15

He probably thinks I’m insane. At least, that’s what I fear for the first week after the incident with Midrael. But he doesn’t bring it up again. We simply proceed as we did before—him going about his tasks, and me accomplishing mine—except that we share the bed more often, and we spend hours in a room I recently cleaned, which he calls the “smoking room.”

There are a few books on the shelves in the smoking room, but I’m disappointed to discover they’re all in languages I can’t read. Krampus says it’s mostly obscure dialects from various regions of Faerie, along with a few ancient human languages.

He teaches me how to walk smoothly and elegantly, how to respond to certain types of greetings, and what to say in response to any questions about myself and my origins. In the story we’ve concocted, I’m a family friend of Lord Brandt’s who just moved to Visseland. I’m a lady of good birth and fortune, looking for a cooler climate because my fragile health can’t handle the arid heat of my birth nation.

“There are all types of people at these parties,” Krampus says. “Merchants, lawyers, singers, modistes, nobility, bankers, generals, entertainers. But all are expected to conform to a certain standard of behavior, at least for the early part of the evening. Once everyone has enough liquor in them, the gathering becomes rather more raucous and degenerate.”

I must look nervous, because he hastens to add, “The most salacious activities take place upstairs, in various rooms of the house. You won’t be subjected to the sight of people fucking in public, never fear.”

An uncomfortable silence tightens the air between us for a moment before he says, “Let’s move back some of these chairs and try a bit of dancing.”

“Dancing?” I frown, curling deep into my armchair and tucking my legs up close to my chest. “You never said I would have to dance.”

“It’s a party .” He cocks an eyebrow. “Of course there will be dancing.”

“Perhaps I could claim that I have an injured ankle.”

“You’re brave enough to command eldritch beasts, yet not brave enough to dance in a crowd?”

“Fuck you,” I mutter.

He tries to keep a straight face, but the grin sneaks through. “That’s the first time you’ve said that to me.”

“Is it? I’m sure I’ve thought it more than once.”

“Give me your hand, Feather.”

Sighing, I climb out of the armchair and stand before him.

“I’ll teach you the most popular dance first. Your partner’s hand goes just here.” He cups my waist with his palm. “And you hold his hand like this. I’ll step, and you follow. One, two, three… one, two, three…”

I do my best, but it’s difficult to concentrate with our hands entwined and his firm grasp on my waist. I can feel the heat rising to my face, and I hate that telltale flush. I hate that so many of the experiences I’ve had with him involve physical closeness and confusing emotions. Back in the cabin, we had a routine, and we rarely deviated from it. When we did, there was blood to clean up, wounds to dress, or a body to ignore… and even that was another part of the routine.

Here, so many things are new. And dancing with a tall, handsome Fae male in my bare feet on the floor of a magical, sentient house is so dreadfully new that I begin feeling lightheaded after he has hummed through the song a few times.

“Can we stop?” I ask breathlessly. “I don’t think I can do any more.”

“You’re tired?”

“Yes.” I seize on the excuse. “I’ve been working hard cleaning the house, and I’m still not as strong as I should be. I didn’t have much exercise when I lived in the cabin.”

He picks me up instantly and carries me over to a sofa. Then he flings himself into a nearby chair and lights a long-stemmed pipe whose musky fragrance is oddly enticing.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” he says.

But I’d rather not try again. Being that close to him, knowing he doesn’t want me… it’s torture. I can’t bear the anguish of it. So I’m glad when he has to go out unexpectedly the next day to end the life of some dreadful wretch. It gives me time to push a bit farther into the house and clear out more of the rooms.

I’m batting copious clouds of dust off an old rug when Perchta floats out of the wall and drifts lazily to rest on top of a china cabinet. The cabinet’s doors are so thickly coated with grime that I can’t see inside it .

“You haven’t visited in a while.” I reach into my bucket and sprinkle water in the air to settle the dust.

“Busy, busy,” she says. “Frightening the pants off wayward children. It would be so much more fun if I were allowed to really hurt them, you know? My approved methods of correction are so ineffective.”

