Dark Light of Day

by Jill Archer

  I was too tired to argue. I fell asleep in Ari’s arms.

  When I woke up, I was less sore and the woozy feeling I’d had earlier was entirely gone.

  “I can’t stand it,” I said, jumping out of bed and startling Ari, who had fallen asleep next to me.

  “Can’t stand what?” he said, looking like he could have slept straight through till tomorrow.

  “I need a shower and some real clothes. Do you think I could borrow something so we can go shopping? I forgot to mention… before Nergal kidnapped me, infected me with a deadly virus, and tried to kill you, he did something really unforgivable.”

  Ari looked confused. “Those things weren’t unforgivable enough?”

  “Oh no,” I said, “the thing that really makes me want to fire him as my client is that he burned all my clothes, every single stitch of them. Nergal burned down my entire closet!” I started laughing. And then all the fear and the pain that I’d rolled up into a tight little ball and shoved deep down inside me somewhere suddenly exploded and I started bawling uncontrollably as I sank down onto the rug. Ari scooped me up and held me until I finished.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hiccupping. “I’m sorry I couldn’t control him better. I did everything I could think of.”

  “I know,” Ari said, his hold tightening. “That’s why I was angry. Rochester ranked us Primoris and Secundus for a reason. You don’t have to protect me, even from your own client.”

  “You’re the one who kept telling me to embrace my inner Maegester, Ari. If I’m going to spend my life as a Maegester instead of a Mederi, the last thing I’m going to do is let someone else get hurt when I can do something about it. Especially someone I care about.”

  “But that’s the problem. You care too much. You almost killed yourself to save me. Remember that day in Manipulation when Rochester said you add emotion to your magic to make it stronger?” I nodded. “That’s what you did. You almost gutted yourself. Which would have had the same effect on me. Promise me you’ll never do it again.”

  “No,” I said, getting up from his lap. “You said it yourself. Promises shouldn’t be made lightly.”

  We argued a bit more, Ari pressed, I refused. We called it a temporary draw. Ari showed me where the bathroom was and got me all the towels and soap and shampoo I might need to put myself back together again. I stayed beneath the spray for a long time, scrubbing the soot, sweat, and tears away.

  When I emerged, I wasn’t yet 100 percent, but I was getting there. I padded down the hallway and back into the room I was staying in. On the bed was a new pair of pants and a high-necked short-sleeved blouse, both in my size. Ari came into the room holding a small glossy pink shopping bag by the finger.

  “Here are a few other things you might need,” he said with a knowing grin. “I took a guess, based on previous choices of yours.”

  I peeked in the bag and blushed. “Did you pick out the clothes too?”

  “No, Bryony did. That’s where we were today.”

  “Oh,” I said, still not liking the idea of them shopping together even if it was for me and even if I did owe the well-meaning Mederi two major favors now. I picked at a loose thread on the quilt. “Bryony’s nice.”

  “Very,” Ari said, stepping closer. “But she’s not you.”

  Sometimes I still didn’t get why Ari was with me.

  “What do you see in me?” I murmured, only half-joking.

  “Everything,” he whispered.

  Chapter 23

  Bradbury was a neighborhood in the southwest of New Babylon proper. If one imagined New Babylon and its suburbs as a large boot standing on the northern shoreline of the Lethe, Bradbury was the toe that pointed west. Dockworkers, longshoremen, stevedores, and their families had slowly settled along the shore they worked and, over the years, the toe of the boot had grown quite large. Due to its geographical separation from the rest of New Babylon (fields and forest surrounded Bradbury to the north and west and the Lethe shoreline ran along its southern edge), and the nature of the work shared by most of its inhabitants, it had a closed-in, self-contained feel. Most people never left, and hardly anyone ever moved in. The same families had been living in the same houses for generations, loading and unloading all of the cargo ships that arrived and departed every week for the settlements and outposts along the Lethe.

  The neighborhood was like Etincelle in a way. Everyone knew everyone else and the place had its own culture, its own customs. But where Etincelle was old money, old magic, large estates, and manicured lawns, Bradbury was street after street of row houses crammed twelve to a block. No one had more than a patch of grass for a yard (which suited me fine) and most had already paved over that to make room for a cabriolet, repair shop, or broken boat. The place of my birth was full of pedigreed people who lived in the past, but the Bradbury folk lived in the now. Their concerns were things like ship schedules and load lifts, not spells and magic. I doubted anyone in Bradbury had ever even seen a demon in person. Well, except Ari.

