Carnival of Souls

He tugged off his jeans and stepped out of them. He only had a few articles of clothing, and he had no human currency to buy more clothes. That meant getting the blood out of his jeans so that he could wear them without attracting the kind of attention that blood spatter would. He turned on the water, looked down, and caught sight of the blood on the bottom hem of his shirt. He removed the shirt too. Jeans first. He could sleep without a shirt, but he wasn’t about to sleep in only his shorts. Not here.

“Is there a brush or sponge of some sort I can use?” Kaleb called through the door. “Mallory?” He waited for a moment, but when she didn’t reply, he repeated, “Mallory?”

Panicked at her silence, he yanked open the door to find her standing there. Hurriedly, he held his jeans in front of him and started to close the door.

She held out a sponge. “Here.”

“I didn’t hear you, and I worried—” He took the sponge. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… I…”

Mallory stared at him. “You’re sorry for… worrying? For carrying away that dead man so calmly? For what this time?”

“Not any of that.” He held his pants lower, blocking her view as best he could, and immediately felt ridiculous. He was a cur who had sold his body to earn money for food and shelter, not an inexperienced human boy, but Mallory made him feel different. He wanted what they had started to share to be special. He wanted all of the secrets to be already out and resolved so they could move forward — not because it would be better for a plan or for anything other than the simple fact that he wanted her to be happy.

“I love you,” he whispered.

He’d heard the words exchanged, but he hadn’t quite understood them the way he suddenly did. Her happiness mattered more than his; her well-being mattered more. He had already defied Haage and Adam, but Kaleb realized then that he would defy anyone if it kept her happier, if it meant she was protected. He said it again, louder this time. “I love you, Mallory.”

She stared at him. “What did you say?”

He stood in the house of a witch in the human world. He was bare-chested and barefoot, clutching a pair of damp jeans, and his wife was staring at him like he had just spoken to her in a new language. He repeated it again: “I love you.”

“No, you don’t.” She walked down the hallway.

He tugged his jeans back on and followed her to where she stood at the formerly broken window.

Without turning to face him, she said, “I’m upset, and maybe you’re just trying to make me feel better, but you don’t need to make crazy promises. You can’t love me. Love means knowing each other. It takes time, and… you don’t love me.”

“I do. I love you, and I’ll do anything I can to support you,” he promised. He wished he could tell her everything. He wanted to assure her that he’d always be there because they were legally wed, but that would open up a discussion about daimons, about laws, about the fact that she was something other than human — and none of that was going to help her trust him.

Mallory turned around then. “Tell me what he took. What are the daimons looking for? If they took him, maybe we can trade whatever he stole to get him back.”

“We don’t know that he was taken,” Kaleb pointed out.

She scowled. “If he wasn’t, he’s still in danger. So am I. The Watcher found me. You found me. Someone else tried to break in. I need to know what they want. You know, don’t you?”

“I’ll keep you safe, Mallory. For now, that’s the most important thing.”

“My father—”

“Might not be missing,” Kaleb finished. “You’re right about the threats, but that doesn’t mean he’s been taken.”

“If he was—”

“If he was taken, I’ll tell you everything I know, but Adam is already determined to keep me away from you, so let’s see if he returns before I spill his secret. Once we find him or he comes home, he can tell you what he stole.” Kaleb didn’t claim to understand the witch’s logic in stealing Marchosias’ daughter, but he was certain that Mallory had been safer here than she would’ve been in The City. And because of it, accessible to me. The reality was that she wouldn’t have been in his reach there. Maybe if he’d won the competition, she would’ve still been the prize, but he couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure what she’d have been like then either. He’d tried to imagine her as a ruling-caste girl, as someone who had looked down on him — or worse still, as one of those who wanted him because of his propensity for violence.

Kaleb slid his hands down her arms, trying not to feel desperate when she flinched. “I know you care for me, Mallory. Trust yourself. Somewhere inside, you know you can trust me.”

She didn’t run, but she didn’t move closer either. “If he’s hurt, I don’t know what to do. If you help me find him, tell me what he took, help me negotiate with them if they do have him, I’ll… try to believe you.” She didn’t cry, but her eyes glistened with tears. “He’s not perfect, but he’s my father, my own family. He’s run from them for years, and even if they don’t have him, he’s in danger.”

Whether she realized it or not, Mallory had already made steps toward accepting him. In her words, she had separated him from “them”—the daimons who’d pursued her father. She’d asked for his help instead of lumping him in with other daimons.

Kaleb wanted to hold her, to ease her fears, and to promise that everything would be all right. He couldn’t do any of that — not yet. Kaleb didn’t want her to know what she was yet, didn’t want her to know how different their world was, didn’t want her to see him the way he was there. She was raised by witches to hate daimons. Even without that, he lived in a cave and killed for his coin. Mallory was so far removed from the world he knew that he couldn’t bear the thought of her seeing him that way before he had more of a chance to overcome her bias against daimons.

He gave her the only words he knew for sure he could offer. “You have my word, my vow, that I will help you find Adam and do everything in my power to find a way that he can stop running from the daimons he stole from. I will help you through this… and anything else that comes.”

Mallory turned away again to stare out the window. She folded her arms over her chest and kept her back to him, as if that would hide the tears he heard in her voice as she said, “Daimons aren’t to be trusted, and—”

“Are all witches the same?” he interrupted. “Are all humans? Why would all daimons be the same then? Some of us are horrible. There are those who would kill you, but I’m not one of them.”

She said nothing for several moments. The only sound was the soft sniffles of the tears she was barely trying to hide now. Finally, she said, “Dad said that the one person I can turn to is Evelyn, his sister, but she hates me.”

“She’s a witch,” Kaleb said.

Mallory nodded.

If Evelyn knew what Mallory was — and Kaleb suspected that she must if she was Adam’s sister — she probably hated Mallory for the same reason that she would hate Kaleb.

“You do have someone else to turn to. I’m here for you,” he promised again.

Her tears had evolved into shallow sobs, so much so that he couldn’t allow the pretense that he didn’t know she was crying.

He stepped closer to her. “If you didn’t know what I was, would you let me hold you?”

Mallory didn’t answer, so he pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. She trusted him despite what he was, despite her prejudices, and from that trust, they would build something strong. All he had to do first was find the witch she considered her father, survive his wrath, figure out how to be in the human world to keep Mallory safe, and in the midst of it all convince her that she wanted to marry him — without her discovering too soon that they already were wed.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered, hoping desperately that he wasn’t lying to either of them.

CHAPTER 30