Silver has gone back to the rack, and now he’s considering a pale pink lace.

  “I can’t accept this,” I tell him meekly. “I ... I thought someone else ...”

  I shake my head, throwing all fantasies of Mikhael and his extravagant apology from my mind. How silly of me to believe, even for a moment, that this was all his doing.

  Silver scoffs—this time, I’m certain of it. He draws out the pink lace and throws me a weary glance. “Your little mayor’s son?” His tone mocks me, and the cruel twist of his mouth punches his words. “You didn't strike me as the type to fawn over this star-crossed lovers nonsense.”

  I’m not. That’s what I want to say. I want to defend myself, my reasons, my mind and it’s tangled thoughts. But how can I?

  Silver is an aniel. An exceptionally powerful and ancient one. Any backtalk, anything that can be misunderstood as defensiveness, can wind me up in a whole cauldron of trouble.

  Still, anger swells up inside of me.

  How quickly Silver dismisses me as someone who fawns over another. That’s not me, and that’s not what I wanted from Mikhael. He was a means to an end, a tool in my elaborate plan to escape my life. But I do not love him, never have and never will. Boys aren’t for loving. Not sure there really is such a thing, if I really think about it.

  I swallow back my poisonous words and look down at the plush cream rug. The scuffed toes of my slippers look more out of place here than they would on a pirate’s ship.

  Silver throws the pink lace on the trolley with the periwinkle silk. I watch him in silence for a while as he decides on colours and materials. Minutes pass quietly, and the stack is growing taller and taller.

  Finally, he seems uninterested in the materials. He wears his dispassion like a weary cloak draped over him. But it’s not over yet. He moves on to the accessories. Gloves and ribbons and hair clasps and even slippers and boots.

  I won’t lie. It’s mortifying.

  Am I such a sad girl that an aniel goes out of his way to clothe me?

  It just makes little sense to me.

  “When did you make this appointment?” I finally muster up the courage to ask. “When the letter was delivered to my house, I was at the ball—and so were you.”

  “I have means,” he tells me. “Eager humans and lesser aniels to run my errands for me.”

  Silver approaches me, a bored look on his forever-distant face, with a handful of lace gloves in his fingers. He holds them up to the bare flesh of my arm, checking the hues against my skin tone.

  I catch his gaze. “Why?”

  His lashes lower on me. He looks deadly. “Why do I have desperate souls to run around Scocie on my behalf?”

  I pinch my mouth. “Why did you do this ... for me?”

  Before last night, we have barely spoken a few words to each other. And even at the ball, our conversation didn't dive into the ‘friendly’ space.

  He drops his hands to his side and looks at me, hard. His eyes gleam like freshly polished blades, and he tilts his head to the side.

  After a pause, he says, “Your story is like your dresses. Too dull, worn, and pathetic.” Silver draws away and tosses the stack of gloves onto the pile he seems to like. With his back to me, he adds, “Everyone’s story needs a little colour.”

  My face falls and a sudden hollow feeling scoops out my insides.

  I know what people think of me. I know what they say about me. But to hear it from an aniel who has no business even paying attention to a meaningless vilas like me, it hurts more than it should.

  Pathetic, I know.

  Silver leans back against the food trolley and lights a black cigarette. Dark vapours of smoke are quick to fog the room. He watches me through the smog.

  “Eat,” he orders after his third inhale.

  I cut my gaze to the tray he placed beside me on the chaise. It’s all untouched. By now, the tea is likely cold, and the sandwiches stale, and the biscuits dry.

  But I’m not in the business of defying aniels. So I sip from the tea first—lukewarm, I learn—before I nibble on both a sandwich and biscuit, one in each hand.

  He watches me eat.

  It strikes a thought through me.

  “Do you eat?” I ask, wiping crumbs from my mouth with the back of my hand.

  His lashes lower into a weary glare. “Yes.”

  “But you wouldn’t die if you starve?”

  He inhales long and deep. Smoke clouds his words, “I would not starve.”

