“Ah. And after all I’ve done to foster trust between us.”
“Like send Revenants to my home and put me in chains in your meditation garden.”
“You wore them well.” He tipped his cup toward her, one glowing eye flickering in a wink. “That was also a compliment.”
Her lips twitched, wanting to smile in spite of herself. She turned her attention to cutting her apple apart with knife and fork, forcing herself to imagine the clear juice that welled up around the blade as blood. Norwood had bled. The whole world had bled for Azrael. He was not charming and this was not dinner. He was the enemy and this was battle.
“You promised me an audience,” she said, hacking the meat of her apple into smaller and smaller bits.
“And you’ll have it when it’s paid for. Until then, no more talk of the hungering dead. It dampens the romantic mood.”
“Is that what you think this is? A romance?”
“I concede the point,” he said wryly, “but it is no greater farce than to think it an endeavor to end war, surely.”
“Is that what we’re doing tonight? Competing to see who’s the most deluded?”
“Not all, I trust.” He let his gaze wander with obvious relish over the front of her dress. “That would be a low trick after whetting my appetite so with your splendid entrance.”
She thought he was only making fun of her for falling down, and then she remembered the position in which she’d ultimately fetched up—legs spread wide and skirts hiked up to her waist.
As if her thoughts were an old movie playing in the air above her head for him to see, Azrael’s smile broadened into a grin, showing a hint of sharp teeth behind the slit of his mask’s mouth.
“It was an accident,” she mumbled, blushing and furious with herself for letting him see her blush.
“I believe it and yet, a pity it is true, for if it had been a plot, it would have been a winning one. And what more fitting way to begin a meal than with an appetizer? I can hardly eat for thoughts of the final course.”
“Because you caught me with my skirt up? Have I got something you’ve never seen before, after all your other dollies?”
“It is not what I saw but what I did not see that intrigues me most.”
Lan clenched her jaw and stabbed at her apple. “They didn’t give me knickers or I would have worn them.”
“You mistake me.”
“What then?”
“Artifice.”
“I don’t know what that word means.”
“No matter. Eat. Or shall we adjourn to satiate our other appetites?”
“Is that sex talk?” she asked uncertainly.
“It is.”
“Why don’t you just say sex then? It’s always chalice and appetite and artifice with you. I never know what the hell you’re saying.”
“Are you resigned to fuck me?”
She looked at him, startled.
He gazed evenly back at her, cup in hand, head slightly at an angle. “Was that not plain enough?”
“I said I would. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“For an audience. And when it proves fruitless, will you elect once more to leave me wanting? For as much as I enjoy our little talks, I will not content myself with talk alone tonight. Neither will I be made a brute in my own bedchamber. What is your intent?”
“To pay for my audience and then get one.”
“Hm.” He brooded over his cup, then set it aside. “You know my answer already. Perhaps we would both be better served to end this now.”
“Perhaps. You have lots of willing women, I hear. And I have a long road back to Norwood.” Lan picked up her fork and bit off another chunk of apple.
He watched her eat, frowning. “We’ll talk,” he said at length. “But find you some other subject than my hungering dead or the war your kind began.”
“Another subject…Like you?”
“I require no adulation.”
“I don’t know what that means. Can we talk about you?”
“My tyranny?” he guessed, his eyes narrowing.
“Just you. Where are you from?”
His mask showed her no emotion, only stillness and the steady glow of his stare. “Originally?”
She shrugged and nodded.
“Why?”
“I just want to know you, that’s all.”
His jaw clenched, but he said, “The land of my birth had no name. Nor did my mother’s people. If you ask where I began, I can tell you only south of here.”
“How far south? Someone showed me the ocean once. On a map. Did you have to cross it to get here?”
“I did, although I’m not certain where the ocean lay in the days of my youth. The land was different then.”
“When was that?”
“Before Time was,” he said, stabbing the words at her like a knife. “Have you any other pointless questions?”
“What’s your favorite color?”
The hard line of his mouth went crooked. He broke a loaf of herbed bread and gave her half. “White.”
She started to take a bite, then gave in with a little shiver of excess and buttered it first. “And when did you first know you had power over the dead?”
He glanced at her and away, immediately absorbed in his meal. “I told you of my first memory. It was then.”
“Does it bother you to talk about it?”
“I see no reason to talk about it.”
“I see no reason to sit here and stare at each other in silence.”
“Steward!” Azrael bellowed. “Musicians!”
“You make such a point of saying that people judge you without knowing anything about you, but how is anyone supposed to know you if you don’t talk about—”
“Enough!” Throwing the remains of his bread onto the platter, Azrael leaned back and glared at her. “What is this unwise game you play with me? How can you think it will help your cause to stir up the muck of these still memories? I realize you are very new to the diplomat’s arts, but even you must know you would be far better served to incur my favor than my wrath.”
“Would it help if I sat on your lap?”
His eyes flickered, losing much of their piercing intensity. “What?”
“Would you feel better about answering questions if I sat on your lap when I asked them?”
His head tipped back, as if he needed the extra inches to bring her all the way into focus.
“It’s called barter,” she explained. “This is how we buy things in Norwood: in pieces.”
He studied her through narrow eyes for several seconds before moving his throne wordlessly back and slightly spreading his thighs.
Lan rose from her chair and went to his. Taking the hand he offered, she hiked up her long skirts and straddled him. It took some wiggling to get comfortable, settling at last with her skirts rolled up into a cushion between them, but draped long in back, so even if every blank-faced servant in the room knew what she was about under there, at least her bare ass wasn’t on display. “How’s that?” she asked, rocking back and forth to test.
His eyes flickered. “A fair trade. Very fair.”
“Then tell me,” she said.
He put a hand on her hip, starting her in small, slow rolling motions she agreeably continued. “The humans who had been my mother’s people cast us both—her, dead, and I, undying—from a short cliff near to their warren. I recall the wind around me as I fell and the rocks growing huge below me until I broke upon them. I tumbled across the stony drift to fetch up against my dead mother’s belly. These were my first moments and they were all in pain and terror. The heat of that day baked her spilled blood onto my skin. I could smell her flesh rotting, taste it growing sour in my mouth. The dark warmth of her womb which had been all my world was gone. The wet drumming of her heart, the muted lilting of her voice—all lost. Shall it surprise you that I sought comfort?”