There was only silence, at first. Only a growing feeling of presence and immensity. It filled the bedroom, oppressive, making the walls creak faintly. Whatever had come to visit us, it was not human.
And it did not like me. Not one whit.
I stood very still, listening. I heard nothing—and then something inhaled, very near the back of my neck.
“You still smell of him.”
Every nerve in my body screamed. I stayed silent only because fear had robbed me of breath. I knew who this was. I had not heard his approach, didn’t dare speak his name, but I knew who he was.
The voice behind me—soft, deep, malevolent—chuckled. “Prettier than I expected. Sieh was right; you were a lucky find for him.” A hand stroked my hair, which was a mess, the braid half undone. The finger that snaked out to graze the back of my neck was ice cold. I could not help jumping. “But so delicate. So soft a hand to hold his leash.”
I was not surprised, not at all, when those long fingers suddenly gripped my hair, pulling my head back. I barely registered the pain. The voice, which now spoke into my ear, was of far greater concern.
“Does he love you yet?”
I could not process the words. “Wh-what?”
“Does he.” The voice moved closer. “Love you.” I should have felt his body by now, leaning against my shoulder, but there was only a feeling of stillness and cool, like midnight air. “Yet.”
The last word was so close to my ear that I felt the caress of his breath. I expected to feel his lips in the next instant. When I did, I would start screaming. I knew this as surely as I knew he would kill me when I did it.
Before I could doom myself, however, another voice spoke from across the room.
“That’s not a fair question. How could she know?” This one was a woman, a cultured contralto, and I recognized her voice. I’d heard it a year before, in an alley, with the scents of piss and burned flesh and fear heavy in the air. The goddess Sieh had called Mother. I knew, now, who she really was.
“It’s the only question that matters,” said the man. He released my hair, and I stumbled forward to a trembling halt, wanting to run and knowing there was no point.
Shiny was not awake. I could hear him in the bed, still breathing slow and even. Something was very wrong with that.
I swallowed. “Do you prefer Y-Yeine, Lady? Or, ah—”
“Yeine will do.” She paused, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Aren’t you going to ask my companion’s name?”
“I think I know it already,” I whispered.
I felt her smile. “Still, we should at least observe the formalities. You are Oree Shoth, of course. Oree, this is Nahadoth.”
I made myself nod, jerkily. “Very nice to meet you both.”
“Much better,” said the woman. “Don’t you think?”
I didn’t realize this wasn’t directed at me until the man—not a man, not a man at all—replied. And I jumped again, because suddenly his voice was farther away, over near the bed. “I don’t care.”
“Oh, be nice.” The woman sighed. “I appreciate your asking, Oree. I suppose someday my own name will be better known, but until then, I find it irritating when others treat me and my predecessor as interchangeable.”
I could guess her location now: over by the windows, in the big chair where I sometimes sat to listen to the town. I imagined her sitting daintily, one leg crossed over the other, her expression wry. Her feet would still be bare, I felt certain.
I tried not to imagine the other one at all.
“Come with me,” said the woman, rising. She came closer, and I felt a cool hand take my own. Though I had gotten a taste of her power on that long-ago day in the alley, I felt nothing of her right then, even this close. It was all the Nightlord’s cold that filled the room.
“Wh-wha—” I turned to go with her out of sheer unthinking self-preservation. But as she tugged my hand, my feet stopped moving. She stopped as well, turning to me. I tried to speak and could not muster words. Instead I turned, not wanting to but needing to. I faced the Nightlord, who stood near the bed, looming over Shiny.
There was a hint of kindness in the Lady’s voice. “We will do him no harm. Not even Naha.”
Naha, I thought dizzily. The Nightlord has a pet name. I licked my lips. “I don’t… he’s.” I swallowed again. “Usually a light sleeper.”
She nodded. I couldn’t see her, but I knew it. I didn’t need to see her to know anything she did.
“The sun has just set, though it still lights the sky,” she said, taking my hand again. “This is my time. He’ll wake when I let him—though I don’t intend to let him until we’re gone. It’s better that way.”
She led me downstairs. In the kitchen, she sat with me at the table, taking the other chair. Here, away from Nahadoth, I could feel something of her, but it was restrained somehow, nothing like that moment in the alley. She had an air of stillness and balance.
I debated whether I should offer her tea.
“Why is it better that Shiny stay asleep?” I asked at last.
She laughed softly. “I like that name, Shiny. I like you, Oree Shoth, which is why I wanted to talk to you alone.” I started as her fingers, gentle—and strangely, callused—tilted my face down so she could see me more clearly. I remembered she was much shorter than me. “Naha was right. You really are lovely. Your eyes accentuate it, I think.”
I said nothing, worried that she hadn’t answered my question.
After a moment, she let me go. “Do you know why I prohibit the godlings from leaving Shadow?”
I blinked in confusion. “Um… no.”
“I think you do know—better than any other, perhaps. Look what happens when even one mortal gets too closely involved with our kind. Destruction, murder… Shall I let the whole world suffer the same?”
I frowned, opened my mouth, hesitated, then finally decided to say what was on my mind.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that it doesn’t matter whether you restrict the godlings or not.”
“Oh?”
I wondered if she was genuinely interested, or whether this was some sort of test.
“Well… I wasn’t born in Shadow. I went there because I had heard about the magic. Because…” I would be able to see there, I had intended to say, but that wasn’t true. In Shadow I had seen wonders on a daily basis, but in practical terms, I hadn’t been much better off than I was in Strafe; I’d still needed a stick to get around. I hadn’t cared about being able to see, anyway. I had come because of the Tree and the godlings, and the rumors of still greater strangeness. I had yearned to find a place where my father could have felt at home. And I had not been the only one. All my friends, most of whom were not demons or godlings or magic-touched in any way, had come to Shadow for the same reason: because it had been a place like no other. Because…
“Because the magic called to me,” I said at last. “That will happen wherever magic is. It’s part of us now, and some of us will always be drawn to it. So unless you take it away completely, which even the Interdiction never managed to do”—I spread my hands—“bad things will happen. And good.”
“Good?” The Lady sounded thoughtful.
“Well… yes.” I swallowed again. “I regret some of what’s happened to me. But not all of it.”
“I see,” she said.
Another silence fell, almost companionable.
“Why is it better that Shiny stay asleep?” I asked, very softly this time.