her fingers around it.
“Thank you.”
“If there’s anything you need,” the pallakis whispered.
“There’s nothing.” Too harsh-she tried to smile. “But thank you all the same.”
She had inherited all of Kiril’s estate that did not revert to the Crown. The thought of walking through his house, of touching his books and his clothes, made her gag. She knew that would fade; she still regretted parting with mementos of her mother, though the sight of them had brought only pain at the time. But for the moment she couldn’t leave her apartment without seeing streets they’d walked together, shops they’d visited.
Staying in was no better-she heard his footstep on her stairs as she tried to sleep, felt the touch of phantom magic at her wards. Once she leapt from bed and flung open the door, but the hall was cold and empty.
Khelsea visited her, bringing food every time. Ciaran came with wine and flowers. Isyllt invited them in each time, but had no heart for pleasant conversation, or the pretense of it. She wasn’t entirely sure she had a heart at all.
On the seventh night, she opened the door to find Varis Severos on her doorstep. He wore white as well; it suited him better than it did Savedra.
“I imagine I’m not someone you most want to see right now,” he said, “but may I come in?”
“Of course,” she said after a pause, stepping aside. “Would you like tea, or wine?”
He grimaced. “Do you have anything stronger?”
She poured them both ouzo while he claimed a chair, and prodded the fire to life before she sat in turn. “How can I help you, my lord?”
He didn’t speak for a long moment, watching the embers fall instead. Behind him, city lights blurred through the windowpane. Finally he emptied his glass in one neat swallow.
“You know they never found Kiril’s body,” he said at last.
She couldn’t stop a wince. “I know.”
“That’s because I took it from the tower.”
That broke through her fugue. Ouzo splashed her fingers as she startled, chilling as it evaporated. She drained the glass before she could spill the rest. “What?” She coughed on the fumes. “Why?”
“Because I know the choice that death brings for the likes of you. And I believe in the freedom to make such choices.”
Her lips peeled back from her teeth, and she wanted to say something vitriolic about his choices and their consequences. She couldn’t find the right words.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if you’re anything like him, you’ll find out eventually.” He smiled wryly. “And I know you are. I left him in a safe place, warded from opportunistic spirits. I returned after the demon days, and he was gone.”
She had understood the possibility since Nikos had told her of the missing body, but it wasn’t any easier to hear again. Her left hand clenched till her scars ached.
“I thought you should know,” Varis said after a long silence. “Now, while you have time to think on it. I know how much you meant to each other.”
“Yes.” Her lips shaped the word but no sound followed. She drew a breath and tried again. “Thank you, my lord.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. The pain in his voice made her flinch. She preferred him glib and mocking. “So very sorry.”
“Yes, well.” She rose, less gracefully than she might have wished, and led him to the door. “We knew the risks when we took the job.”
She didn’t answer the door for the next two days. She wept, raged, flung books and muffled her sobs and curses in pillows. Her magic was still burned to the root, or she might have wrought worse destruction.
The second night she sat down in the ruin of her bedroom and knew she couldn’t stay. Kiril had asked if she could stand to see him as a demon. She knew she could. Even now her hands ached at the thought of touching him. If he came to her now, cold and lifeless, she would run to him as she always had. Nothing, it seemed, could burn her need for him so deep that it wouldn’t grow back.
She couldn’t go on like this, not with the wounds so fresh.
Dahlia came the following day, when Isyllt had stopped crying long enough to clean up some of the wreckage. She wouldn’t have answered that knock either, but the latch clicked anyway.
“I took your spare key when you were sick,” the girl said, lingering in the doorway. “I thought it might be useful.”
Isyllt snorted. “I suppose I’m lucky you didn’t steal the dishes while I was in St. Alia’s. Though the glasses might have fared better if you had.” She nudged a shattered wine stem with one toe and set the broom aside.
“I would have come sooner,” Dahlia said, closing the door behind her, “but I needed to think.” Her face was still sallow, thinner than it had been two decads ago. The effect aged her, made the androgyne clearer in her bones.
Isyllt waited, leaning against the cupboard.
“I want to be your apprentice,” the girl said in a rush. “If you’ll still have me. I don’t want to-to end up like my mother, or Forsythia, or any of those other girls. I want…” Her hands traced shapes in the air as she searched for words.
“Choices?” Isyllt suggested.
“Yes.”
She laughed softly; it made her chest ache. “I understand. And I would teach you, though I won’t be fit to anytime soon, nor fit company, but-”
Dahlia’s face was already closing. She raised her eyebrows as her jaw tightened. “But?”
Isyllt sighed. “I’m leaving Erisin.”
“Oh. Why?”
Her mouth twisted. “I’m running away. There are ghosts here I can’t face. Decisions I can’t make. I need distance.”
“Oh.” Dahlia folded her arms across her chest. “I could go with you,” she said quietly.
Isyllt frowned, running her tongue over her teeth as she tasted the idea. “I suppose you could.” It was a bad idea; that was probably why she found herself considering it. “People have the habit of dying in my company.”
Dahlia laughed, as scathingly as only an adolescent could manage. “People have a habit of dying in Oldtown, too. I’d like to see something different before my turn comes.”
She met Dahlia’s eyes, already narrowed against the threat of rejection. Not quite a child, and no stranger to risk. Old enough to make her own decisions, perhaps.
Isyllt knew exactly how well making those decisions for her would go.
“Something different.” She pressed her tongue against her teeth thoughtfully. “I think we can manage that.”
APPENDIX I Calendars and Time
Selafai and the Assari Empire both use 365-day calendars, divided into twelve 30-day months. Months are in turn divided into ten-day decads. The extra five days are considered dead days, or demon days, and not counted on calendars. No business is conducted on these days, and births and deaths are recorded on the first day of the next
