“I—I was just saying what I thought you wanted to hear.”
He weakly closed his eyes. “Please don’t tell me that. I cannot bear it.” Then, still naked, he strode past her, toweling moisture away with a cloth. He opened another box and pulled out a new set of clothing. Mr. Capulatio stepped into the pants, these ones made of pale leather and stitched with gold thread, and pulled them halfway up. His thighs were covered in sparse black hair, the muscles standing out like cords. He tucked his member into them and adjusted it to his liking. “I made these. Do you like them? When I was a boy myself I sewed for our Prophetess. She liberated me from that soulless carnival I was born into. I sewed there, too. Bags for the Heads. Wretched Heads they made in that carnival, even worse than your brother’s—ugly and terribly magicked. Barely worth the effort.” He glanced up. “My other wife recorded all the events of my life for posterity. You should read it some time.” He went to the corner where the dripping sack containing Orchid’s severed hand was still oozing, picked it up, and placed it into another bag, this one made of a tough horse-hide that wouldn’t leak.
She hardened her voice. “It’s better not to think about the past.”
Mr. Capulatio, when agitated, had a cold mania that seeped into his voice, that same bland restlessness that had so terrified the girl in the first moment she saw him on the battlefield. Standing beside the striped tent. Like he owned the world. She tried to remember how he’d seemed in those first moments before she knew him, before she had begun to love him. Composed and unhinged all the same. How that combination had stopped the blood in her heart.
Mr. Capulatio was now donning an eye-blue vest. He slipped his arms through the holes and dusted himself down, although he was impeccably clean. In the mirror, he frowned. “You can make it up to me. How do you think I might die, sugarplum? My Queen? Try again. Isn’t it likely I might die inside that massive castle, outnumbered a thousand to one?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
He sat beside her in the tumble of blankets, stroking her hair. “Tell me about the Law of Mercy. There will always be dissent, and dissidents are exempt from the Law of Mercy, I’m sure. For instance, what if a queen disobeys her king?”
“I—”
“There must be a codification of this new Law. Some way to understand its nuances, since surely it will be revealed to have many. Tell me, who will do that?”
“I will.”
“You? You are a fetus! A child.”
“You said I was the queen.”
“You’re beginning to act like a queen, I’ll say that.” He unbuckled his pants.
“No,” she said, her breath speeding up. She did not think he would. He had never struck her. He had never even touched her when she did not touch back. The thin leather bunched as he pushed his pants down, and out sprang his member, already hard. He pushed her back onto her elbows, her skull striking the headboard. It didn’t hurt, but the surprise brought tears to her eyes. He pulled her dress up with the other hand, his fingers lingering for a moment on the bandaged spot. “It’s good we got rid of it,” he hissed. “It would have been a bad omen indeed, it would have cast all this into doubt. But there is no remnant of your past unfaithfulness now.” He swept aside the thin white skirt.
Something in his face—it was like she wasn’t there. He had gone from familiar to ghastly in half a moment. It must be the magic he had done, she told herself. He couldn’t be like this. She tried to scramble away. “Don’t,” she said. “Please.”
“There is another bit of magic we can do. Don’t you want me to succeed?”
“Stop.”
He held her neck to the bed, his other arm supporting his weight, the veins standing out from exertion.
“You said sex magic was bad, that it was for degenerates!”
“‘I was just saying what I thought you wanted to hear,’” he replied in a singsong voice. He rubbed himself against her leg.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
He was nodding. “Yes, and then I said ‘except on the inside.’”
“You’ll be breaking the Law of Mercy!” she whispered, as she felt him begin press into her. But then he stopped. She was not crying. He hovered over her, the slick knot of his hair undone now, and they both panted as they stared at each other through the revolving shadows cast by the hanging charms.
“What would happen to someone who breaks the Law?” He sat back suddenly. “Do you think they would die?”
She moved as far away from him as she could, pulling all the blankets over her lap. “I think anyone who hurts another person will regret it.”
“Well, I must kill their king after we take the compound. There can be no other way.”
“You’ll know the right thing to do when the time comes to do it.”
His face softened. “Aurora. You are kind. You are the sigil of peace. A girl in white upon the battlefield. You are better than she is—” He gestured at the bag with Orchid’s hand. “She who is always grabbing for power, willing to do anything. But you stood your ground. You stand your ground. Against me. For me.” He gently kissed her. “If cutting off her hand was what the magic told you to do, it must be right.” He pulled up his pants, then cupped his own face in his hands. “What am I becoming? Who am I? Only degenerates work in sex magic, I did say that.” He shook her, a bit roughly. “You must forgive
