“I thought you had gone,” he said.
“And so, your first thought is to come down here and smash up my kitchen?” I asked, starting to sweep and ignoring the little leap my heart gave.He was worried?“I needed some fresh air, is all. I’ve been cooped up in here with no one to talk to but you and the cat ...” I swept furiously, keeping my eyes on the floor.
“Oi,” interrupted Cornelius. “The catis right here.”
“... and I just needed an outing. I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.” It was a feeble explanation. Why would anyone go for a casual stroll at midnight?
The sorcerer was so removed from the usual rules of time and human habit, though, that he didn’t seem to question it.
“Oh,” he said. Everything about him was slowly settling, and I realized that his feet had been drifting a tiny way above the pile of smashed dishes. As I watched, they lowered until his high-shining boots rested on top of the stack.
“Can you get off that? I’m trying to clean,” I said.
His face looked odd, off-kilter. It was still perfect, of course, every line of it a brushstroke painted by a master in the art, but something about it was different. His eyes roamed around the room, taking in the stove, the fire, Cornelius, the plates, and finally me.
“I thought you had gone,” he said again.
I let the broom dangle from my hand.
“I wouldn’t just leave,” I heard myself say. We stared at each other.
“Where were you?” he asked.
“I didn’t realize I was a prisoner.”
“You are not.” His face was flushed. “You know I do not keep you here deliberately. You are here of your own will.”
“Hardlymy own will,” I said, hands on hips, “when I am ensorcelled and bound to you, whether you wish it or not. And what do you care if I go out? You didn’t bind me to you on purpose, as you said.”
He bit his lip. “I thought you had left. Because I had gone to harvest.”
“You’d hardly miss me,” I said. “You don’t need a housekeeper at all. Your House takes care of itself, and the rare times it doesn’t ... Well, you can just snap your fingers.”
“It can’t make meatloaf,” he said.
I stared at him for a second, then resumed sweeping. “Yes, it can. It can make anything.”
“It’s not the same,” he insisted.
We stared at each other for another moment. I hated the perfection of his face. If I were wearing some sort of silk and lace contraption like the ones in the mysterious bedchamber, it might have been romantic.
As it was, I stood stolid as a stump and waited for him to speak further. He did not, but leaned toward me ever so slightly. My heart thumped about like it was trying to throw itself into his hand.
“I ...” he began, and stopped.
“What?” I whispered. My voice came out dry and thready.
“Nothing,” he said, and turned to go, leaving me trembling on my feet and yearning after him. I did manage to overcome my heartsickness enough to ask, “Did you take one?”
He stopped, without turning around. “One what?” he said.
“A heart.”
He stayed still for a minute, then kept walking as if I hadn’t spoken. Cornelius trotted after him, leaving me with the mess of broken china and the hum of spent magic, and the knowledge that some poor soul’s heart had been harvested and bottled like autumn preserves, from a village like mine, somewhere out beyond the city’s walls.
Once I was alone in my room, with not even Cornelius as witness, I peeled off my dress and underclothes and examined my own chest. I palpated the skin around my breast and ribs with my fingers and peered as closely at it as I could, but saw nothing—no rot, no decay, not even a greenish cast to my paleness. It seemed I had been lucky so far, but how long before I succumbed to the same corruption that was consuming the rest of the Snagged? I would have to keep an eye on it—and redouble my efforts to find out how to extricate myself from the sorcerer, before I ended up like Jol.
14