  Not unlike the Gods, then. Eat, drink, smoke—all the business that we mortals do, but there reasons are for enjoyment and taste, ours are mostly for addiction and survival.

  Once I’ve cleared the tray, Silver pushes from the trolley and pulls an ivory rope that hangs from a golden bell by the door. It rings, loud. Just a few moments pass before the doors open and a new face enters. This woman, thin and lanky, is a seamstress—she wears the measuring tape around her neck like a draped scarf, and fastened around her waist is a belt of pins that make me wince at the sight of them.

  “Have something ready for tonight,” Silver tells the seamstress. “She will need to be properly dressed for the celebration.”

  My heart sinks.

  Tonight, it’s the Tribute to the Daemons.

  Unlike the Day of the Gods, this celebration isn’t mandatory. I never attend. My poorly state makes for a decent excuse to avoid this darker of evenings.

  I cut in, “I won’t be attending tonight. After last night, I will be too weak to celebrate again.”

  His eyes darken to ash clouds. Suddenly, his presence seems to suck up the entire room, and me and the seamstress are mere stains on the rug.

  “Consider this—” he gestures to the chosen materials on the trolley. “—an invitation. Do you wish to decline my invitation?”

  The dangerous tone of his words shiver up my spine.

  I shake my head, my heart clenched in my chest.

  He watches me for another moment—a terribly long, dreadful one—then extends his hand to me. I take it, my fingers trembling like leaves fluttering down from branches. He claps my hand and tugs me up from the seat.

  A breath catches in my throat as he rests his hands on my hips and angles me to face the mirror. The first thing I notice is the blotchy blush dotted all over my unusually pale face. My pallor is strikingly sickly beside Silver and his smooth marble-like skin. Mine is made worse the faint spatter of freckles dusted over chest and arms.

  I look down at my ordinary beige dress.

  I wear no corset to give the illusion of curves I don’t have, and my arms protrude from the almost-baggy sleeves like braches from a tree in the Frost Season. No amount of fine dresses and materials will hide the stick-frame of my body.

  He leans in closer until I can feel the warmth of his breath tickle over the side of my neck. My heart picks up pace in my chest, and I swallow back a lump.

  His lips brush against my prickling skin; “I look forward to seeing you tonight,” he says softly, then he plants a chaste kiss on my neck, a gesture wild enough to choke a gaps in my throat and strike my face stunned.

  A hot sensation boils deep in my tummy.

  His hands slip from my waist, taking a stolen breath away with them. Then he strides out of the room without another word or even so much as a glance back at me.

  The seamstress suddenly smiles brightly. I’ve never seen a more forced grin and in my circles I’ve seen plenty. Even in Silver’s absence, his bitter and lethal energy still clings to us both.

  “Well, then!” She closes the doors, then starts for the hefty pile on the trolley. “Let’s get you fitted!”

  I’m in the boutique for hours after Silver leaves.

  With the sheer amount of material he chose (and the instructions on how many dresses and gowns I need that he apparently dished out to the seamstress before I arrived), it’s a whole day affair. All sorts of things are fastened to me, pinned to me, tied to me, from fabrics and shawls to hats and wigs to slippers and boots to hair clasps and even jewels.

  The black-haired shopgirl returns a couple of times to feed me sandwiches, biscuits and teas, and they both force me to sit on the chaise every hour for a short break (I suspect that has something to do with Silver’s earlier instructions).

  But finally, I’m allowed to leave. And they give me a box full of all the fixtures—a bracelet, gloves, a hair clasp, and ribbons. The gown comes later this evening, the seamstress promises me.

  Since this is my first time at this boutique, I can’t be certain of their prices. But I know enough about the shop to guess that it’s more than most vilas can afford.

  Silver ordered a lot from the boutique, and it chills my gut some to even consider how much paper and coin he spent on me, someone he barely knows, or likes for that matter.

  And I might be a mortal, somewhat of a silly girl, but I’m not a fool. I know there’s more to the story he fed me. An aniel doesn't just up and buy a whole new wardrobe for a poorly vilas because she’s “too sad”. Just doesn't sit right with me.

