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The sun was hovering over the horizon and the air had grown noticeably colder when Tivol abruptly wrenched off the road and onto a narrow parallel track. Madeleine looked around, fear gurgling up at the back of her throat. Was this their destination? They were coming to a halt along a row of featureless buildings, long and low and somehow slovenly looking. Most of the windows appeared to be covered with dark, heavy curtains; at any rate, not one of them admitted the faintest spill of light. Madeleine strained, but couldn’t hear much noise—no laughter, no loud voices, no music. Everything that happened in this district occurred in secrecy.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“Just—a place I go sometimes when I want to be alone.”
He had stopped the car and hopped out, instantly retrieving Aussen from the back. Aussen wailed in fear and he muffled her mouth against his shirt.
“Give her to me,” Madeleine said.
He shook his head. “Up that way. The second door. Go on in.”
A broken walkway led to the designated spot, which opened into a shadowy hallway marked by half a dozen other doors. Tivol headed to the first one on the left, fished a key from his pocket, and let them in, flicking on a wall sconce as they entered.
Inside was not the chamber of horrors Madeleine had half-expected, though it was bleak enough. A few pieces of tumbledown furniture, heavy draperies on the window. No rugs or artwork or anything to soften the bare outlines of chair and table and scarred wooden floor. There was another door, half-open, that probably led to a bedroom. There was a small space consisting of cabinets and a sink, which she guessed was supposed to be a kitchen. There was a faint smell of forgotten garbage or rotted food or unwashed clothes.
This was where Tivol came not just when he wanted to be alone, but when he wanted to be unmoored from civilized conventions. When he wanted to forget his obligations to his mother, his betrothed, his city, and his god.
“Do you bring your friends here and drink all night?” she asked. She could tell that her composed voice made him relax a little.
“Sometimes.”
“And women? Do you bring them here, too?”
He eyed her. “Sometimes. Not once we’re married, though.”
She had to swallow a laugh of hysteria. As if, after all his other betrayals, she would care about his fidelity. “Is there a place you can put Aussen so she can sleep? I’m worried about her.”
He hesitated, then stepped past her and through the other door. Madeleine followed. It was a bedroom, as spare and uninviting as the rest of the place, furnished only with a dresser, a chair, and a half-made bed. She decided not to wonder whether he had ever had the sheets washed.
Tivol lay Aussen clumsily on the mattress, and the girl immediately cried out and lifted her arms toward Madeleine. “Don’t—” he said, but she brushed past him.
“Let me get her settled,” she said. “Then I’ll come out and talk to you.”
She turned her back to Tivol and sat beside Aussen, leaning in and taking her into an embrace. “I’m so sorry, baby, I’m so sorry, everything will be all right.”
Aussen whispered unfamiliar words into her neck, but Madeleine didn’t have to know Zessin to guess what she’d said. She just made hushing sounds and repeated her empty reassurances, smoothing back Aussen’s hair and kissing her forehead.
Behind her, she heard Tivol shift uncertainly, then quietly exit the room. He left the door open, though, and she thought he was probably on high alert, waiting to see if she would try to lock the door between them. She had glanced at it as she stepped through, and she hadn’t been impressed. It looked like he could break it down with a couple of hard kicks.
No, she would need a better plan.
She stayed with Aussen as long as she dared, knowing that Tivol was getting restless in the other room. She could hear him pacing, then growing still to listen, then pacing again. When Aussen finally fell asleep, Madeleine stiffened her spine, smoothed down her hair, and came to her feet. Time to face her captor.
Tivol instantly swiveled to face her as she stepped out of the room. “How is she?”
“Well enough, I suppose, for someone who’s been kidnapped and terrorized.”
“Ididn’t—”
She just shook her head and walked past him, straight into the little kitchen. “Do you have food here? I’m hungry, and I’m sure Aussen will be when she wakes up.”
He seemed caught unaware by her prosaic concerns. “A little. Crackers and dried meat. I stock up when I think I’ll be here a while, but I wasn’t planning—”
“So you keep saying.” She rummaged around in a couple of drawers and cabinets, coming across plenty of glassware and bottles of wine, a shelf full of plates, but not what she was looking for. She tried another cabinet.
“I could go get food, but you wouldn’t like it,” he said.
She kept her back to him. “I wouldn’t like the food you fetched for me? Right now I’d be happy with bread and cheese.”