“Punishing children with pain only makes them angrier inside.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Speaking for myself, yes.”

“Hm. Why are you cleaning this dull room?” she asks, and I arch a brow at the abrupt change of topic. “Why not explore somewhere more interesting, like the library?”

“Gods, why is everyone talking about the library lately?” I exclaim, rather disgruntled.

“Who else has been talking about it? Krampus?”

“Yes. He wants me to find something for him—an amulet, so he can touch iron for a few minutes at a time.”

She sits up. “Why would he need to touch iron?”

I tell her briefly about the Fae-hunters, the Mayor’s upcoming party, and Krampus’s plan to search the hunters’ things and determine whether we need to move the house or not. “He wants to be able to touch iron in case they use that method to test the guests at the party.”

“Interesting. And this amulet is in the library? Why don’t you simply fetch it?”

“The house won’t allow me in there yet.”

“I could take you there.”

I nearly drop my duster. “You can? How?”

“I’m a ghost of the Wild Hunt. I can pass through walls, and I can take someone with me if I need to. If I attempt such things outside the course of my duties, it makes me rather thin and faint, and I can’t transport anyone very far, but as it happens, the library is right on the other side of this wall.” She strokes the plaster with wispy fingers. “All we have to do is pop through, and there you are.”

It sounds simple enough. But it makes me vaguely uncomfortable to think of entering the library without the house’s permission. And if Perchta had this convenient ability all along, why didn’t she mention it to me the last time we discussed the library?

“I wanted to wait until the house lets me in,” I say hesitantly.

“It’s your choice.” Perchta rolls onto her stomach and props her chin on both hands. “I only thought, if Krampus really needs that amulet for protection, you’d want to help him. Have you seen what iron poisoning does to Fae-kind?”

“I have.” I chew my lip, picturing the anguish he endured after the attack by those four ruffians.

“If I were a close friend to Krampus, as you seem to be… if he relied on me, trusted me, like he seems to trust you… then I would risk it, for him. But I can understand if you prefer not to spend your time hunting for a dusty old artifact. After all, it could be anywhere. The library is enormous. So many books. Volumes of fairy tales with lovely illustrations, books about the world and its creatures with detailed sketches, leatherbound collections of maps and charts, tomes full of historical and scientific wonders, and thick novels packed with romance and adventure. Not to mention chapbooks of the loveliest poems you ever read. Most of them in the common tongue, too.”

My mind hungers for those books like a starving woman for a hearty meal. Still, I’m unsure.

“I confess, I’m dreadfully bored,” Perchta says, her face and shoulders drooping. “Not to mention depressed and despairing. I’d love to explore with you… it would lift my spirits. If you can spare a little time, I promise we’ll have fun. And I’ll help you do your hair for the Mayor’s party. Krampus may know a thing or tw o about clothes, but he can’t hold a candle to me when it comes to fancy hairstyles.”

I hadn’t even considered what to do with my hair. Thanks to one of the Wives in the cabin, I know a bit about arranging hair, but I’ve never prepared for a gathering of fine gentlemen and ladies. I’ll need all the help I can get.

“I have a little time,” I concede. “I suppose we could visit the library, just for a bit. But if the house becomes angry, we must leave.”

“Of course. Of course we will,” Perchta assures me, her eyes bright as she floats down from the top of the china cabinet. “Come here, then. Take my hand.”

She grimaces as if making a huge effort, and her smoky fingers solidify more than usual. I can feel her hand, but I hold it lightly, sensing that if I squeeze too hard, my fingers will go right through her cold, translucent ones.

Perchta whisks through the wall, pulling me with her. It’s like going underwater. Objects that were once solid now shimmer and shift, and I can’t breathe or speak as we move from one space to the next. The wall is thicker than I realized, with a hollow space behind it—one of Wolpertinger’s passageways.

We pop out of the slats and plaster into somewhere new, and I drag in a hoarse, screaming breath as my shriveled lungs reinflate. My body aches, as if all my organs have been rearranged. With a strange, jerky, swollen thump, my heart starts beating again, and I realize it stopped altogether when we passed through the wall.

