Understatement. Septimus practically had me bent over his desk.
“The last thing we need,” he went on, “is to destroy the loyalty of the scant forces we do have. Appearances are everything. Which brings me to…” He cleared his throat. “Her.”
I rose, my hands stuffed in my pockets, and paced the room.
“What about her?”
A beat of silence that said, You know what.
Cairis seemed to be choosing his words with uncharacteristic care. “She is a danger to you.”
“She can’t act against me.”
“She won the Kejari, Raihn.”
My hand found its way to my chest—right where her dagger had pierced it. There was no scar, no mark. There wouldn’t be—with Oraya’s wish, the act had been undone. I could’ve sworn I felt it sometimes, though. Right now, it pulsed with a vicious throb.
But I hid all that as I turned to him with a smug smirk. “You can’t say it doesn’t look good, to have Vincent’s daughter leashed at my side.”
I’d always been a good mimic. I slipped a little of Neculai’s cruelty into my voice, just like I had that day in the ring, when I justified letting Oraya live with a litany of atrocities.
Cairis’s face was stone, unconvinced.
“After what he did to Nessanyn,” I added, “don’t you think we deserve that satisfaction?”
He flinched at the mention of Nessanyn. Just like I knew he would. Just like I often did, when old memories caught me off guard.
“Maybe,” he admitted, after a long moment. “But it doesn’t do anything to help her now.”
I swallowed and turned to the wall of books, pretending to admire the trinkets on the shelves.
I didn’t like to think about Nessanyn. But I’d been doing it a lot these last few weeks. She was everywhere in this castle. All of it was everywhere here.
I couldn’t help Nessanyn when she was alive. I couldn’t help her when she was dead. And here I was, just using her memory to manipulate the people around me.
She had been used her entire life. Now she was being used in death, too.
Cairis wanted me to be just like Neculai. He didn’t even know how close he was to getting that wish.
I withdrew my hands from my pockets. Some of Martas’s blood still remained under my fingernails.
“Don’t you hate them?” I said.
I’d meant for the question to sound more lilting, more casual, than it really did.
Because Cairis had been there for all of it, too. Just another one of Neculai’s pets.
And yet now he could sit here and advocate for an alliance with the people who had inflicted unimaginable degradation upon us. It genuinely amazed me.
“Of course I hate them,” he said. “But we need them. For now. Who wins if you kill them all and we lose the House of Night to Septimus? Not us. She used to say that, too, remember?” I turned to see a soft, distant smile on his face—a rare expression from him. “‘Remember who wins.’”
He said it fondly, but my teeth ground.
Yes, I remembered. Couldn’t even count how many times I got right up to the edge, just about to strike back. And whenever it happened, Nessanyn would stop me. Don’t let them win, she would beg, her big brown eyes deep and damp. Who wins if he kills you?
“I remember,” I said.
Cairis shook his head, a sad smile at his lips. “We were all a little in love with her, right?”
Yes, we were all a little in love with Nessanyn. I had been the one sleeping with her, but all of us loved her. How could you not, when she was the only kindness you knew? The only one who treated you like a person instead of a collection of body parts?
“So think about that,” he said. “That’s what I do. Whenever I feel it, I ask myself, Who wins?”
He said it like it was some great proverb, some enlightening wisdom.
“Hm,” I said, thoroughly unconvinced.
I didn’t really sleep much these days.
The castle had an entire wing that was intended to be the king’s residence. I’d visited it nearly a full week after the takeover, putting it off for as long as I could. The decorations were different, and yet so much was the same.
I’d walked through all the rooms in silence.
I paused at a doorway, at a dent carved into the dark wood—a dent I remembered being made with Ketura’s head, centuries ago, then barely even visible beneath the blood. I could still feel the marks where her teeth had dug into the trim.
I’d paused, too, at Vincent’s bureau. It had all been pulled apart, his clothes strewn across the room. The top was adorned with little trinkets that were probably worth more than most estates. But mixed in among those treasures were little aged pieces of paper with handwriting that I recognized as Oraya’s—though in the clumsy curls of a child. All were studies, it looked like. Notes on fighting stances.