“Keep it, if you wish,” Kit said, as though reading her mind, “but don’t bother trying to destroy it or throw it away. It will always find its way back to me.”

“I wouldn’t. I signed it for a reason.”

“So you keep saying.”

Eda bit her cheek. “I thought getting inside the keep might be easy for you. You’re a shape-shifter, so…” She trailed off, unsure if she were giving offense.

“Find me lacking, darling?”

She winced. “No. I just—I never really considered how demons went about fulfilling Pacts. I assumed you were all so powerful that nothing was beyond your ability.”

“That may have been true once. My people have ever been gifted in magicks, but our mastery was once far greater. Over the centuries, we became…lesser.”

“Why? How?”

“No one knows for certain. Many blame you humans for it.”

Eda had heard this theory: The supposition that whatever paltry magic human alchemists might wield came from the Otherworld, bleeding through like sap between bark. An idea denounced by the Faithhood as heretical lunacy, of course, but no less intriguing. “Well, we’re not taking your magic intentionally. That’s unfair!”

Kit studied her face as if she were an interesting painting. “You are peculiar.”

“How so?”

“You watched me rip out a man’s throat and you’re not pissing yourself talking to me, for one.”

She despised how casually he spoke of it, as if it didn’t matter. “Perhaps I’m saving the piss for the next time you pick me up without my permission.” She hadn’t meant to be so crass, but Eda was still annoyed about that death drop from the window.

Kit only grinned.

“I suppose you enjoyed it,” she bit out, “killing those men. Certainly didn’t seem to bother you.”

The grin slipped. “Should I mourn those who would see my destruction?”

“Should you revel in theirs?”

His eyes were hard. “Where I come from, blood falls easy as rain. So perhaps the shedding of it fails to distress me. That does not mean I revel.”

Eda looked away, unwilling to linger on the topic. “Was it true, what you said about the Lordfather? That he was a—”

“It matters not. Fact and belief rarely have much in common. With enough time, everything becomes mere story. Your Faithhood simply rewrote Dominor’s to their liking.”

Eda wondered at that. How much else of human culture was falsely interpreted, tangled up with theirs? The Holy Codex taught that the Lordfather—Dominor, she supposed—knew that humankind would remain base and lawless as animals in the care of his fellow gods and so banished them to the Otherworld. There they became twisted and corrupt: the first demons. She’d never put much stock in it.

Yet to hear her doubts made manifest, to think that the ancient pantheon had always been demons, come from the Otherworld…Eda was shaken by how much sense it made. Moreso than anything she’d read in scriptures. Of course, they would have been worshipped as gods. What was a Pact but a prayer answered? Then the blooming Faithhood swept in like a scourging fire, eradicating the pagans and their gods before crafting a new divine icon from the ashes.

And if the Lordfather was not real, then no omnipotent being held the Shaws in divine judgment.

A trickle of relief burbled through her like a thawing stream, but she felt little better. Eda and her brothers had lured many into Mr. Night’s clutches, and she was rather vexed to realize this still bothered her. Faith evidently had nothing to do with one’s morals. It would be so much easier, she thought, not to have any.

A pop suddenly rent the air. Eda was torn from her ruminations when a small ugly creature materialized in front of her.

She jerked back with a cry.

“Careful, Tripp. You’ll give the woman heart spasms.”

Squatting between them was a hunched bony figure no taller than Eda’s knee. Its skin was leathery and greenish, like old moss. Its feet reminded her of a chicken’s: three long toes tipped with claws. It had wings, too, much like a bat’s, tucked close against a knobbly spine. A surprisingly fine swath of burgundy fabric hung tied around its little potbelly and over one shoulder, embroidered with black thread.

The creature stared her down over a long hooked nose and bared its teeth, needle-sharp.

Eda remembered the motifs around the border of the Gateway. The grinning pointed faces peeking out between vines and leaves. Imp. That’s an imp.

“Sire, quas van’ik?” the creature cried in a shrill voice. “It dares to sit so close! Lower your gaze in my lord’s presence, you filth!” The imp made to lunge for her, but Kit snagged its robe.

“Hirath, Tripp. This is Eda Shaw. We have a Pact.”

That strange language again. The language of demons. It had to be, though Eda never heard Mr. Night speak it.

Tripp stopped struggling. “A Pact! My lord, you are making Pacts again?”

Eda frowned. Kit had claimed to be disinterested in her years, before she wore him down…“Why don’t you want to make Pacts? Isn’t that what you demons love best?”