  But I fear to think what other reason there could be.

  7.

  To understand the Tribute to the Daemons, you must first understand the Daemons themselves. But where to begin? There is so much to tell.

  First and foremost, I fear many things. Gods, aniels, death, my sickness, dying alone, the Black Sea, the Wild Woods. Yet, of all my fears, there is one that rings loudest. Fear of the Daemons.

  I am a coward, there is no doubt about it. But fear of the Daemons does not speak to my cowardice alone—it speaks to the terror that they inflict on all the vilas in the whole world, from the smallest isle to Scocie.

  As the temples and worshippers tell it, the Gods came first. And that is true for the most part. When the Gods were created by the earth, cracks appeared in the world. Deep, dark cracks hidden all over in the most magical of places. Some say there are cracks in the Wild Woods, near the Waterfall where the Gods first emerged from.

  These cracks are evil.

  We don’t talk about them much. They are glossed over in temple, mostly erased from the skripta, and mere footnotes in studies at the universities.

  But we all know what came from them.

  On the first day, the Gods emerged from the Waterfall, then on the first night, Daemons emerged from the cracks. Though they both came from the earth, they share little similarities. There is a reason we worship our Gods—beyond that they created us and still allow us to exist—and not the Daemons.

  Daemons possess a mere lick of power compared to the Gods. It’s not within their abilities to create land and seas and rivers and trees and life. All the Gods have their own individual powers too.

  The Keeper of Lost Souls collects the souls of those who die in waters—any sea or lake in the world—and stores them in her ponds. These souls fuel her power. Prince Poison’s mere touch will kill those who dare feel his fingertips or lips on their skin. Trident controls the wild waters of the world. Blaze controls all things fire and lava and smoke. Phantom was rumoured to take the form of a flock of crows. The abilities are endless.

  Daemons are limited, and none possess special powers. Their only gifts are that they move with the winds, unseen by us unless they wish to be seen, and tracking. They can hunt and kill anything if they want to badly enough.

  That’s one of the reasons we rarely see them in the Capital. Some are off on assassination missions, funded by wicked aniels and vilas and Gods. They do dirty work.

  But we fear them for more than their skills.

  The tale is, when we die, it’s the Daemons who come to collect us. They take our souls away from our bodies, carry us away on the wings of the breeze, and drag us down to the Underworld where they rule.

  That is the story of the Daemons.

  And still, there is more to fear.

  Daemons have mates.

  It doesn't happen often, not nearly enough for me to know anyone who was stolen away by a Daemon, and so long ago that the stories have faded to whispers, mostly forgotten over time. As I recall, each Daemon to exist forges an instant and sudden bond with someone, and no one is safe from that—not even the Gods. When a Daemon realises its mate, it’s all over from there. They will drag their mate down to the depths of the world and cage them away to live a horrific life of confinement and agony.

  There’s nothing pleasant or loving about these creatures.

  And so, we mortals fear them. And in our fear, we celebrate them to appease them, to dissuade the Daemons from sweeping over the Capital and destroying us all.

  It starts with a ball; a party thrown in the heart of the Twisted Wood near the cliff. That part I don’t mind so much. It’s what comes at midnight that terrifies me. Haunts me, even.

  The sacrifice.

  Sometimes the sacrifice is a mere animal, but even then, they scream all the same. And other times, it’s a volunteer. A sickly person, not unlike myself, who sees no hope or purpose in living, and offers themselves to the stone block to have their heads hacked off then their hearts ripped out—hearts that are believed to be the holder of the soul.

  I loathe the Tribute to the Daemons.

  On the few occasions I attend, I feel the stares on me. Judgement, expectation, even sometimes hope. I’m poorly, a dying girl with not much of a life to live, and it’s like walking into a flock of starving sea-vultures. It’s as though every other vilas there is just waiting for me to volunteer myself and offer my pathetic excuse for a life to appease the sacrifice. To appease the Daemons.

  No such luck. Won’t happen, not ever.