  Ari and I decided to walk down to the riverfront before dinner. He wanted to show me the docks and I was curious about the bonfire site. There were no fields in Bradbury and it was difficult to imagine how the neighborhood would recreate Flora’s famous tale. The sun had started its descent, but the shadows were still short. The air had cooled and I borrowed a light wrap from Joy before leaving. Ari wore a hooded cloak. He pulled my hand into one of the pockets and we set off.

  The road outside of the Carmine residence was an amalgamation of old cobblestones, brick, and concrete. It was cracked and uneven with sand and grit tucked in every crevice. Tiny row houses crowded both sides of their street, each one with a different color, trim, or surface. Some were redbrick, others were faded grayish green clapboard, a few were bright yellow stucco. As we walked toward the dock, I noticed the most crowded blocks were the most colorful. The closer the houses stood together, the louder the colors, like siblings trying to shout over one another.

  The oldest street in Bradbury ran along the riverfront. Ari told me people rarely drove along it anymore. It was too packed with cranes, cargo containers, and other equipment. But there were still some sections reserved for pedestrians. Every few blocks or so there were a group of benches and a large stone chalice.

  “Who are the chalices for?” I asked.

  “Estes,” Ari said. That made sense, I thought. Estes was the Lethe’s patron demon. Of course a community of longshoremen and dockworkers would revere and adore him. I walked over to the chalice, searching for the knife I knew would be there. Sure enough, I found a clean, sharp six inch blade with a plain wooden handle tucked into a side niche of the chalice’s pedestal. I held my hand over the chalice bowl and made a shallow cut along my left palm. The knife edge stung when it cut, but I’d done this before and was used to it. Apparently, Ari wasn’t.

  “What are you doing?” He leapt onto the base of the pedestal and grabbed my hand.

  “Stop,” I said, gently jerking my hand away from his. I let the blood bleed into the bowl until it stopped on its own. “Look on the other side of the pedestal. There should be a pack of gauze or something to bind my hand with.”

  “I know where to look,” he said tightly. He found a package of gauze tape, opened it, and started wrapping my hand in silence.

  “What?” I said. “You’ve never made an offering before?”

  “No. I’ve never cut my hand and bled on the altar of a potential client before.” He ripped the tape with his teeth and tied it tightly. “Our lives are sacrifice enough.”

  “Huh. Well, aren’t we a pair?” I said, chortling merrily. “You, raised as a Host child in a Hyrke neighborhood and me, raised as a Hyrke child in a Host neighborhood.”

  Ari glared at me.

  “Come on,” I said. “Show me where they’re going to light the bonfire tomorrow.”

  Ari snorted. “If you’d been raised as Host you’d know… we light the bonfire tomorrow.”

  I hoped we meant the Hos
t in general and not Ari and me in particular. I had never, in all my life, deliberately set something on fire in front of an audience. And the few times I’d inadvertently burned something in front of someone, it had not been cause for celebration.

  The bonfire sight was a few blocks down. The towering frame of the structure was visible well before we reached it. It was massive, rising almost forty feet into the air, like a darkened lighthouse against the late afternoon sun. As we neared, I could see that it was a very tall, narrow, six-sided pyramid made out of timber logs lashed at the top with rope. A small hole was cut in the bottom and people were lined up in front of it. It looked like they were taking turns stuffing kindling into the hole.

  As we neared the group, Ari stopped and stood back, watching. Toward the back of the line, a pregnant woman waited to stuff the bonfire frame. I stiffened. Just a casual touch from someone with waning magic could make her miscarry. I pulled on Ari’s sleeve.

  “We should leave.”

  “Why? I thought you wanted to see the bonfire site.” He turned to me. “Nouiomo,” he said softly. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong?”

  Before I could answer, the pregnant woman stepped out of the line with a young man who was holding her hand. I was petrified they would walk right over to us but they stopped a few yards away. Arm in arm they gave us a little bow.

