“Demons aren’t big on saving people, as you might have guessed. Besides, you hardly seem to need rescuing.”
She’d had more than enough attitude for one day. “I’m going home,” Verlaine said. But even as she turned, she hesitated. She couldn’t shake the fear that the dock guys might yet decide to come after her and her stuff.
“You know, I was just thinking of taking a stroll,” Asa said, walking to her side. “I’d offer to carry your bags, but I’m afraid I’d burn through them.”
Being walked to her house was as much of a favor as she was ever likely to get from him. Verlaine decided to take it.
They went together side by side, through a town so still and shadowed that it might as well have been the middle of the night, though really it was only just after noon. Asa matched the speed of his steps to hers, and they were close enough that the unnatural heat of his skin warmed her slightly against the cold.
Verlaine knew she should thank him. Yet he remained a demon, and Elizabeth’s servant. She would thank no one working for the Sorceress who was even now torturing one of the people she loved most in the world.
When they reached the front step, Asa stood by her as she unlocked the door. It swung open, bathing them both in soft light; Uncle Dave must have left a lamp on. Verlaine was grateful for the illumination on this dark, weird day—until she saw Asa’s face looking down at her expectantly, and wished she hadn’t.
Because there was something about seeing him so . . . wistful, so eager, that turned her inside out.
“Help me put this stuff up,” she said. Was it rude, to just order him around? He didn’t seem to think so. Instead he just came inside and made himself busy beside her in the kitchen.
Wait. Should I not have done that? Is there something about not inviting demons inside your house? Or is that just vampires? Oh, crap, I hope there aren’t vampires. I have to ask Nadia about that. Also about asking in demons, but I’ve already done it, so—okay.
Smuckers came and twined himself around Asa’s legs, tail curling along his ankles and knees. Asa glanced over and saw Verlaine watching them. “Cats love demons,” he said.
“Why is that not even remotely surprising?”
He laughed. He had a beautiful laugh—nothing like Jeremy Prasad’s. Sometimes it was hard for Verlaine to remember that this was still Jeremy’s body; everything about Asa’s speech and laughter and movement was so different that he seemed to have transformed.
Asa wasn’t all bad. He couldn’t be. He deserved a chance. But could he be given one?
“Is there—” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. “Asa, is there any way to free you?”
His hand froze, still holding a bag of rice, halfway to the shelf. “. . . Free me?”
“From Elizabeth.”
“Only the One Beneath could do that. I serve at His pleasure.”“Then, from the One Beneath.”
Asa turned to her then, his gaze impossibly sad. “Nothing any mortal could ever do.”
“It’s not fair, that you got—stolen into this. Kidnapped. Shanghaied.”
“Shanghaied. An old word. I like that.” Asa shook his head. “No. It’s not fair. But it’s the only existence I’ll ever have. I’ve accepted it.”
“Does that mean accepting everything that’s going to happen here? Everything that’s happening to my dad?”
“Don’t you know I’d change that if I could? Most of this world—this stupid, corrupt world—who gives a damn what becomes of it? But I’d save the lot if I could, just because you live here.”
It was too much. Verlaine stepped back from him. “You’re toying with me. Again.”
“I’m not. I wish you could believe that. Not that it makes any difference, I suppose. But we can’t help wishing, can we?”
Their eyes met, and once again Verlaine felt it—that unmistakable surety that she’d finally been seen, that one person in the world could really, truly look at her and see the truth. That had to be some kind of demonic magic, like the burning of his skin or the voodoo he’d worked on her besotted cat. And yet she couldn’t not revel in that unfamiliar feeling.
“Give me one thing,” she said. “One truth, and I’ll believe you.”
Asa blinked. “What?”
“Tell me one thing that will help us against Elizabeth. Anything real. Give me that.”
He stepped closer to her, until they were very nearly face-to-face. “All right,” he said. “One truth.”
“Say it,” she whispered.
“You know that Elizabeth’s responsible for the deaths of your parents,” he said. “For the fact that no one else can see you. But do you know why?”
She hadn’t expected his truth to be about her. Verlaine blinked, suddenly unsure. “No. I don’t know. I’ve never known.”
“Everyone in town loves Elizabeth, don’t they? They adore her. She’s only a dim shadow in their memories, a vague impression of the perfect girl.”
“Well, yeah. That’s her magic at work.”
“But what part of her magic?” Asa reached up and brushed a lock of Verlaine’s silvery hair from her cheek. “Elizabeth’s not that lovable on her own. So she steals the very ability to be loved. She steals it whenever she feels she needs more, and who do you think she steals it from? The very people who have the most. The ones whose hearts would be pure, whose joy in living could be unbounded, the ones who nearly every single person would find themselves drawn to as if by the gravitational pull of the stars. In other words, she stole it from you.”