  One day—and that day will come—the Daemons will meet me on the other side of life and take me away to the Underworld. But I won’t go before my time, and I won’t go willingly.

  I’ll fight to my last breath.

  Besides, if I ever wanted to offer myself as a sacrifice, it would be to a God. Father Fettle maybe. Never a Daemon. Never to those vicious creatures.

  Alas, there will be a sacrifice tonight, and I must attend.

  Can’t go upsetting a powerful aniel who has essentially demanded my being there. Even if every fibre of my being is shouting at me to avoid the celebration at all costs, and I’ve got that watery feeling deep in my gut, I’m bound to attend.

  8.

  Nikah pokes her head around my bedroom door to let me know a parcel has arrived. My heart leaps up into my throat. I’m only expecting one delivery this evening, and it’s from the Emporium Quarter.

  I rush by Nikah for the stairs and, leaning my weight on the banister, take two at a time.

  Olivia is waiting for me in the lobby.

  Her arms are folded over her chest and, peeking out from the lacy hem of her dress, she taps her foot on the floor. She looks up as I come down the stairs.

  Her eyes narrow on me like faithful arrows, ready to shoot.

  “Bartel’s Boutique?” She sneers, her angelic face twisting into something ugly.

  I finish a slow step to leave the staircase.

  I cut my gaze to the table by the wall, where a pale-blue parcel wrapped in a white ribbon sits patiently, waiting for me. Perched on top of the large, bulky box, there’s a smaller, rectangular parcel that I suspect holds a pair of slippers for tonight.

  “Really, Keela?” Olivia throws her hands up before they slap to her sides. “You expect us to believe that some mysterious person sent you to Bartel’s Boutique?” She takes a menacing step closer to me. “Who in this Gods’ good city would do such a thing for you of all people?”

  Silver’s liquid metal eyes swim into my mind. I swat the image away from me, and lift my chin. “What business is it of yours?”

  Her eyes glint like emeralds caught under the rays of the sun. “It is my business because I know you are lying. You stole this money, didn't you?”

  I level my tired hazel eyes on her. “Yes, Olivia. I managed to steal more monies than Father can afford to lose, without him noticing, then booked myself a spot at one of the most expensive boutiques in the city. You caught me.”

  Her mouth opens for a second before it clamps shut, then parts again. She’s like a stunned fish, just standing in my way, between myself and the packages that call to me, sirens to sailors lost at sea.

  Finally, she seems to give up her accusations. Instead, she stomps closer to me, cornering me on the staircase, and lowers her lashes over her sparkling green eyes, the kind of green beneath the shallow waters of the seashore. “Who did this for you? Was it Mikhael? If it was him and you don’t tell me, I swear on Mother’s health, I will hide every last drop of remedy in this house.”

  I step away from the staircase, coming so close to my sister that my hand slips from the banister and the sting of her strong perfume tickles my nose.

  “It wasn’t him,” I say. “But if you so much as think about my remedy again, I will tell Mikhael that you fumbled with the Governor’s son last season.”

  The colour drains from her face and, slowly, her lips part into a slack look of shock.

  I smile sweetly. “I might not run in your circles, Olivia, but I’m still privy to the secrets that run through this house. You can thank your loose-lipped servants for talking too loudly in the hall.”

  Furious gleams light up her eyes and she throws her burning gaze up the stairs. I trace her stare to where Nikah stands at the first landing. She shifts on the spot, her hands wringing together at her front, and her eyes downcast.

  I step around Olivia, who is glued to the spot, dumbstruck.

  I throw a glance at her over my shoulder. “Do you think he will still want your hand once he learns that you are a bit of ... an adventurer?”

  I’m not one for calling anyone a whore or a Street Lady, but the meaning is implied, and it hangs in the air above us.

  Olivia’s shock cracks on her face and starts to peel away. She looks at me with eyes like a fistful of arrows. “Better be careful with your new things, Keela,” she warns. “Moths do love to eat away at the finer things in this house. And, with so many open flames around here, it wouldn’t surprise me if all your new pretty clothes were charred down to the whale bones.”