“What are you doing here?” he asked.
The monstrosity was twenty paces away and moving fast. She offered him an arrow. He took it, nocked it, turned, and let it fly. It struck the third head. The monstrosity fell apart. A cloud rose above the wreckage of its torso, gray and rolling and flashing and crackling. Sorrows lowered his bow, reached for his chest. Jace caught his arm, held it fast.
“Let me go,” he said.
He pulled against her, but it was half-hearted. She pulled against him, and it was urgent, strong. He stumbled into her and she let his arrows fall to the ground. She brought her hands to his face, threaded her fingers into his hair, pulled herself up against him. Her mouth found his, lips on lips, tongue flashing against his teeth. He stayed rigid for a moment, then broke like snow shaking free of the mountain. His arms were around her, one hand sliding to her waist, one hand pressed against her back. He lifted her, held her. Her hands moved from his hair onto his back and shoulders, slid beneath his cloak and collar, raked at his skin. His mouth slipped from hers to her neck. She moaned, soft, eyes closed.
“Hey, orchole,” Davrosh said. She stood on her sled, thirty paces away. “What in all hells are you doing?”
Sorrows started, dropped Jace, spun around, said nothing. The storm and its crackling flashes of light had dissipated. The dogs sniffed at the wreckage of the monstrosity, whimpered, shifted anxiously on their feet. Davrosh left the sled and walked toward Sorrows.
“Wasn’t that it?” she asked. “A Seph? Weren’t you supposed to do something with the amulet?”
Sorrows said nothing, only put a hand on his chest, patting at the layers of clothing.
“Shun it,” he said.
Davrosh walked past him, picked his arrows off the ground, brushed off the snow, held them out for him to take.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “You’re acting strange. I thought I saw—”
“It was nothing,” he said in a rush.
“It wasn’t nothing. Not with the way you keep looking at shadows. She was here, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“She kissed you again, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“You orchole,” she said. “You let her get away.”
He said nothing, turned in a circle, eyes searching. Davrosh put her hands on her hips, looked around, frowned.
“Where’s your bow?”
“Gods shun it,” he said.
Jace remained still, hidden. She lingered for one breath, two breaths, three breaths. She took to the shadows and fled. The night was cold and quiet. The streets were slow to fill after the passage of the Seph monstrosity. She turned down side streets, ran across rooftops, worked her way north and east until she slipped down an alleyway and disappeared.
Had she stayed for a fourth and fifth breath and more, she might have seen Sorrows return to the remains of the Seph. She might have seen him toss aside bones and animal skins, fur and flesh and skulls. She might have seen him tuck something into his cloak before returning with Davrosh and the dogs.
But she didn’t stay, so she didn’t see—which made what happened the next day seem unexpected and unavoidable.
✽✽✽
IVRA JACE STEPPED into the hidden room, shut the hidden door, and leaned back against it. She smiled, stepped forward, reached over her shoulder and lifted the bow free from its bindings. Ran her fingers along its limbs, tracing the curves of the havenwood maple. Crossed the room, set the bow in a corner, pushed back her hood, knelt.
“My life would be easier with you out of the bow,” she said. She sighed. “Less complicated. Though I suppose less complicated isn’t always better.”
She lifted the Grimstone amulet from a pocket, held it in front of her face, and stared at the lights swirling within the black stone; fireflies drifting in the night. She slipped the chain over her head, dropping the stone beneath her cloak and tunic.
“I want to do something for you. Both of you. Think of it as a gift, though I wonder if Solomon will view it that way.”
She shivered, rubbed her arms, turned, and sat against the wall. Bumped the back of her head against the planks once, then again, then again.
“Tomorrow is Nisha Davrosh. I won’t put this off any longer. Tomorrow I ask Solomon if he could ever love a monster.”
Chapter 42
DAVROSH MANOR STANDS before a backdrop of oak and ash and white pine. Stacked stone walls, three chimneys, four peaked roofs, steep and slate-shingled. It lacks the scale of the Valinor estate and the humility of Hallovel house. But it is a stylish structure with stylish tastes. Wide windows framed in black iron with arched tops rimmed in brick. Glowstone lanterns adorn the exterior and interior walls. Box-like vessels of metal and glass. Like gifts wrapped with wrought iron ribbon. Most of the estate has been left to forest, but the path which leads from front gate to front door is set upon a wide lawn that affords unobstructed views of the manor. The lawn is all snow now, white and dappled with shadow. It dazzles in the early morning sun, as the manor dazzles with pale creams and golds, topped in dark stone.
Nisha Davrosh’s room is on the second floor. At one end is a window, taller than Sorrows and wider than the sofa set before it; a long, gray thing of wool and batting and hidden frame. The window offers views of rolling hills and forest, mountains rising gray-blue beneath a clear sky. The bed rests against the opposite wall in a heavy oak frame stained dark, polished to a shine. Nisha might spend her mornings in the bed, propped up by any of the numerous pillows scattered against its headboard. She might take a cup of tea and stare at the mountains. Might set the cup on the table to her left. Might
