He smiled to himself, and quickly dropped his head to hide that smile behind his hood and the fall of his hair. If his own work wouldn’t do to hold him together through this, he knew the play that would. Even if I “like this” not at all. Thank thee, Will. In mine extremity, I knew I could trust in thee.He drew a long, slow breath, tasting mold and wet upon it, and shaped the well‑loved words. as I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother, on his blessing, to breed me welclass="underline" and there begins my sadness. My brother Jacques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept.
He closed his eyes and leaned into the poetry as he leaned into the cloths that bound him, and his lips moved silently. I can bear this. With Will’s help.
I can do this.
I can–
«Kit.» A low urgency like panic in the angel’s voice that wasn’t quite a voice, and Kit looked up, his mute recitation stumbling when he saw who had entered the crumbling chapel, his brow ringed in shadows and his wingless body wreathed in light. Lucifer Morningstar had eyes only for Baines, sparing Kit not so much as a glance.
“Prometheus,” Kit whispered, leaning forward to see the red slick stain wetting the left side of the devil’s silken shirt.
“As I am summoned,” the fallen angel said formally, tilting his head so that the torchlight and the brazier light and the light of his own pale halo reflected on his hair in red and golden bands, “so have I come.”
His voice was a bare whisper, resonant of violoncello and the wind through midnight trees. It pressed Kit’s heart to thunder in his chest; all pretense of ignorance forgotten, Kit hurled himself backward against his restraints.
“I told thee no!” he shouted, fabric burning his skin. His feet went out from under him with the force of his struggle, but the cloths held him upright. He sagged against them– Like Christ from the cross–his arms lifted and spread wide, his shoulders bent open by the weight of his body, the bad one wrenched to pain. The cloak dropped to tangle about his ankles, leaving his bare back cold, the ghost of warmth fled. His hair hung in his eyes. He sobbed in pain and got his feet under him.
Lucifer did not turn his head, but Baines did, and smiled. “Hush, puss,” Baines said, a low tone that nevertheless carried. “Or I’ll yet see thee in that bridle thou dost so hate.”
Kit permitted his head to tip back onto his shoulders, and let his lashes shield his eyes from the dripping water, and the cloth hold his body up. He was too tired to fight further.
Outmaneuvered,he thought, listening to footsteps approach. Lucifer stood beside him, then, and Kit could imagine the rustle of wind from his wings. He pictured the slightly crooked, narrow‑bridged nose, the golden skin and hair, the strong line of Lucifer’s jaw. «Thou didst give thy consent, Sir Poet.»
“Because I thought it would thwart thee,” Kit answered aloud, refusing to look into those still, blue eyes. He didn’t want to encourage the false intimacy of Lucifer reading his thoughts. There would be enough false intimacy soon.
«I am rarely thwarted long. Dost thou never lose thy power to intrigue?»
“Get it over with,” Kit said. Not an answer but a command.
«Master Baines,» Lucifer continued, as if Kit’s answer meant nothing to him. «Do see about removing those rings.»
“The rings keep his power in check, my lord Prometheus.”
«His power is mine.» Lucifer answered, and that was all. Baines obeyed, the rings that Kit could not budge sliding smoothly into his captor’s hands. Kit kept his eyes tight shut, unsurprised when they cut his remaining clothes away. He could smell the coke, the tang of the hot irons, and knew he would soon smell his own cooking flesh.
The thought troubled him surprisingly little.
Not nearly as much as the soft touches of a paint‑brush on his skin, marking his body with intricate warm symbols. He did glance down then, and saw Baines crouched beside his feet, delineating sigils in a medium Kit knew by its sharp coppery smell was blood. The blood, he realized, of the first of the three dozen birds that fluttered in Poley’s long cage. The brush Baines used was a carefully pared raven’s quill.
“You’re killing the Tower ravens,” Kit said foolishly.
Baines glanced up at him and smiled. “Very clever, puss. Would you care to tell me why?”
“England will fall.”
“Leaving one less faith in Europe,” he said, dipping his brush. The blood had clotted, and he set the basin aside as Poley brought him the death of another sacred bird in a little white stoneware cup, a fresh trimmed quill balanced across the top. “Before you know it, everyone shall believe as Prometheus’ children will them to.”
You were halfway kind to me,Kit thought, with a sidelong glance at Lucifer. “Was my consent so important to you?”
«No man can be damned without consent.» the Prince of Lies answered. «Nor saved neither.»
That will teach me to say yes to anything.
“That doesn’t explain your kindness. Or that you promised me the power to deal with mine enemies.”
«All stories are true.» If Lucifer had been wearing his wings, they would have flicked tight shut just then. Kit found the fallen angel somehow–diminished–without them. Iron jingled in his hand. «Where are thy rings now? Where is thy cloak? Where are thy boots and thy blade? Where is thy name?»
You have them,Kit answered.
Lucifer laughed, and let the rings fall like drops of frozen blood, to ring on wet stone. «No power left but thine own, and that of my beautiful brother. All thy hoardings and borrowings stripped away. And yet though thy power will not be enough for thy purposes, it will suffice for mine.»
“How can you be so certain you can use my strength?” If I cannot outwill Baines, can I be certain I can outwill Lucifer?Somehow, the dripping water did not carve runnels in the patterns Baines painted over every inch of his body. Kit mourned the ravens, surprising himself, gritting his teeth as Poley brought Baines a third bowl of blood.
“Because my story is truer than thine,” Lucifer answered, “and because thou didst give thy consent.” Kit hissed in shock; the voice shook his body like a hard‑carilloned bell. Then he hissed again when Lucifer bent down and kissed his open mouth, and Kit felt the rustle of wings within.
Kit was bloody to the hollow under his chin. Cold water dripped from his hair, beads trickling between the bumps of gooseflesh.
He watched the conspirators move about the chapel, seeing plainly in the darkness again now that the barbed rings were off his hands. The cessation of that pain alone was such a relief that he could not stop flexing his fingers against the silk, leaving smears of color upon it. He didn’t look at Baines, even as Baines leaned close enough to him that Kit felt his breath hot on his skin.
Instead, Kit looked out into the darkness, wincing as Poley drew the very last raven from the cage, mastering its struggles as easily as Baines – time and again –had mastered Kit’s. He wrung the black bird’s neck and it fell limp in his hands, relaxed. Kit winced in grief.