1.27. Blackened Heart

The Verdugo

Lisa shut the carriage door and sat heavily on the rear-facing bench. She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, and tried to calm down. The memory of his hair tickling her nose. His galloping heart close to hers. His slim, tapered hands shaking as she held them. His gaze, so flighty and evasive, fixing on hers when he said Yes.

Yes. It was all she could do to keep from kicking her legs like a schoolgirl. Her little fox, finally caught. Finally ready to be domesticated and kept. Again she imagined him unlit, his dark eyes made darker, beautiful and black, because of her, and it thickened her throat. No more dances with spoiled little heiresses, no more flinching when they touched, no bed to belong in but hers—mine, mine, he’d be mine.

But already the guilt was rising. Once she switched back to Annalise, it would intensify. This clarity of desire was about to disappear. It put a lump in her throat.

She told herself that he was a grown man, and it would be his decision to make. She told herself that she would be good to him, that she would keep him safe, and healthy, and happy, and he would never have cause to leave her. She reminded herself that even if they went their separate ways after she turned him, there remained a life for him in the Necropolis. A long and extraordinary life.

All these justifications and self-assurances would ring so hollow in a moment. Why must the rest of her always overcomplicate things? Why couldn’t she just be kind to herself? She rubbed her temples and sighed.

Let yourself be happy. Let yourself deserve him. You want him and he wants you. And it can just be as simple and beautiful as that. Remember that.

She took a deep breath, grabbed a fistful of hair, and pulled her head off.

The giddy hope and the determination melted with Lisa’s flesh from her skull. Her vision clouded. That woozy, weightless feeling as her Darkness took hold. Her eyesight returned, staring at her headless body from the open case. She seized her active head, stuck it on her neck with that ear-pressure pop, and Annalise was Annalise again.

And the usual fatigue that came with the Darkness was lanced through by a boiling bolt of sheer self-loathing.

Fucking hell. Her boot slammed into the seat across from her. Her grip tightened on her Lisa skull. A raw image came to her of dashing it against the wall. Why did she do that? Why did she say those things? Her stomach heaved with humiliated sorrow. Stupid, disgusting, lecherous old hag.

What was she supposed to do now? Just keep ignoring it? But she’d told him that’s what she’d do. Saints fucking help her, she’d told him don’t give up on me.

The first friend she’d made in how long, the first pair of still-lit eyes that looked at her with something more than fear for the undead murderer she was, and she’d let her stupid Lisa libido drool all over him. A ridiculous tear beaded in her duct. She scoffed and wiped it away. You’re not a wee colleen anymore, Annalise. You don’t cry over boys. You put on your big girl pants and fix it while it’s still fixable. Up you get and clean up after yourself.

She opened the door to the deepening evening. The carriage squeaked on its shocks as she left it.

That’s you. The Orwinese Dray. Big blunt Annalise. You’re not some storybook heartthrob. Remember.

“Hello, Mother Classic,” Ofelia said, from her book-bolstered perch atop the carriage.

Tiago waved with his stirring spoon. “Draka’s got a pebble in her hoof. It’s poking her.”

Annalise cleared the ache out of her throat. “You get it out?”

“She won’t let me.” He tapped the spoon on the skillet’s edge. “You know how she is.”

She smirked, grateful for the distraction. “Uh huh. That’s on account of how she can smell your fear.”

“She can smell my annoyance, maybe. I’ve been looking into it, you know, and there’s a hex engine depot in Fontana. I guarantee we’d get a discount. They do installments. Or we could buy one, and find the guy guilty of something, and chop-chop. New car.”

“If you’re trying to upset me, boyo, just give me dinner.”

Tiago passed her a plate piled with his signature dish, which they’d all started calling crud. “I’m sure il Derriere has come up with all kinds of incredible recipes you can do off mincemeat and barley.”

“Il Derriere’s been done before,” Seth called, from his seat by the stove. The quickest of glances to him sent Annalise into an embarrassed spiral.

“All things have been done before,” Ofelia intoned from above. “And shall be done again, and again a thousandfold whensoever the turning wheel hath spoke its final spoke.”

“Is that from something?”

Ofelia underhand tossed Seth a book from her pile. “This one.”

“Shit.” He butterfingered it into the dirt. “Shit. Sorry, Feeli.”

“Oh, not at all. I’ve read it already.”

“Eat quick, kiddos.” Annalise took another flavorless bite. “If we give it a lash, I’ll bet we can make Jonquil before the sun’s through setting. A touch of early-evening scaffold work.”

Tiago’s brow raised. “You don’t want to roll in solo first?”

“Nah. This time I reckon we just get it done all together. I only just got back. Missed yas.”

“Bet you did. Choking down big city food at the Butterfly Pavilion. Pining for some good ol’ fashioned crud. Have a double.”

She chuckled. “I will, yeah.”

Tiago got up and spooned more of his pasty concoction onto her tin travel plate. “You get a chance to check that place out? Was it as good as you hoped?”

That made her remember the restaurant. That dimpled, lopsided grin when she’d called him a marvel. God, her dress. The way his eyes had wandered across her neckline, the way she could almost feel his attention, tingling on her skin. How pink his ears had turned when she said he could look. She should have burned that fucking dress years ago. A mother of two, how many years old, strutting around in public wearing that? Why did the version of her with the disguise and the fireballs have to be such a fucking floozy?

“Mom.” Tiago’s mouth tugged down at the corners. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Is everything okay?”

Whenever her son was concerned for her, he looked like Kevan used to, back when he cared enough about Annalise to spare her more than a mean glance. It was in the edges of his eyes, the way they scrunched up. She’d never, ever dare to tell him so—he’d melt his face off with acid to avoid looking like that man.

“Ah, sure,” she said. “It was tasty enough for how many braces I dropped on it. I’ll take us when we’re back there on business. We’ll spook all the sauciers. Maybe they’ll put it on the house.” She tousled his hair. “G’way with you before I kiss your forehead again. Feed your sister. I’ll scarf this down and then help you with Draka.”

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“I’m not hungry,” Feeli called.

“Yes you are.” Annalise stood up and strolled past the camp oven, trying to look casual and not like she was walking to the headtaking scaffold. “Sethy. Shake a leg with me a second. Take your food.”

Seth took up his half-finished crud and hurried after her. “Where are we going?”

“Just a circuit around the digs,” Annalise said. “Need to do a little debriefing.”

Seth quickly fell into her same casual artifice. “Sure.”

Annalise occupied her mouth with chewing until they were enough paces from the kids. “I owe you an apology, I suppose, Seth. Another sorry to add to the pile.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. I keep on putting on new heads and underestimating how much they’ll muck about with you.”

He grinned. He’d been grinning bigger, lately, with a bit of teeth. They were nice teeth. Not straight, really. But nice. “I didn’t exactly mind this time.”

“Well, you should have, Seth. We can’t…” Annalise billowed a sigh. Just rip the bandage off, girlie. “We can’t operate like that.”

Seth’s lips thinned. “Okay,” he said, with the deliberate care of a seraph nest vanguard. “Why?”

“I can’t be responsible for unlighting you, is why. I’m your boss, I’m your elder, and I’m gonna speak sense if you can’t.”

“You told me you’d say all this.”

“You don’t have to tell me what I said, Seth. I remember bleeding saying it.” Annalise felt her reins go taut. Give him some slack. Don’t be fierce. “And I really shouldn’t have, idiot that I am. I didn’t mean to confuse you, or make you uncomfortable, or…” She cleared her throat. “Or lead you on.”