The Midnight Lie (The Midnight Lie #1)(95)

Because he had made no move to hurt me and I was confident I could make him misremember me long enough to escape, I told him the truth. “Something bad is about to happen.”

“Oh, yes. Something is. Tell me, little one, what is the appropriate punishment for someone who sneaks, who lies, who steals?”

Warm with my power, proud of using it, I said, “I didn’t steal.”

“Shall we put you in a barrel studded with nails and have you dragged by horses through the streets?”

I paused, staring. Expression mild, he waited for an answer.

“I am a councilman,” I told him quickly, my voice high. “I have been your favored assistant for years. You were glad to see me when you entered the library.”

“Or put your hands in the fire until the skin crackles and the flesh cooks off the bone? A punishment most worthy for a thief.”

My heart beat hard and fast. I tried using magic again. “This book was always an ordinary book.”

“It is too bad your foreigner is gone. I could take her from you. I could squeeze her body down to a pin. I would carry the pin with me always, and drive it through the tongues of liars.”

I scraped my chair back, leaping to my feet. The bird shrieked. “I left already.” The words spilled out of my mouth in a tangled stutter. “The library was empty when you arrived.”

“Sit,” he said, “or I will show no mercy in how I chastise you.”

I sat. Fear crawled over my skin.

“A sneak may be a sneak,” he said. “A liar a liar, a thief a thief, and yet still show courtesy.”

“I—” I faltered, unsure what he wanted.

“Your name.”

“Nirrim.”

He waited.

“Nirrim,” I said, “my lord.”

“Ah,” he said. “Better.”

“May I”—the glass pot wobbled in my hand as I lifted it—“pour you some tea?”

He lifted his brows. I still could not quite tell the color of his hooded eyes. “How unexpected.” He accepted a cup and sipped. “It tastes like I imagine you do.” He drank deeply, and I tried not to show my relief. “It tastes like something else, too, but what?” He drained the cup.

I lowered the pot to the table, waiting.

“Poison.” He licked his lips. “Good try, my child, but poison is no way to kill a god.”





52


“THE GODS DON’T EXIST,” I said, my mouth numb.

“I don’t? And what do you think you are, half-one? I felt what you were trying to do to me. Tell me, Nirrim: What do you think I can do to you?”

I stood, ready to run from the room. He smiled, and the strength left my body. I slumped to the floor, banging my face against the chair as I went down. It clattered on top of me as I lay, and he stood to look down upon me, the hem of his red robe brushing the skin of my arm. I willed myself to move. I couldn’t even twitch my fingers.

“I am being a good god,” he said. “I haven’t stolen your sight, for example.”

Though my eyes were open, they went suddenly blind. I cried out. The bird answered my call. I heard its wings rustle.

Nothing was as dark as this. Not night, not the orphanage baby box, not even when I closed my eyes and light shone through my eyelids. The world looked entirely black and empty.

The fabric of his robe skimmed over me. I heard him walk around my prone body, pausing by my head. He could do anything to me. He could crush my face beneath his heel. He could do worse.

“Or I could steal your breath.”

And it was suddenly gone. I strained for air. My heart panicked. I felt myself choking, dying, paralyzed and alone in the airless black.

“That’s the fragile human in you,” he said, and air came rushing back into my lungs. I sucked it in, my breath a horrible keening rasp.

“God of thieves,” I said.

“Yes, little one.”

“Let me up,” I begged.

“No.”

“Give me back my sight.”

“No.”

“Please, let me go. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything?” His voice was ripe with amusement. “Such a dangerous word. I haven’t even yet caused you pain. I can slowly steal the blood from your body. The warmth from your skin. The tongue from your mouth. All the water within you, so that you desiccate into a tortured husk.”

“There must be something I can do,” I sobbed. “Something I can give you.”

“There is,” he said. “It happens to be the one thing that even I cannot steal.”

“What? Tell me.”

“You will lie there, and you will listen, and when I am done I will make you a bargain, my child.”

One should never bargain with a god. But I did not know that then.

“Should you accept,” he said, “you will leave here just as you were when I met you, save for one thing. Am I not merciful?”

“And if I say no? Will you murder me?”

His silence was thoughtful. “To whom do you belong?”

To Sid, I thought. Then I buried the thought, terrified that he might steal it from me.

“Perhaps you don’t know,” he mused. “Who bore you?”