“That seems—very unsafe,” I gasp.

“Unsafe?” Perchta’s voice is fainter than ever, and she’s barely visible—little more than a breath of mist in female shape. “Is anything in this house safe? Or is anyone safe in this house?” She titters as if she has said the cleverest thing. “Never mind that now. Look where we are. ”

The library is a glimmering Faerieland lit by glass-bellied lamps branching from ornate sconces. No one tends the lamps, so perhaps they are self-sustaining, as seems to be the case with many of the light sources in this house. Their glow touches the dark, glossy wood of endless bookshelves, each one soaring up to astonishing heights. The bookcases are arranged in a maze-like series of aisles, with an open space at the far end, where I glimpse leather chairs and plush couches. Some of the bookcases curve inward, while others belly outward, and so the aisles form wavy lines instead of straight ones, like an undulating sea of knowledge and fantasy.

The shelves hold more books than I’ve ever imagined. Some of the spines are beautiful—crimson leather stamped with gold foil, or black leather with silver foil, but other spines are cracked, brittle and brown. I find every single one of them enticing.

Between the books are countless timepieces. Pocket watches hang on the necks of bronze busts or drip from the limbs of silver statuary. At a glance, I spot at least two dozen ornate shelf clocks, some with their own tiny pendulums. Some are circular, some square, others carved of wood with tiny figures that go round and round, performing repetitive movements. There’s a row of magnetic rocks that swing back and forth, clicking together in an eternal, unceasing rhythm. And I can’t fathom how many hourglasses there are—every third shelf seems to have one, each containing a different color of sand—gold, blue, emerald, scarlet, lavender.

Beyond the books, there’s another shocking thing about this room… the plants. Nowhere in the house have I found a single growing thing, and yet here, tiny potted plants stand between the books, and lush waterfalls of ivy spill from shallow gutters along the edges of the upper shelves.

“How do they grow without sunlight?” I ask .

“Magic,” replies Perchta, her wispy voice so close to my ear that I startle.

“This room is enormous. I don’t know where to begin.”

“Let your heart lead you,” she says, a subtle excitement in her tone. “If you feel that you’re being drawn somewhere, or that something is calling to you—follow the urge, and listen to the voice.”

“Alright.” I drift along the wavy rows of shelves, scarcely daring to reach out and touch the books with my fingertips. But after a few bracing breaths, I risk it. I touch them.

Amid the gentle ticking of the many clocks, a faint hum reaches my ears. As if the library itself hummed in response to my touch.

I sink to my knees for a moment, not caring if Perchta thinks my behavior odd. There’s a patterned carpet slithering down the aisle, following the curves of the shelves, but I touch the bare strip of wooden floor on either side of it, palms to the ground so I can feel the house.

“So you’re not angry?” I whisper.

My eyes close as I listen for the answer. The house always replies with impulses, with images, or with surges of intent or feeling. What I sense from it now is a grudging acceptance, a reluctant fondness. It would have preferred that I wait to enter this place… but it isn’t angry. And I sense something else, too—that during past years, it has rerouted Krampus away from here many times, to keep him from cluttering the place up. He’s only allowed inside on rare occasions when his actual intent is reading.

I smile. “Wise choice,” I murmur to the house.

Another pulse of emotion, this time threaded with suspicion and displeasure, tied to the image of Perchta in my mind. The house doesn’t trust her, because it can’t read her. In fact, it can barely perceive her, which is unsettling for it.

“Perchta is alright,” I tell it. “She’s a friend. ”

The caution recedes, and a gentle thrill passes through my stomach as I realize how much the house trusts me. Perhaps all it needed was a little push to let me in here. Perhaps I wasn’t crossing a line after all.

Perhaps this was meant to be.

“Look around,” Perchta urges. “Explore. Remember, you have to find the amulet for Krampus.”

Rising, I follow the aisle I’m in, letting my palm graze the rows of books. Finally I pause and take one gently out of its row. I’m delighted to find I can read the title— A Compendium of Fables . A perfect starting point, and just the sort of thing I like. Which the house knew, of course. I have no doubt it guided my selection.