“Impudent wretch.” Tripp made itself taller, bristling like an outraged cat. Its hooked tail thrashed. “Allow me to pluck out its tongue, sire. It hardly needs one.”

“Enough. Eda Shaw is under my protection. You will not touch her nor continue warbling on like an unruly impling.”

Tripp’s bat-like ears drooped. It made a strange bow of supplication.

“Where did it come from?”

“Tripp is my familiar. Or he was. When I left Infernus, I bid him take a new patron, if he wished. He refused.”

“Infernus?”

“My realm. The one you call the Otherworld.”

Years brokering Pacts, and I still know so little. “But how did he get here? Through a Gateway?”

“Tripp’s ways are beyond your feeble comprehension, human,” the imp said with scorn, black eyes glittering. “We imps may go wherever our patrons go.”

Kit spared him a withering look. “Which is why you should not be here. I am not your lord any longer, Tripp. How many times must I tell you? If you consider me at all, you will not keep returning. You could lead Baelion right to me.”

Eda leaned closer, resisting the urge to interrupt again. Baelion?

“No, my lord, no! Tripp is sneaky, always stays away from the villa. Lord Baelion does not find me. That is why I have come, see? To warn you.”

“About what?”

“The noblefolk spin their rumors fast, and now the archdukes know it to be true: Your brother has made a Pact of great worth with a human cleric. Many years, he has been promised—thousands! They are saying Lord Baelion has demanded that the bishop find you as well, and will grant a great boon in exchange. The courts talk of nothing else.”

Eda’s blood ran cold.

Brother.

This Baelion and Mr. Night were one and the same. Of all the demons she could have sought out, she’d only gone and made a Pact with Mr. Night’s saints-damned brother. That was why Kit possessed such power, why he could make Pacts. He was related to an archduke of the Otherworld.

Kit’s expression hardly changed save for a subtle twitch of his brow. “That is…unfortunate.”

“What will you do, m’lord?”

“Nothing.”

“But you cannot continue to hide! You must face Baelion and fight, sire. Take back the seat that is yours by right—”

“Be silent,” Kit snarled in a reverberating tone, glass crushed underfoot.

Eda winced. She thought again of his true form, all ash gray and swooping horns. A trickle of unease crept down her spine. Yours by right, Tripp had said. Did that make Mr. Night a usurper?

The imp lowered his gaze, but it was the demon himself who suddenly seemed uneasy. Facing the river as he was, Eda could not see Kit’s face. His shoulders were taut as a bowstring. He twisted a slate-gray ring on his middle finger, inset with a fat, glittering ruby. If Eda didn’t know better, she’d say the gesture was a nervous one. All that cocksure swagger had fallen down around him as a toppled fortress might, revealing something surprisingly vulnerable within.

He’s afraid. This unnerved her, for when an apex predator cowered, it boded ill for everyone else.

Mr. Night had never once mentioned a brother. He’d rarely spoken about himself at all. Their conversations over the years had been short and always of the demon’s choosing. What did she really know about him? Until yesterday, Eda had had no idea he was a duke. Here she was questioning the limitations of his powers, when perhaps she should be more concerned by the extent of them.

Eda stared at the stiff line of Kit’s back and found that she really, truly didn’t want to know. If Kit is a monster, what sort of creature have I been working for all these years?

She wanted to confess the truth. That the circumstances bringing her here went far deeper than simply housing a Gateway. But how would Kit react if he knew that the same bishop hunting him hunted her as well? That she’d been the one to inadvertently lead Florian Fane to Mr. Night’s mirror, had been serving the same brother that wanted him dead?

Eda did not wish to find out.

Tripp asked, “What now, sire?”

Kit eyed her with obvious mistrust. After a moment’s hesitation, he seemed to conclude that she was inconsequential enough to explain: “Now I will fulfill Eda Shaw’s Pact. Baelion cannot find me so long as I have this.” He brandished the ring to the moonlight. “Once it’s done, I’ll put as much distance between myself and Blackbridge as possible. It’s past time I found new territory.”

“What does the ring do?” Eda asked.

“Robin’s handiwork. Ask her if you’re so curious. In the meantime…” He glowered at Tripp. “You want to serve? Follow this bishop. Learn what it is my brother has granted him. Where he goes, what he does. Report all back to me.”

“Yes, m’lord! Of course!”

Kit’s eyes drifted back to Eda. She clutched her blanket, but he said nothing. With a great whirl of black smoke, the demon abruptly transformed into a sleek black bird. He swooped away into the night.