  “Welcome home, Aristos,” the man said.

  “Thanks, John. I see you and Grace are expecting. Congratulations.”

  The woman beamed and held up a bundle. “Baby clothes,” she said. Then she glanced at me, her eyes resting briefly on the bandage around my hand.

  “If you’d like to make an offering, as a guest, you’re welcome to walk to the front of the line.”

  “Grace, this is Noon Onyx,” Ari said. “We go to school together at St. Luck’s. She’s training to be a Maegester too.”

  The couple’s eyes grew wide and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. But their next words surprised me.

  “So there’s two of you to light the bonfire this year,” John said. “That’s wonderful, a double blessing for the baby.” I frowned in open confusion now.

  “What are you going to do with those baby clothes?” I blurted out.

  “Burn them,” Grace said, “or rather you will.” She smiled. I was absolutely horrified but she looked enthusiastic.

  “What do baby clothes have to do with Flora?” I asked, irrationally upset that baby bunting would somehow be involved in a ceremony celebrating Flora. She was supposed to be the demon of sensuality, not fertility. I had to put up with enough of this sort of thing at Bryde’s Day. Now Beltane too?

  “They don’t,” Ari said quickly. “In Bradbury, all offerings are to Estes. In Etincelle, and most of the rest of New Babylon, the bonfires celebrate Flora, but Bradbury bonfires are lit in honor of Estes.” He spoke to me then in a low whisper. “Hyrkes here make sacrifices by placing what is most valuable to them in the bonfire frame. If the offering is true, Estes will regift it three times over.”

  “So they’re not all stuffing baby clothes in the bonfire?”

  “No,” Ari said, laughing. I think he heard the relief in my voice. Still, this poor couple was. And it was clear they were poor. Looking at their clothing, I couldn’t believe they could afford to burn any clothes for their unborn child. They would need everything they had. But I knew such thoughts were blasphemous. Estes was supposed to provide for his adorers. And hadn’t I just given the mighty patron demon my blood?

  “Baby clothes is a very generous offering, John,” Ari said.

  John looked pleased and the couple both bowed again and made their way back to the line. In time, others came over. Most came no closer than the first couple had come. After a while, I began to see that they weren’t afraid as much as keeping a respectful distance. The myriad offerings were fascinating: diaries, photographs, pieces of cloth, locks of hair tied with ribbon, letters… For a moment I was reminded of the mound of grave offerings left outside of Lucifer’s tomb. But those offerings had been left to molder and decay, whereas these would be burned tomorrow.

  The walk back home was slow and silent. I don’t know what Ari was thinking, but his signature was drowsy and warm. When we stepped back inside the Carmine house, I heard men’s voices coming from the kitchen. They were loud, boisterous and deep, arguing about something, but in a good-natured way, as if by ingrained habit.

  “My dad and Matt are back,” Ari said, grinning. He took my hand and led me down the hallway. I knew from what Ari had told me earlier that they’d both been out working the docks today.

  When we stepped into the kitchen, the voices stopped abruptly. Joy was standing at the counter, rolling dough. She turned her head briefly and nodded in greeting. Two men were seated at the table, each holding a mug of beer. They stood at the same time, the wooden benches making a loud scraping sound against the stone floor of the kitchen. The younger man was the spitting image of his father. And he was huge, average height, but completely muscled. He had the build of a wrestler or a heavyweight boxer.

  “You’re Ari’s little brother?” I said in disbelief, laughing. They looked at each other in surprise and then laughed too. I couldn’t help wondering what they’d expected. Had they ever even met another member of the Host?

  “Steve Carmine,” Ari’s father said, thumping his chest. He stuck his hand out awkwardly and I took it, my small hand completely disappearing in his large beefy paw. He pulled me into a fierce hug then, and though the gesture was rougher, I could tell it was more comfortable for him. He released me, but held on to my shoulders and gently shook me.

  “You gave us quite a scare,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve recovered.” Although this man had no magic, his manner was compelling. In this neighborhood, where demons only existed as deities, he would be a force to be reckoned with.