As I move on, my gaze catches on several items that aren’t books or timepieces. There’s a tiny globe, a sextant, a compass, several music boxes, and an enameled puzzle box. I also spot a marble hand with rings on each finger. The middle finger is bare, and there’s a faint area of discoloration as if a ring once rested there.

A little further on, a stone bust braces up a row of books. A tiny placard in front of the bust reads, “The Amulet of Lugus,” with a sketch that closely resembles Krampus’s description of the necklace he wants. And of course, there’s no necklace or amulet anywhere in sight.

“It’s just like him not to put things back where they belong,” I mutter.

“You’ll never find it in all this mess,” says Perchta. “You could ask the house.”

“I could, but I’ve imposed on the house’s good graces enough today,” I tell her. “I’d rather search for it myself.”

We exit the aisle into a large reading area. One of the biggest leather armchairs has a pronounced ass-shaped dent in the seat, and beside it are several messy stacks of books, folios, and papers, surrounded by a few empty goblets, a music box or two, a scarf, a plate with moldering crumbs on it, and a tangle of jewelry. Warmth rushes into my heart at the sight, and my stomach thrills again—a lower, more poignant sensation this time.

Perchta peers at my face. “You’re smiling.”

“Am I?” I try to rearrange the expression.

Truth be told, I’ve never seen a more accurate portrait of Krampus… no, not Krampus, but whoever he is beneath his monstrous identity. This is a reflection of his true self, the one linked to his real name. For some reason, I want to hug the chair and the whole mess around it.

If I hugged him , I think he would push me away.

The thought wipes the smile from my face. “Someone really needs to teach him how to clean up after himself,” I mutter as I kneel to pick through the knotted jewelry.

Sure enough, one of the necklaces is the amulet with the half-closed eye and the crescent moon, the one he’s looking for. It takes me several minutes to disentangle it from everything else. I’m not sure how he got all this jewelry into such a mess in the first place, but undoing the knot taxes my patience.

While I work, Perchta flits back and forth in midair, inspecting first one bookshelf, then another. She floats up near the ceiling for a while, perhaps to investigate the topmost shelves. It’s almost as if she’s also looking for something.

“Can you read books?” I ask.

“I can turn a few pages,” she replies. “It’s difficult to interact with any physical object for very long.”

“I could read aloud to you,” I offer.

She spins toward me, her gauzy garments whisking around her. “How sweet. But shouldn’t you spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the other artifacts in this room? As the new caretaker of the house, you should be aware of any objects that possess notable powers. ”

“I suppose so.” I say it casually. But I was the little sister of evil, the daughter of darkness, and I know when I’m being manipulated. Perhaps it took me a little too long to realize it, because I like Perchta, and I wanted to believe I had a guileless friend, incapable of using me for her own ends. But it’s clear to me now—Perchta wants something from this library. From me.

I pull Krampus’s amulet free and tuck it into my pocket along with its chain. “What are you looking for, Perchta?”

“Me?” She giggles softly. “I’m not looking for anything.”

“You are. You want something. What is it?”

“Nonsense. Wherever did you get that idea? I’m a ghost. ”

“Enough games.” My tone is sharper than I intended, and she flares brighter for a second, her brow furrowing with momentary anger.

When she answers, her tone is colder. “I’m interested in anything that might help me become corporeal. You don’t understand what it’s like, being a ghost always. I only receive a body when I’m chastising wayward children, and it’s a hideous, gnarled form, meant to terrify them into obedience. Once my task is done, I don’t get a single spare minute to do anything—I revert to ghost form instantly.”

“That must be frustrating.”

“Frustrating?” She practically shrieks the word, and an unsettled vibration runs through the bookcases. “I haven’t enjoyed a meal in centuries. Not a drop of wine, not a morsel of food. I crave one night’s sleep in a comfortable bed, or the glow of warm sun on my skin, or the clasp of someone’s hand around mine, or the hot, scented water of a bath. I’m so tired of watching humans waste their lives. Their ungratefulness starts in the early years, and it only gets worse. They don’t understand the riches they possess just by existing . Sometimes I hate them so much that I—”

Her words choke off into a garbled wail of furious agony .

