Page 82 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“Yes.”

He expected some sort of judgement from his deofol. Cinder merely studied him, serious and silent. Her ears—such as they could be seen through flickering black—were half back.

“I want to do things for her,” continued Osric. “Things that matter. I want to make her happy.”

“Happy ever after?” asked Cinder.

“Impossible,” said Osric.

“Then to what end?”

“None. She’s—she’s no longer a Means to an End.”

“What is she?”

Osric’s heart felt pent up, imprisoned. “Despair. Folly.”

It hurt to speak the truth.

Cinder’s eyes were two golden moons.

“Tell her I’d like to meet her here now, if she’ll come,” said Osric. “Brackenbury is the name of the waystone. I’ll wait.”

“Very well,” said Cinder, and she faded away.

Osric, with his tacn held aloft to read the shadows, paced. He really could use the money. But the thought of negotiating with Fairhrim was repulsive. He wanted to give.

He was going to do a good thing, consciously and willingly, with no benefit to himself.

What was the matter with him? Folly had drawn out all that was best in his disposition? Despair had made him generous? Could he really do good, pure good? Wasn’t it tainted by provenance?

He paused in his pacing. White moths gathered at his tacn. They made a flickering halo around its red glow. He felt the infinitesimally gentle brush of their wings upon his palm.

They cared not where the glow came from.

Light was light.

16

Date Night

Aurienne

Aurienne was deep in study of Mordaunt’s books on the Dreor Order when his deofol pulsed at her tacn.

“My master wishes to meet with you,” said the wolf. “Tonight.”

“It’s late.”

The deofol wasn’t in one of her grinning moods. She hung low, a sullen cloud at Aurienne’s feet. “He’s waiting for you. Will you come?”

There was a time when Aurienne would have refused this sort of contextless summons point-blank—she was not one of Mordaunt’s dogs, to be whistled to when convenient.

There was a time.

Aurienne sighed and asked, “What’s this about?”

“You’ll see,” said the deofol. With gravity, as though she was sharing something profoundly disturbing, the wolf added, “It’s to make you happy.”