Каарон Уоррен - The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2018 Edition

She shouldn’t have needed Thuan at all, demons take her. She should have been in charge; fighting, like Sare, trying to figure out the riddle that had Thuan stumped.

“We asked her to help,” the being said, behind him. He’d still made no move to take Thuan. And though Sare was fighting, she wasn’t harmed, either.

Magic. Fallen magic. That was why they seemed summarily uninterested in Thuan, or in any of the other Houseless: Thuan’s magic was invisible to them. But they hadn’t taken Sare, or the other House dependents. He’d thought it was something dark, something the House couldn’t keep at bay, but…

But when Sare had pushed against the children of thorns, Thuan had seen nothing, in the khi currents.

And none of the House dependents had seen them, or been threatened by them.

He breathed in, slowly. It was as if they were part of the House, weren’t they. Ghosts or spirits or constructs that hadn’t been made by any magicians. And they hadn’t taken Sare or the other House dependents, because theirs was a power already bound to the House. As Kim Cuc wasn’t.

“You’re the House,” he said.

“A small part of it.” Its smile would have been dazzling, if it hadn’t been made of branches and twigs.

“Willing. You asked her if she wanted to be part of the House,” Thuan said, slowly. “That’s why she’s here.”

The voice that answered him was mocking. “Was there any need to ask? She was there, taking the tests.”

In order to enter the House, not to become subsumed within its foundations. But he doubted the being would know, or care about the difference. “She’s not House,” he said, carefully. A glance upwards: Sare had dispatched one of the two children, but it was already reforming.

What did he have, to bargain with? Not the kingdom: even if he’d been willing to expose and sell it, it’d have no value to a House of Fallen and magicians. Not his magic, for the same reasons. Sare, possibly, but how did you bargain with something the other already owned? “You don’t need her,” he said, slowly.

“In ordinary circumstances, no.”

“Because Asmodeus is grieving for Samariel? All grief passes, in time.”

“The grief of Fallen?” The being’s voice was mocking again. “That could last an eternity.” Thuan found a word—a name—on the tip of his tongue, forced himself not to utter it. The being wasn’t Samariel any more than any of the children of thorns had been flesh and bones, or real children. They were all just masks the House wore as a convenience. “And meanwhile, our protections weaken.”

“He’s head of the House,” Thuan said. “He won’t leave you undefended.”

It was going nowhere. He couldn’t negotiate from a position of weakness, and he couldn’t share his only strengths for fear of being caught out. “If you start taking people, they’ll tear the wing apart stone by stone.”

“Would they? They’re Houseless,” the being said. “Not likely to be much missed, in the scheme of things.”

Spoken as only a House-bound could.

“What you take, they could give freely.”

A low, rumbling noise mingling with that from the pumps. Thuan realized it was laughter. “No one ever gives freely. There’s always an expectation of being paid, in one currency or another.”

“You’re…” Thuan fought a rising sense of frustration. “You’re the House. All you do is take!” He pointed to Sare, flowing in and out of combat with unearthly grace, her pale skin lit up with the radiance of magic, the white shape of bones delineated under her taut skin. “Do you think she’d be as useful, if you shut her in the foundations of the wing?”

A silence, then, “One day, when she’s spent almost all the magic she was given when she Fell, that might be her only use.” A low, amused chuckle. “But this isn’t how dependents are rewarded.”

He’d had lessons of diplomacy in the dragon kingdom. He should have paid more attention to them, instead of trying to come up with plans to impress his cousins. He… he’d always thought Kim Cuc would be there, and of course she was the one in need of rescue, and he couldn’t come up with a single idea that would make sense. He couldn’t fight off a House, or even a part of a House, all by himself—and especially not with both hands tied down, and no access to his magic lest he reveal himself.

No.

He was looking at it from the wrong way around. Because fighting or threatening wasn’t what he needed to do, if he wanted to use his magic. He needed… a distraction.

Which meant Sare.

He didn’t trust Sare. He couldn’t even be sure she was going to follow his lead: for all he knew, she’d be happy to leave Kim Cuc there forever, if it was for the good of the House.

But.

But she’d come back for both of them, and it was the only chance he’d get. “You don’t want Kim Cuc,” Thuan said, slowly. There wasn’t much khi water in the room, but he could gather it to him, slowly and methodically. He could fashion it into razor-thin blades, held within his palms. “You want Asmodeus.”

A silence. “You’re Houseless. You can’t possibly promise me anything that involves him.”

No, and neither would Thuan ever consider getting involved with the head of House Hawthorn. The last thing he needed was attention from that quarter. But it didn’t matter, because all he needed to do was lie smoothly enough.

“I’m not House. But she is.” He pointed to Sare but finished his gesture with a wide flourish, which enabled him to throw the blades of khi water in his hands towards Kim Cuc’s wrists. They connected with an audible crunch.

Water was stillness and decay and death. Thuan breathed in, slowly, moving his fingers as though he were playing the zither, weaving the pattern Kim Cuc had shown him earlier. The blades slowly moved in response, digging into the green stone, their edges turning it to dust, a thin, spreading line across its surface—so agonizingly slowly it was all he could do to breathe. “Ask her,” he said.

A silence, broken only by the slurping sound of the pumps. Then the being moving as gracefully as water flowing down, and the two children facing Sare vanished. She turned to Thuan, snarling, her face no longer in the semblance of anything human; and then saw the being of thorns, and sucked in a deep, audible breath.

Her mouth opened, closed. “It’s a bit of the House,” Thuan said, quickly. “Not…”

Sare’s face was unreadable again. “Is it?” She bowed, very low. “Tell me,” she said to Thuan.

Thuan gathered thoughts from where they’d fled, and put as many of them as he dared into words. “It wants Lord Asmodeus.”

Sare’s gaze moved to the basin, and then back to Thuan. “And, failing that, it will take the Houseless?” She showed no emotion. But then why would she have cared about Kim Cuc? Thuan waited for her to speak, to tell the being it was welcome to Kim Cuc and whatever else it saw fit to take. But Sare didn’t say anything.

“We need to be strong,” the being said. Thuan watched Kim Cuc’s bracelets; watched the thin line that was spreading across the stone, a widening crack. He would only get one chance to seize her and run, and he couldn’t even be sure that Sare would follow them. “Not distracted.”

“Distracted.” Sare’s face was hard again. “Grief is allowed .”

The being said nothing. Of course it wouldn’t understand.

Thuan shifted, moving closer to Kim Cuc, both arms outstretched to grab her.

“Lord Asmodeus isn’t available,” Sare said. “And we work on the principle that people are safe inside the House, regardless of whether they’re dependents or not.”

A hiss, from the being.

“Sare,” Thuan said.