My smile faded. “Like eternity.”
“Yes.” His hands stilled for a moment. “And more than that.”
“What else?”
“Children, for one.”
I sat up. “Tell me you’re joking.” He had promised me long before that I didn’t have to take the same precautions with him that I would with a mortal man.
“Hush,” he said, pressing me back down. “Of course I’m joking. But I could give you a child, if I wanted. If you wanted me to. And if I was willing to break the only real law the Three have ever imposed on us.”
“Oh.” I settled back into the cushions, relaxing as he resumed his slow, coaxing caresses. “You’re talking about demons. Children of mortals and immortals. Monsters.”
“They weren’t monsters. It was before the Gods’ War, before even I was born, but I hear they were just like us—godlings, I mean. They could dance among the stars as we do; they had the same magic. Yet they grew old and died, no matter how powerful they were. It made them… very strange. But not monstrous.” He sighed. “It’s forbidden to create more demons, but… ah, Oree. You’d make such beautiful children.”
“Mmm.” I was beginning to not pay attention to him. Madding loved to talk while his hands were doing lovely things that transcended words. He had slipped one hand between my legs during this last ramble. Lovely things. “So the Three were afraid you’d all… ah… fall in love with mortals and make more dangerous little demons.”
“Not all the Three. In the end, it was only Itempas who ordered us to stay away from the mortal realm. But he does not brook disobedience, so we did as he commanded.” He kissed my shoulder, then nuzzled my temple. “I never realized how cruel that order was, before I met you.”
I smiled, feeling wicked, and reached back to catch hold of the warm, hard lump that lay against my backside. I gave him a practiced stroke and he shuddered against me, his breath quickening in my ear. “Oh, yes,” I teased. “So cruel.”
“Oree,” he said, his voice suddenly low and tight. I sighed and lifted my hips a little, and he slipped back into me like he belonged nowhere else.
Somewhere in the delicious, floating pleasure that followed, I became aware that we were being watched. I didn’t think anything of it at first. Madding’s siblings seemed fascinated by our relationship, so if watching us helped them whenever they decided to try a mortal, I didn’t mind. But there had been something different about this gaze, I realized afterward, when I lay pleasantly exhausted and drifting toward sleep. It did not have the usual air of curiosity or titillation; there was something heavier about this. Something disapproving. And familiar.
Of course. Madding had sent someone to collect all my belongings. Naturally that would include Shiny: my brooding, arrogant, selfish bastard of a pet. I had no idea why my being with Madding angered him, and I didn’t care. I was tired of his moods, tired of everything. So I ignored him and went to sleep.
Madding was gone when I woke. I sat up, bleary, and listened for a moment, trying to get my bearings. From downstairs I could hear the ceaseless ripple of water and could smell hiras perfume. Upstairs, someone was walking, making the floorboards creak. Intuition told me it was very late, but most of Madding’s people were godlings; they didn’t sleep. From somewhere on the same floor, I heard a woman laughing and two men talking.
I yawned and put my head back down, but the voices impinged gently on my consciousness.
“—didn’t tell you—”
“—your business, damn it! You have no—”
It sank in slowly: Shiny. And Madding. Talking? It didn’t matter. I didn’t care.
“You’re not listening,” Madding said. He spoke in a low voice but intently; that made the sound carry. “She gave you a real chance and you’re throwing it away. Why would you do that when so many of us fought for you, died…” He faltered, silent for an instant. “You never consider others—only yourself! Do you have any idea what Oree has gone through because of you?”
My eyes opened.
Shiny’s reply was a low murmur, unintelligible. Madding’s was anything but, almost a shout: “You’re destroying her! Isn’t it enough that you destroyed your own family? Do you have to kill what I love, too?”
I got up. My stick was there on my side of the pillow pile, right where Mad had always put it. The robe was tangled in the pillows where I’d dropped it. I shook it out and put it on.
“—tell you this now—” Madding had regained some of his composure, though he was still plainly furious. He’d lowered his voice again. Shiny was silent, as he had been since Madding’s outburst. Madding kept talking, but I couldn’t tell what he was saying.
I stopped at the door. I didn’t care, I told myself. My life was ruined and it was Shiny’s fault. He didn’t care. Why did it matter what he and Madding said to each other? Why did I still bother trying to understand him?
“—he could love you again,” Madding said. “Pretend that means nothing to you, Father, if you like. But I know—”
Father. I blinked. Father?
“—in spite of everything,” Madding said. “Believe that or not, as you will.” The words had an air of finality. The argument was over, one-sided as it had been.
I stepped back against the bedroom wall and out of the doorway, though that would do me little good if Madding came back into the room. But although I heard Madding’s footsteps leave whatever room they’d been in and stomp away, they headed downstairs, not back to his bedroom.
As I stood there against the wall, mulling over what I’d heard, Shiny left the room as well. He walked past Madding’s room, and I braced myself for him to notice that I was out of bed and perhaps come in and find me. His footsteps didn’t even slow. He headed upstairs.
Which one to follow? I wavered for a moment, then went after Madding. At least I knew he would talk to me.
I found him standing atop the largest of his pools, glowing bright enough to make the whole chamber visible as his magic reflected off walls and water. I stopped behind him, savoring the play of light across his facets, the shift and ripple of liquid aquamarine flesh as he moved, the patterned flicker of the walls. He had folded his hands together, head bowed as if to pray. Perhaps he was praying. Above the godlings were the gods, and above the gods was Maelstrom, the unknowable. Perhaps even it prayed to something. Didn’t we all need someone to turn to sometimes?
So I sat down and waited, not interrupting, and presently Madding lowered his hands and turned to me.
“I should have kept my voice down,” he said softly, amid the chime of crystal.
I smiled, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them. “I find it hard not to yell at him, too.”
He sighed. “If you could have seen him before the war, Oree. He was glorious then. We all loved him—competed for his love, basked in his attention. And he loved us back in his quiet, steady way. He’s changed so much.”
His body gave off one last liquid shimmer and then settled back into his stocky, plain-featured human shell, which I had come to love just as much over the years. He was still naked, his hair still loose, still standing on water. His eyes carried memories and sorrow far too ancient for any mortal man. He would never look truly ordinary, no matter how hard he tried.
“So he’s your father.” I spoke slowly. I did not want to voice aloud the suspicion I’d begun to develop. I hardly wanted to believe it. There were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of godlings, and there’d been even more before the Gods’ War. Not all of them had been parented by the Three.