“So you want magic that will help you obtain physical form,” I say quietly.

“Yes. And Krampus refuses to lend it to me. He won’t even let me try.”

“As a member of the Wild Hunt, you’re in this position because of something you did… isn’t that true?”

She bares her teeth, looking momentarily more demonic than ghostly. “Yes, but my sin was no worse than what Krampus did. And yet he receives life , while I languish like this. Why should he be able to eat, and drink, and fuck, and waste every imaginable privilege, while I suffer this cold, bodiless existence? Why, Feather?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Don’t the god-stars have something to do with it? They make the decisions.”

“And why should they decide my eternal fate? Why shouldn’t I strive for a chance at something better?”

“I’m sorry for you,” I tell her. “Truly, I am. I know what it’s like to be trapped, and to yearn for things you believe you can never have.”

“Do you?” She laughs, brittle and bitter. “Do you know what it’s like to be a ghost for centuries? To take physical form only as a monstrous, horned, gap-toothed crone who scares children into obeying their parents and being kinder to their friends? Do you understand my life, little human girl? Do you?”

“No,” I reply simply.

“No. You don’t understand. No one ever can, and no one cares. My overseer never speaks to me anymore. No one in the Wild Hunt cares that I exist, and no human ever believes the witness of the children to whom I appear. I might as well not exist at all. I must do something to make the humans believe. To force the Hunt to remember me.”

“You want to be seen.” In my limited human way, I do know what she means. I spent my earlier life playing my role, controlling my actions carefully so I would be lovable but not too noticeable, because disturbing the fantasy could mean death. Despite the danger, part of me thrived on my captor’s attention. Whenever he was gone on one of his trips, I felt purposeless. Empty. And I understood that if he killed me, no one in the outside world would know or care that I existed at all. Even Mother and Wife would quickly forget me.

At least here, in this house, I know I would be missed. If I die, Krampus won’t replace me with another maid, and even if he did, the house won’t have the same connection with any other girl. The Bahkauv and the Imp will notice my absence. They see me.

Sometimes that’s enough, and sometimes I want more. When I go to the party with Krampus, I will hate the exposure to strangers, but I will love it too, because it will mean I am visible. My existence will be noted by the outside world.

Perchta is sobbing quietly near the ceiling, and I want desperately to comfort her.

“I will help you if I can,” I say. “If there’s an object of power that might grant you physical form for a while, and it’s something the house can spare, you may have it. I’m sure there’s some sort of charm, necklace, orb…”

“Do you mean it?” She flies down toward me so swiftly that I gasp.

“I do. But only if the house allows it. And I would have to ask Krampus first, of course…” Even as I speak, I sense his return, the tremor of his power and his own connection to the house—different from mine, but no less real. There’s a distinctly masculine rawness to his aura when I feel it through the house. It awakens an ache low in my belly, a flutter between my thighs.

“He’s back,” I say.

“I should go.” Perchta begins to fade, and I call after her, “Wait! You have to take me back through the wall.”

“I think you’ll be able to go in and out whenever you like now,” she says. “Look. ”

I turn around, and in a deep recess with bookshelves built in a tunnel over it, I spot a door with a brass handle.

“Imagine that,” I murmur.

I turn to say goodbye to Perchta, but she’s already gone.

Clasping my book of fables and the amulet, I stand for a moment, listening to the ticking of the clocks, breathing in the freshness of the lush green plants. Krampus is back, which means I should prepare his bath and a snack… after which he’ll probably want to practice dancing with me again.

Somehow, in light of Perchta’s predicament, the idea of dancing with him seems far less terrifying. Torturous as it is knowing that he doesn’t want me, I should enjoy his touch while I can, and be grateful for the privilege of his nearness.

He witnessed the most dark and wicked impulses of my heart, and his behavior toward me did not change.

He saw the monster in me, and he did not run.