Cat. Mouse. Horse. Bird. Every creature he’d embodied so far were those made for shadow and speed: shapes to hide or flee rather than fight. There was something telling in that.

“Will he come back?”

Tripp looked at her in disgust. “You have a Pact, no? He must.”

Somewhere below, a porthole window squeaked open. “Would you lot shut the fuck up?” Robin cried. “I’m trying to sleep!”

Tripp disappeared with a pop.

* * *

Despite poor rest, Eda did feel better by morning. Robin showed her a tiny washroom below deck—a pine-scented cubicle opposite the mysterious bedroom door—and she washed herself properly for the first time in days. Her hair was a little greasy, but it would do for now. She tied it back with some borrowed string into an acceptable, if messy, plait.

Breakfast was an odd affair. Robin puttered about making tea. Eda offered to help, but the woman merely eyeballed her with obvious distrust. “I’ll have no stranger’s hands rooting about in my pots. There’s not enough room, besides. Sit down and stay out of the way.”

She sat at the folding table, unsure what to do with her hands. Wan sunlight streamed through the portholes, where birds chirped to one another outside. Ducks quacked on the river. Old Bastard made a show of stretching, even deigning to sniff Eda’s hand. Finding it acceptable, he rubbed his head against her knuckles with a purr.

Robin’s eyebrows shot up. “He must like you.” She put down a generous bowl of oatmeal, topped with apple wedges and honey.

“Perhaps he’s a good judge of character.” Eda palmed the warm bowl and met Robin’s eyes. “Thank you.” Not just for the oatmeal. Whatever Robin’s reasoning, she was putting herself out by housing Eda like this.

The softening of Robin’s mouth suggested she understood. “So. Where’s Lord Arsehole this morning?”

The unexpected moniker had Eda choking on her oats. “I don’t know! I’m not his keeper.”

“You’ll find that getting those brothers of yours back will go faster if you actually start planning together.”

“All I need are his powers. The rest I can handle.”

“So you do have a plan?” She sat across from her, nursing a fresh cup of tea.

“Yes, actually.” Eda thought about it all morning. “I’m sure you’re right about where they’re being kept. But Kit won’t be able to just walk in, will he? Even disguised as a—a cat, or a mouse, or something.”

“No. Fighting through a pack of Blades out on the street is one thing, but taking the fight to them on their territory…a fool’s errand. Nowhere is better warded against demonic power than Fell Keep.”

“I know. I’d have to be the one to free them. Kit could be some sort of distraction, maybe. If he caused enough fuss, the Blades’ attention would be diverted. They couldn’t ignore a demon right on their doorstep.”

Robin looked unimpressed. “And what would your clever disguise be? There’s a good chance they’ll recognize you, and even if they don’t, they aren’t going to let just any old bugger wander into their stronghold. Least of all saunter back out with two prisoners in tow.”

Eda bit back her annoyance. It was too early for harrowing facts. “I know all that. Getting out is another problem, and I’ll come to it. First, I just need a way to get in. Lord Arsehole alluded to his ring last night. Apparently, you made it for him.”

Robin’s mouth curled. “He alluded to a lot more, from what I heard. All that chatter!”

“I said sorry for that. My point is that the ring conceals him from his—from other demons. I don’t know how you made it, but…” She hadn’t expected to utilize Kit’s aid this way, but she would utilize it.

“I know what you’re getting at, but a Ring of Shielding is no simple thing to re-create. It took weeks to craft. Weeks you don’t have. It works for Kit’rath because he’s a demon; they can sense one another from some distance. They’re rather like animals in that way. All the ring does is muffle his demonic signature so that others cannot sense it. It offers no protection against humans.” She sipped her tea again. Eda glared at her, wishing she’d hurry up. She was inclined to question how Robin gained such esoteric knowledge but didn’t wish to look a gift horse in the mouth. “You’re asking for something that would disguise you, a human, from other humans. Something that would hide you from sight rather than sense, which is rather more difficult.”

“But can you do it?” Eda pressed. “Is it possible?”

Robin played with the golden pendant about her neck. “It’s possible.”

“How long would it take?” She’d read a little on alchemy. Demons might bend gravity and change shape with nary a thought, but for mortals, the process was rather more involved. Magic could only be wielded in the same way food was crafted from raw ingredients—with time, care, and careful application.

“I could not say how long. To craft something suited to your needs would require intense work…and blood.” Robin’s eyes gleamed with a strange light. “Are you willing to pay the price?”

Eda gripped the table. I’ve already paid the highest one there is. “Tell me what you need.”