Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)(19)

I remembered Ignifex’s smirk and his confident words: I can wait all I want and still have all of you.

And I thought, Here is one thing he isn’t getting.

Standing on my toes, I kissed Shade on the lips.

It was just a bump of my face against his. Despite Aunt Telomache’s lecture, I had no idea how to prolong a kiss, and his lips startled me, foreign and cool as glass. But then he caught me under the chin and gently kissed my mouth open. Though his lips were still cool, his breath was warm; as he kissed me, I breathed in time to him, until I felt like my body was only a breath of air mixing with his.

When he released me from the kiss, I didn’t pull away; I stared at the hollow of his throat, heart thumping, and fought the crazy urge to laugh. I had never dreamt I would taste a kiss from anyone but my monstrous husband, which could only be torture—and now—

“You must be careful,” said Shade.

Then I did pull away. “How—”

He smiled faintly. “Because you kissed me.”

When he said the word kissed, my whole body contracted. Suddenly I didn’t feel like a strange, free girl who could have what she wanted. I felt like Nyx Triskelion, who was supposed to guard her virtue (when she wasn’t sacrificing it) and think only of saving Arcadia. And I had just wantonly kissed a man—well, possibly he was not a man, but he was definitely not my husband—

I had just kissed somebody whose smile had faded, who was watching me now with tranquil eyes and making no least effort to bridge the little space between our bodies.

Since I couldn’t sink into the floor, I stepped back and tried to think of something else.

“You’re not part of him,” I said, watching his face. He stared back at me, reactionless. “I don’t think you’re just something he made.” A mere thing would not be able to kiss me against his maker’s will. “You’re somebody he’s cursed, aren’t you?”

Shade nodded, and that set my heart thumping. Somebody who had been cursed could be set free, and somebody who had been set free could think about—

What? Kissing me again, before I trapped myself with the Gentle Lord in his collapsing house for all eternity? It wouldn’t matter at that point if I’d had one kiss or a hundred before my doom came upon me.

And Shade wasn’t thinking of that anyway. He was just glad that he could speak, if glad was the word for someone whose face had gone still as the water beneath our feet.

“We’re both his prisoners,” I said. “You’ve already betrayed him once. That makes us allies, right?”

I could be glad just to have him as an ally. I’d never expected to have even that much.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then caught himself. “I must always obey him,” he said after a moment. “You shouldn’t trust me too much.”

But those words made trust crackle and grow inside me. A demon or a demon’s shadow would tell me to trust him, not warn me away.

“Then I’ll trust you as much as I can,” I said. “What can you tell me about him? What did he do to you?”

“I can’t . . .” His mouth worked soundlessly until he pressed a hand over it, the skin between his eyes clenching.

“You can’t talk about him? Or yourself?”

“Any of his secrets,” he said lowly.

“What can you tell me?”

Shade seemed to think carefully before answering. “You’ll have to find the other hearts yourself. And be careful.”

I tried to think of a useful question that he might be able to answer. “Is there a time that’s safest to explore the house?”

“Never.” He paused. “But at night, he won’t notice what you do. He stays in his room.”

“Why, is he scared of the dark?”

I meant the words for a joke, but Shade nodded seriously. “Like all monsters. Because it reminds him of what he truly is.”

“Is that why you’re human at night?” I asked. “Because he made you a monster during the day, but the darkness reminds you of what you truly are?”

He looked at me: of course, he couldn’t talk about his nature.

“I’m glad,” I said. “That I got to meet you. I’m sorry you still have to wear his face.” Though you make his face very lovely, I thought, and wanted to sink through the floor again. Instead I went on, “You know what I’m doing. Does he know?”

He tried to answer, but the power of the Gentle Lord held him back, making his mouth twist and then stiffen until finally he gave up, took my hand, and looked straight into my eyes. “You are our only hope.”

I had heard those words from my family a thousand times before, but this time they filled me with tremulous hope instead of desperate rage. For the first time, I was needed by somebody I did not resent: somebody who had not chosen me to suffer, who had not gotten every good thing I ever lacked, but who had risked his life for me instead.

“Then I’ll save you,” I said, and I smiled at him, again without even trying. “If I have to explore this house on my own, you’d better take me back to my room so I can start from there.”

He nodded, and we walked back together in silence. When we arrived at my door, I finally asked him the question that had weighed on my tongue all the way back.

“Who are you?”