  Glancing around Joy’s kitchen, after meeting so many of Ari’s other neighbors, gave me a different perspective on how the Carmines lived. I’d been comparing them to Etincelle families and had thought them poor. I now realized the Carmines were rich by Bradbury standards. Steve Carmine obviously occupied a position of prominence here. I wondered how much of that position was due to the fact that he’d raised the only Host child these people had ever seen, the fact that he was married to a woman who was hveit, or just his imposing personality. Likely a combination of all three.

  “So Estes gets a boon tonight?” Steve said, pointing at my bandaged hand. “Onyx blood, huh?” He grinned. “The Lethe’s current should stay swift and strong for weeks.”

  Joy turned around from her rolling and looked at my hand, her expression undecipherable. “There’s some ointment in the bathroom,” she said.

  “It’s okay, really,” I said, but Ari left to get it anyway.

  By the time he returned, Steve had put out two more huge frothy mugs of beer. Mine was so heavy I needed two hands to lift it. Ari cleaned and disinfected my cut without another word. The fact that he did this at the kitchen table told me the Carmines were far from squeamish. My guess was a lot of injuries had been sewn up at this table. Joy assured me she needed no help preparing dinner. When I’d heard she was making Lethe prawns with shallots, I’d voiced a mild protest, saying we could have just ordered takeout. Matt laughed and explained that there were no restaurants in Bradbury.

  “Besides, my mom’s prawns are the best,” he said. “Even better than at Erasmus. My dad took a skiff out earlier and checked all our traps.”

  Erasmus was a Gaillard gastropub.

  “So how’s it going there?” I asked Matt. “You’re home for the break, right? Are they still doing the Friday night pub crawls down Reed Street? The quad parties outside of Fallon?”

  Matt nodded enthusiastically to my questions and then gave me a full rundown on campus goings-on. When that was through, he unloaded several freshman tales of woe. Mixed-up class schedules, mumbling professors, fights with the bursar. I’d had them all. I commiserated, offered advice, or just
laughed out loud. Matt’s stories made me nostalgic. I wouldn’t have said I was blissfully happy lying about who and what I was, but hanging out as a Hyrke undergrad had been some of the most carefree years of my life. It was great to swap stories with Matt about the who, what, where, and when of Gaillard campus life.

  Almost at the same time, Matt and I noticed that no one else was participating in the conversation. We stopped, dismayed at our mutual rudeness. But no one seemed to mind. Steve was looking at me with a frank expression of wonder on his face. Perhaps he hadn’t really believed I’d gone to Gaillard. He gazed at me like I was a tiger who’d just jumped through three hoops and was now balancing on a barrel. Joy gazed contentedly at all of us. Despite her chilly pink eyes and preternatural look, she looked like any other mom would under the circumstances—happy to have her whole family home and together.

  I glanced over at Ari. He’d chosen to sit opposite me while he’d doctored my hand and he hadn’t moved. He leaned forward on the table, one hand gripping his beer mug, the other resting comfortably beside it. His dark hair, windblown and riotous from our walk along the riverfront, brushed the hooded collar of his shirt. His expression was soft and his signature was like his heartbeat, steady and strong. My desire to touch him just then was so strong, my hand twitched. I forgot what I was saying and my voice trailed off. It was ridiculous really, how he could make me feel. I hadn’t given him this power over me, it had just happened, organically. But I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  After dinner, Ari, Steve, and Matt wandered down to the bonfire site. I stayed behind to help Joy clean up. We stood at the sink, with her washing dishes and me drying. Although we worked in silence, it wasn’t uncomfortable. After a while, my thoughts drifted back to the pregnant couple I’d met earlier. Why had Luck made it so that some could conceive so easily and others never?

  The window above Joy’s sink looked out onto a small backyard, which had been paved over long ago. The cement was cracked and, scattered haphazardly around the area, were the rusty frames of various backyard items no longer in use: an old charcoal grill, a bent snow shovel, and toward the back, a swing set. How many years had it been since Joy had pushed her children on those swings? I snuck a glance at her. There was no denying that she looked different. Had I not seen her in this warm, nurturing environment, I might have misjudged her. With her pale white skin and bright pink eyes, she looked like a creature of the night. Yet I knew she had raised her sons with goodness and light. Perhaps I’d misjudged Lamia. Maybe the answer to my problem, and Nergal’s, was as simple as giving Lamia what she wanted—a child.