The shock of his voice was enough to loosen her grip on the door. But she didn’t stumble forward. Whatever force he’d been using to control her had abated.
“What the hell was that?”
“Good afternoon to you too, Stern. Or is it morning? Hard to tell in here.”
Alex had to force herself to stay still, not to run, not to weep. That voice.
It was Darlington. Fully human, fully him. It had only the faintest echo, as if he were speaking from the depths of a cave.
“It’s the middle of the night,” she managed, her voice rough. “I’m not sure what time.”
“I’d like you to bring me some books, if you would.”
“Books?”
“Yes, I’m bored. I realize that speaks a lazy mind, but…” He shrugged lightly, the markings on his body glimmering.
“Darlington … You know you’re naked, right?”
Like some perverse statue, hands resting on knees, horns alight, cock erect and glowing.
“I’m a demon, not a dullard, Stern. But my dignity has long since been left in tatters. And you didn’t dress for the occasion either.”
Alex clutched the sheet tighter. “Which books do you want?”
“You choose.”
“Is that why you dragged me up here?”
“I didn’t drag you anywhere.”
“I didn’t walk barefoot across New Haven in the dead of night for kicks.
I was compelled.” But that wasn’t quite right. It hadn’t felt like the coin of compulsion or Astrumsalinas or any of the other strange magic she’d encountered. It had felt deeper.
“Interesting,” he said in a voice that didn’t sound interested at all.
Alex backed away, wondering at every moment if her feet would simply stop obeying and she’d be forced to stay. Once she was in the hallway, she took a moment to catch her breath.
It’s him. He’s alive.
And he wasn’t angry. Unless this was some kind of con. He hadn’t come back bent on revenge or ready to punish Alex for failing him. But what was this? What had brought her here?
She considered making a run for it. Dawes would be here soon. She might be turning onto this street right now. But what was Alex going to say when she came running out of the house? The monster demanded that I do his bidding! He bade me select reading material for him!
If she was honest, she didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to leave him.
She wanted to know what came next.
She took the stairs up to the third floor and Darlington’s tiny, round tower room. She hadn’t been here since the night of the new moon ritual, when she’d been searching for information on the Bridegroom’s death.
She peered out the window. The driveway curved into the trees, the road invisible from here. No sign of Dawes. She wasn’t sure if she was worried or glad.
But choosing reading material for Darlington was its own nightmare assignment. What might entertain a demon with a taste for the finer things?
She finally opted for a book on modernism in urban planning, a spiralbound biography of Bertram Goodhue, and a paperback copy of Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones.
“Aren’t these just going to catch fire?” she asked when she returned to the ballroom.
“Try one.”
Alex put the paperback on the floor and gave it a hard shove. It slid through the barrier, seemingly unharmed.
Darlington’s hand shot out and captured the book. The collar at his neck glinted, the garnets like red eyes, watching.
“That’s quite a piece of jewelry,” she said. It was really too big to be called a collar. It stretched from his throat out to his shoulders, like something a pharaoh might wear.
“The yoke. Thinking of pawning it?”
“It’s not doing you much good.”
He ran a fond hand over the paperback. The letters seemed to shimmer and change to unfamiliar symbols. “Would that I might make thee love books more than thy mother,” he murmured.
His fingers were tipped in golden claws, and a memory came to her, the feeling of his body wrapped around hers. I will serve you ’til the end of days.
She shivered despite the heat of the room.
“Why did that work?” she asked. “Why didn’t it burn?”
