Carnival of Souls

the clues people didn’t think they revealed.

Does he suspect me as well? He’d be a fool not to.

Finally, he said, “I’ll only accept your offer if you can guarantee my win.”

“I can do it.” She held his gaze. “My kill count will be yours, too, if I’m your chattel.”

Kaleb paused as that detail settled on him: with her kills added to his, he’d be ranked first by a huge margin. He could win the whole competition without killing anyone else in the fights. “And all you want…”

“I won’t breed under any circumstances. That term must be inviolate,” she stressed. “If we do this, if I’m bound to you or to Zevi, I’ll not bed down with whoever I’m bound to.”

“Agreed, but if I win and breed Marchosias’ daughter, I will live in the palace. That will mean that you will live within Marchosias’ reach too.” Kaleb spoke very clearly. “I cannot tell him you are for Zevi’s uses exclusively. He’d kill Z, and anything that results in injury to Zevi is a no-starter.”

“If you gift me to Zevi as a bloodmate, only he can get me with child,” she murmured. “If I have to be lent to Marchosias or anyone else, I’ll do it. All I ask is that you help me avoid one thing. Everything else is negotiable.”

After an indeterminate number of moments during which Kaleb stared silently at her, he nodded. “There are knives on the fire. The short one is silver. If you grab it, we can do this once it cools.”

Aya walked to the fire and retrieved a knife from the saltwater that was boiling over the low flames. A flicker of magic went through her as she cooled it down to a slightly less horrible temperature. She wanted to get this done before Kaleb could change his mind.

“It must not have been in there long,” she lied evenly. “We can do it right now.”

She pressed the edge to her palm and then held the knife out to Kaleb.

Once he’d cut his hand as well, they clasped their palms together. “I’ll support you in acquiring his daughter. I’ll support you in the fights, give you my kill count, and be yours to command. For the next year, starting in this moment, I’ll do all you ask in exchange for your protection,” she swore.

“I accept you as my property, Aya. I will protect you from harm and keep you safe from breeding with Marchosias — or any other daimon — in exchange for your support,” Kaleb vowed.

She released his grasp and carried the knife to the fire. With her back to him, she whispered a simple spell to make him sleep and then said, “Thank you.”

And then she left the two sleeping curs, so she could begin to procure what she needed to help Kaleb survive.

CHAPTER 16

MALLORY’S BODY ACHED LIKE she’d been thrown into a pit of burning coals, swarmed by ants, and doused with ice water. She stared up at her ceiling, thinking about Kaleb in an attempt to distract herself from how absolutely wretched she felt. It didn’t improve how she actually felt, but it was a great way to fill the hour.

Despite her best intentions, she’d fallen asleep before Adam was home again. She’d heard him come in late at night to check on her, so she knew he was okay. She, however, felt far from okay. When she woke early that morning, she couldn’t get out of bed. She tried, but even the thought of standing seemed exhausting. She didn’t know anyone who got as sick as she did — at least, no one who got this sick but didn’t go to a hospital. Her father always fixed her, but he never explained why she got so ill. She’d told herself time and again that maybe these episodes weren’t weird, but the older she got, the more she knew that they were about as weird as women who exhaled birds — and beautiful guys talking about “belonging” after one kiss.

Even if she hadn’t felt horrible, she would have wanted to stay in bed thinking about Kaleb. He seemed so abnormal in her world. What was normal for the daughter of a witch who spent his life running from the daimons he’d robbed wasn’t exactly the kind of normal that she wanted. Kaleb is. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to have a relationship if she had to lie, and she was certain Adam wasn’t going to allow her to tell a human about witches and daimons, and after the daimon encounter, she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to keep Kaleb safe even if she could reveal the secrets she knew.

The reality was that she did need to deal with her version of normal, though. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor, fighting the urge to simply yell for her father. She didn’t, but she didn’t get any farther either.

She wasn’t sure if it was a minute or an hour later, but he tapped on her door. “Mallory? Are you awake?”

“I am.” She sat on the edge of her bed with her quilt wrapped around her like a cloak. Even bundled up, she felt cold.

Her father opened the door and then paused, wearing a look of panic that made Mallory think that the worry lines around his eyes were deeper than they had once been. The plain oxford shirt and dark trousers he had on told her that he had been heading in to the new office early.

After a moment, he came to the bed and put a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. She felt the cold metal of the single ring he wore even after her mother had left.

Mallory had been through this enough times that she stayed still as he felt her ears and forehead with the back of his hand and then tilted her head to look into her eyes. She waited while he felt under her ears for swelling and then inevitably started asking questions. Her mind felt too fuzzy to try to figure out what to tell him.

“Are you dizzy? Sore throat? Nauseous?” He stepped back and watched her as he spoke.

“No.”

“You’re freezing.”

“I know.” She felt guilty even though she didn’t choose to be cold. “I need to talk to you.”

“Just a minute,” he said, and then muttering quiet curses, or possibly spells for her health, he walked out of the room. In only a few moments, he’d returned with an electric blanket. He wrapped it around her, plugged it in, and left again. In short order, he was back with a glass of hot water into which he’d stirred some herbal concoction made palatable with plenty of sugar and a touch of lemon.

“Drink.”

Obediently, Mallory emptied the glass. She couldn’t ask why she got so cold, never asked why he knew how to make it better. She’d thought about it, but every time she started to do so, the urge to ask vanished. Good daughters don’t question their fathers. Her father could always assess what was wrong within only a few moments, and he inevitably brewed some potion or other to make her better. Why ask, when he can fix it?

He went to the window, picked up the little sachet he’d refreshed every month in every house she could recall, and sniffed it. “No strangers came here, did they?” As he spoke, he checked the line of salt that edged every room in the house. Hers was unbroken. “Was someone at the door? In the house?”

“No.” Mallory shook her head.

Adam’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t muss his perfectly ordered hair; he didn’t scowl at her. He simply asked, “What happened?”

Mallory sighed. She didn’t want to, but she told him, “I had a date, sort of… with Kaleb. I ran into him and then we had dinner and… it wasn’t planned. I didn’t know I’d see him.”

Her father swallowed visibly. “Did this Kaleb do something to you? Did he touch you? Did he hurt you? Tell me, Mallory.”

It felt like words were being pulled from her lips. They tumbled out too fast. “No! We kissed, but I wanted him to kiss me. It was after dinner… and there was a strange woman. She threw Kaleb aside and”—she looked directly at her father—“she released birds from her mouth. I think she was a daimon. I couldn’t kill her. I couldn’t hurt her, and then she blew ashes into my face.”

“Ashes?”

“One of the birds disintegrated, and I inhaled it,” Mallory said.