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My heart skips a beat.How does he know?

“I suggest you come out of there, and go upstairs. It is evening already.”

My heart has resumed its work, but badly—now it beats twice as hard as before. I feel a wave of boldness run through me. I step forward, out of the stables. Beneath the black hood, I feel him look at me.

“I will not dine with you tonight,” I say. “I will have no more of your demon food.”

He moves his foot back from the doorway and turns fully to face me then. He is quiet for a while.

“I can see you fear what happened last night.” He stops, asthough considering his words. “For a mortal to find pleasure in this place—that is neither fearful nor shameful. But if you don’t want it to happen again, it will not.” The hood shifts a little.

“I hope in time you shall accustom yourself to the pleasures of this realm, but in the meantime, if you wish to subsist on bread and water, it shall be so. I have asked Aletheia to prepare some for you tonight.”

I fold my arms. I suppose he means to trick me with that, too.

“And you will not go blindfolded,” he adds then, and I stare.

So he means to show me his face, after all?

“I will keep myself cloaked while you eat.”

This is almost as surprising. Why make such a concession? Why have me sit with him at all? We have surely proved by now that we do not make for good companions.

“Come,” he says, his voice commanding, and opens the door.

I suppose I could refuse. I could dig my heels in and sleep in the stables all night. But for whatever reason, he seems prepared to offer concessions today, and those may prove useful to me. The great generals agree, it is wise to pick one’s battles.

Slowly, I walk toward the door.

*

It is a strange experience, sitting at the table with no blindfold. Seeing everything. Seeinghim. I cannot help but flash back to last night, and I hope he does not see me flush. He sits in shadow, and all I see of him are his hands, golden-skinned, folded on the table before him. He looks so calm, so assured. The lord of his kingdom, who believes that everything in this room belongs to him—even Aletheia. Even me. I want to ask him what he does all day. Where he goes. What has earned him the right to return to this table at night with such a self-satisfied air, asthough he’s been laboring in the fields all day, when surely he is up to much darker work than that.

The table is set, as before, with a variety of sumptuous food. Platters with crisp-skinned meat, oil-glazed vegetables, soups and ices; fruits and cheeses and fritters that smell of herbs. I try not to move too much. If I stay quite still, maybe I’ll avoid all those exquisite food smells wafting toward me, assaulting me with every turn of my head. Then Aletheia emerges from the doorway with a plate of bread, and drops it brusquely on the table before me.

A few crusts of bread, dry as wafers. I exhale.

“Well? Eat,” he says, once Aletheia has left us again.

Slowly I raise one to my mouth and take a small nibble. The taste is recognizable—better, richer, far more delicious than mere bread-crusts should be, but nothing too ecstatic. Nothing I can’t manage. I breathe more freely, and take a small sip of water. Even the water tastes like sunshine, like the freshest spring from the deepest forest—but it does not disturb my peace too much. It does not leave me breathless.

“Better?” the demon says, and I nod.

I remind myself that he is not solicitous for my well-being, even if he sometimes appears it. I remind myself of the secrets he keeps from me, and the freedom he denies me. I must not let his small courtesies tame me—I may only let himthinkthat they do.

“I think that you are lonely here,” he says.

I drop the crust back on my plate and look at him. The dark hood shimmers; I see his head move to one side, as though waiting for an answer.

I try not to let the tears well behind my eyes.Lonely.I had not realized until he said the word, how true it was.

It occurs to me then that loneliness is the fate of many women in my land. Overnight, they are removed from theirfamilies and placed in a new household, expected to be the dutiful and submissive daughter their husband’s parents expect. She must give up her old home, her old friends. She must give herself over to a man she knows only a little, and a family that is not her own.

And yet nobody ever talked—at least not in my hearing—about how painful it all must be. Perhaps the world does not wish for it to be talked of. Perhaps they know that women will be more pliant, more willing to please, when they feel all alone.

Easier to control.

And what happens to them, finally? They survive, I suppose. They grow to like their new worlds, or they don’t. And either way, life goes on.