I could see Paige going stiff, clearly uncomfortable, entirely off guard for the first time I’d seen her in… since she’d fled Grandmother’s room after their private interview, now that I thought about it.
“I’m not a freaking pet!” Evan piped up. “I’m a kick-ass, eye-biting, giant-tripping, life-saving familiar.”
“Not entirely inaccurate,” Isadora said. She seemed too happy, smiling, relaxed.
“I don’t get a vote here?” Paige asked.
“You do,” Isadora said. “But I think you’ll accept the offer.”
Paige was flushed red.
As things went, it was affecting her too much. She was too bewildered, too upset, given her usual composure.
Unless…
Right.
Right.
“This is why grandmother refused you the inheritance,” I said. “Put you dead last?”
Paige’s head snapped around, and she stared at me in shock.
“I’m not following,” Evan said.
“You’re gay, Paige?” I asked.
“Ohhh,” Evan said. “Wait, nope, still not following.”
“You can’t or won’t have kids, so you can’t or won’t continue the family line?” I asked. “Peter found out and told her? Or did he find out part of it, and grandmother figured out the rest with questions and an eerily accurate ability to tell if you were lying?”
I could see the pain on Paige’s face as she averted her eyes. “You’re an asshole, just bringing it up like that. Show some damn class, Blake.”
“You caught me on a bad day. I’d be more gentle, otherwise,” I said. “Isadora, I’m pretty sure, wants you as a kind of slave. You’ve wandered into this mess, and you still have room to back out now. Get the fuck away from the pond, so I can’t drag you in, no matter how deep I sink. Leave all this behind. Fucking run. Be glad you can’t get the house and all the enemies it comes with.”
Paige stared at me.
“Paige,” Alexis said.
“What?” Paige asked.
“Do what he says. Blake’s been sliced, cut open, beaten, frozen, and nearly killed. All of us pulling together have had to fight and make huge sacrifices to keep him going-”
Don’t put it like that, I thought.
“-and I know he cares about you. He’s told me about his childhood. Time spent with his cousins. When he tells you this, I’m convinced he’s getting the words from a good, well-meaning place, okay?”
Those words seemed to reach Paige where mine hadn’t.
She looked at Isadora, and I could see a hint of doubt in her expression. “Slavery?”
“No,” Isadora said. “No, not really. But it’s a kind of relationship that’s just as old, dating back to the earliest days of mankind.”
“Prostitution?” Paige asked.
“Again, the same era. You have the pieces necessary to figure it out, if you really want to.”
“You’ve… you’ve hinted you’re older than you look. Blake’s reaction before, the way he thought you’d be like Evan… you’re more special than you look, too. You’re not human.”
“You’re thinking along the right track,” Isadora said. “Assuming you’re right, what sort of relationship would harken back to humanity’s earliest days? Think about how you’re feeling.”
“Feeling?”
Isadora took a drink of her beer.
“I’m… the first place my mind is going is to a very confused neanderthal man making an appeal to the gods, in an effort to make sense of it all.”
“Very, very close to the conclusion I was hoping you’d reach,” Isadora said. “You’ve got a keen mind for logic and details. This calls for you to tap into something else entirely.”
“Faith,” Paige said.
“Close enough. You can make that leap, or can you summon the courage to leave. But you should decide one way or the other soon. I’d remind you of the proverb of the ass, who died hungry and thirsty because it couldn’t choose between the water and the grain. If you don’t decide in, oh, the next three minutes, the decision will be made for you.”
“I either stay with you and worship you? Serve you as a pet?”
“Both right and not right. People like you once bowed and scraped for favors from sorts like me. Something between the master-slave relationship, the master-apprentice relationship, and the stricter rules of hospitality. A form of sheltering, if you will. I’ll point you to the right reading material when the opportunity arises, if you choose to accept.”
“Oh gee whiz,” Paige said. “Because it sounds so tempting.”
Sarcasm was so refreshing, I had to admit. Lowest form of wit or no.
“Chances are good that you’d be happy, in the long term, I’ve done this with a great many of my students, and every single one of them that you might track down and ask would tell you they’re happier as a result. I could feed your natural curiosity with more knowledge than you could get by conventional means, raise you up to be someone stellar, and even break the ties to your family, so you can leave them and the problems they pose well behind you. You might find yourself at odds with Blake, Rose, and their allies, but I don’t sense a great deal of connection between you and them.”
“You keep mentioning Rose.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Stop focusing on the details. Go back to normal life. Isadora isn’t mentioning that she kills the people who don’t work out. That’s why all her past subordinates are all happy. The unhappy ones get swallowed, they’re dead, they don’t exist anymore.”
Paige was frozen.
I could sense the other connections converging on our position, and I realized what it meant.
I saw Rose in the window.
She stepped into the TV, appearing on the unlit, concave screen.
She looked at me, and I nodded.
The TV broke. Not an explosive shattering, but a crack, loud, with the sound of glass falling.
Paige startled.
Rose and I had both hoped for the same thing. That Paige would run. That she needed only a push to go.
We’d misjudged where she stood.
She spun around, instead, reaching for Isadora’s hand, half protecting her, half seeking reassurance.
I could feel it, as we passed the point of no return. The other connections were drawing nearer.
“I’m sorry, Paige,” I said.
“Sorry?”
“Looks like you made your choice.”
“I suppose I’ll be taking responsibility for you,” Isadora said. She squeezed Paige’s hand, then let go. “If we aren’t lucky enough for some dumb soul to do so before the night is over.”
The Shepherd entered the apartment, and my focus shifted away from Paige.
He looked older than the last time I’d seen him, but that might have been the dark clothing and the better lighting. He didn’t have his crook-staff, and wore only a navy-blue sweater and black jeans beneath a black coat. His face was a little red from the cold, his eyes narrowed. He smelled like horses.
“There are innocents present,” Isadora said. “Talk only.”
The Shepherd, who didn’t talk at all, as far as I knew, nodded and entered.
I held out pizza and a glass of water. He shook his head, refusing both.