Page 47

“What are you keeping from me?” My voice is hot.

There’s a pause.

“It is as I have said. They are gone from Sikyon.”

I sink into a chair.

Can it be true?

“Banished?” I say. “Or of their own accord?” Aletheia’s plate of dry crusts lies before me, incongruous and strange. What use have I for food, now?

“I have no further details.” His voice is cool. Curt, even. Hedoes not care. He is not sorry.

I turn away. My family.Gone. What does it mean? Gonewhere?

A panicked feeling rises inside me. No escape plan will serve me now. There is no one to go home to. Not until I find them again. And how am I to do that?

I swallow down the thickness in my throat. “You probably never intended to deliver the letter at all.”

My voice is as sour as my stomach; even my blood feels sour. The demon does not like the sound of it.

“Do not lever your accusations at me.”

“You are lying to me, I hear it in your voice,” I retort. “You think you can blindfold me with your words, too.”

His voice rises. It seems I have touched him where it hurts—his pride.

“I’m telling you the truth. They’re gone from Sikyon. More, I cannot say.”

His cloaked form looks as ghoulish now as it did the night of our first encounter. How could I have placed any trust in this creature?

“You don’t care,” I say. “And why should you? My loss means nothing to you. You know nothing of family, or the bonds of love.”

The folds of his cloak seemed to stiffen.

“And what of you?” he says, his voice like steel.

I look up. What does he accusemeof? I am the one bereft, orphaned.

Heis the one devoid of feeling. But he’s clenching the chair-back harder now. I see the veins rise up on the back of his hand.

“You,” he says,“are so determined to be dissatisfied, you turn away from every opportunity. You snub every attempt to please you.”

Snub? Please?I can only stare.

“You say you are lonely, but do you make any effort with those who would befriend you? No: you have treated all of us here to your scorn.

“You have access to a greater library,” he continues, “than any of your poets could dream of, and could spend hours immersed in any subject you cared to know—yet you have not once ventured through those doors, though I have ensured that all of them remain open to you.

“You have a thousand instruments here, any of which you could teach yourself now to play. You have a garden you could tend, but that does not interest you either. You belittle the nymphs for not living more…creatively,but though you have a more exquisite loom at your disposal than any mortal has known, and the talent to use it, have you so much as raised a finger to it?”

“I…”

But he goes on.

“You have endless opportunities here for your own betterment, but do any of them earn a moment of your interest? No: you are too busy locking yourself away in your room, preferring to fantasize about a future you pretend would have made you happy.” He scoffs. “That mortal boy, how would your fate have fared with him? How would he have liked you, once you had been married a year? What freedoms would you have had under your mother-in-law’s wing? We both know you would have been little more than a breeding-mate, used to produce strong heirs and pretty daughters, and nothing more.” He thumps the table. “Why, it is not only the sea monster you should be thanking me for saving you from: it is your whole life!”

I stare at him, speechless, too astounded for anger.