Another reason he was her escort. How much did Greyson know about what was happening to her? She wouldn’t be able to put off that conversation much longer, and something inside her—something purely emotional, not physical—squirmed at the thought.
They stood there while the body burned, waited and sang until it was reduced to ash on the white-hot metal platform. It took no time at all, and it took forever. Megan’s body was so overheated, her mind so fuzzy with sex and power and the thrilling sense of savagery in the cavernous stone room, that she barely noticed when the flames finally died and the torches flared again.
The priest stepped forward and waved his hand. Metal clanged against metal behind Megan. She turned on unsteady feet to see the lid of the enormous gold urn lifted by Malleus and Spud.
Maleficarum and the other pallbearers picked up the catafalque one last time and carried it up the aisle, followed by Greyson and Templeton’s widow. The wooden legs were charred black but still solid, the platform already cooling. Iron, she thought it must be, treated somehow to keep it from melting, or magically protected.
A sigh rippled through the crowd as the ashes were poured into the urn. Flames shot from it into the air, so high they almost touched the ceiling. The flickering orange light played across Greyson’s face, turning his eyes into sunken sparks, highlighting his sharp bones.
Roc shifted in his position on her shoulder. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you.”
It didn’t seem like the time to dissemble, to tell him it was none of his business or shrug it off. So she just sighed. “I suppose so, Roc. I suppose I am.”
They all stood and watched the ashes fall into the urn until there were no more, until the fire went out, until Malleus and Spud replaced the lid and the service was over.
“So you’re Megan Chase,” the man in front of her said. Another familiar face, but then why wouldn’t he be? All of the Gretnegs had been there that day three months before, to watch as she struggled to remember the worst moments of her life.
“Yes.”
He held out his hand. “Winston Lawden.”
“House Caedes Fuiltean,” she replied, forcing herself to shake it. It had a familiar hard, tight feel to it. Would Greyson’s hands change when he became Gretneg? She sincerely hoped not. Templeton’s had been distinctly dry. “Orion Maldon’s boss.”
Winston’s ruddy face darkened. “I hope you know how sorry I am about that. Orion overstepped himself most egregiously.”
“Orion tried to kill me.”
“I know. And trust me, our meeting tomorrow is only a formality. I am prepared to punish Orion in whatever way you feel is necessary, I assure you.”
She nodded, pleasure at his sincerity warring with doubt of the same. Demons prided themselves on keeping their word, but they planted all sorts of loopholes in those words too.
“I’d like to ask you about my demons,” she said. Perhaps this wasn’t the right time, but she’d promised. “I understand some of your Yezer have been attacking mine.”
Lawden’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “My Yezer? Oh, dear. My Yezer are very well policed. That’s not possible.”
“I have a list of names.” She pulled it from her little evening bag and handed it to him. “Surely you don’t think my demons are lying to me?”
She had to give him credit. He started to read the list, but glanced up sharply after a few seconds. “Two of these Yezer are dead.”
“I suppose this was before they—wait, dead? How?”
His blue eyes read the knowledge in her own, and he nodded.
“They exploded,” she said. “Didn’t they? Greyson said you’d lost two.”
Winston folded the paper back up and slipped it into his breast pocket. “They did. What do you know about it?”
The question wasn’t a demand, but her skin grew warm anyway, as if he were blaming her. “Not much. But if those who exploded were attacking mine…”
“Do you have the lists from other families?”
She nodded and opened her bag again. “Everyone has a few—”
“Megan? What’s wrong?”
She forced herself to smile. “Nothing, nothing. What were we saying?”
Every house had lost some. Even Greyson’s. Were some of his Yezer attacking hers, was he actually trying to undermine her, to steal from her?
He’d said he’d lost one, that he didn’t know what was happening until one of his had exploded last week.
There had to be some explanation for it, she knew it. But what did it say about their relationship that three months in, her first instinct was to see if she could trick him into telling her what was going on instead of asking him outright?
“You think these explosions are connected somehow to your demons?” Winston shook his head. “Yezer don’t have that kind of power.”
“It’s not Yezer, though. It’s—” She stopped herself. If he didn’t already know, she wasn’t going to tell him now.
“It’s the leyak?” Winston asked, his blue gaze rooting her to the spot.
She nodded.
“I thought so.” Why was he being so nice to her? He was Maldon’s boss, and Maldon had been in on the deal with her father and Templeton, and that would be reason enough not to trust him even if he wasn’t what and who he was. The head of an opposing demon family was probably not the best sounding board for her fears.
“After I meet with you and Greyson tomorrow, the others will be over to discuss this,” he went on. “Will you stay? We all want this problem solved. I think you might be able to help us.”
“I—I’ll have to check—”
“No, Megan. You’ll have to be there. We all know you’ve been having some difficulty adjusting. Some of us want to let you have whatever time you need. But this is a discussion you must be part of if it centers around your rubendas. Failure to participate…it may make some of us angry.”
She looked up sharply, searching for the threat in his eyes, but finding only kindness. “It’s time to take your place, Megan. Ready or not.”
She was hungry.
Around her the house was silent, empty, every living being except her back down in the dungeon while Greyson became Gretneg.
Surely it would be okay for her to sneak down to the kitchen and get a snack? She wouldn’t go down that long winding hall. She didn’t particularly want to, and even if she had, she knew it would definitely not be a good thing to do. It would be violating a trust. She wouldn’t be in this house at all if there hadn’t been complete confidence in her staying away from the ceremony.
A trust she suddenly wasn’t so sure she returned.
“The Gretneg of a Meegra has to do what’s best for her family first,” Greyson had told her the night she’d connected herself to the personal demons and started this whole thing. Or rather, the night this stage of the whole thing had begun. Apparently it had started even before she thought it had, before the Accuser had shown up in her bedroom and taken over her body.
Greyson was Gretneg now, and nobody knew better than Megan how seriously he took that responsibility. If he thought it served his needs and those of his family best, he would flick her demons out of the way with no more care than he would if a moth landed on his windowsill.
Wouldn’t he? Had he done it already?
She knew this was silly. If she asked him he would tell her. He would give her his word, and she trusted that word. But the heavy atmosphere in the house, the sense that the air around her was swirling and shifting, made her skin tingle and butterflies fill her stomach. Something was changing, and she didn’t know yet how serious or far-reaching those changes would be.
She got up and started pacing, while the walls and furniture stood as silent observers to her unease. Her stocking feet sank into the soft carpet, whispering at her as she moved.