Ghost Silk (Ghost Perfume, Book 2) | ✔

1 - Tell me what to do - Part 2

Jackal glared at me.

I closed the door to my bedroom. I put on my radiant one expression, as I thought of it - everything neutral, but smiling with my eyes. Jane made no show of niceness, smirking as she crossed her arms, while Ellie looked thoughtful. Puck and Robin hovered behind me.

Jackal strained at the end of his tether to Jane, backed up against the edge of my bedroom. He hovered slightly inside the wall.

His face flickered in and out of my view, almost a part of the wall.

"Well, princess?"

There was a new poisonous quality to his tone. Some feeling or thought against me had simmered and boiled over during the night. Maybe it was because I'd banished Adelaide to the other side. Were they cousins, friends, lovers? There was such a mix of antagonism and old loyalties between them, it'd been hard to tell what they were to each other.

"We're on the same team now," I said.

Jane and Jackal scoffed.

I looked reproachfully at Jane, but she ignored me. "I know he helped us, Rose, but he was also clearly friends with her."

"You haven't said a word to us all night," Ellie addressed him. "How do we trust you?"

"It's irrelevant. Jackal has to do everything I say now. It's why he's still here." I met his sneering gaze. Now I saw under the sneer to the squirming little worm of fear that lay beneath it. "Because I said stay," I added softly. I kept my head high as I held his gaze.

"What?"

"You can force ghosts to ... is it your persuasion?" Ella breathed.

"Worried, child?" Jackal asked her. "You should be. You have tied yourself to a tyrant."

"No," I said quickly, before he could turn them against me. "No. I don't think I can control either of you. I think it's because I wove my thread with his, back when we struck our first deal. A part of my thread is holding his now."

Ellie stood absorbed in thought and frozen, but Jane had to laugh. "Atropos!"

"So I'm your slave," Jackal said, "so call me that."

His hands balled into fists. There was a tremble in his throat as he swallowed.

"Karma," Jane said evilly. "Don't be a hypocrite. You tried to make Rose your slave, remember? You and your friend both."

"Rose, you wove your thread with Adelaide's too," Ellie said with an air of realization.

Jane screeched. "I just got that! Brilliant. I thought you were crazy when you offered her that choice."

I pulled an innocent face. "It was her choice."

A part of me was deeply relieved to have Jane's amusement, Jane's approval. She didn't think I'd crossed a line with Adelaide, and that meant much more to me than the Alistairs' approval in this case. I trusted Jane's moral compass better than theirs.

"Choice? Choice?" Jackal tutted in a whisper. Venom laced his tone. "Does anyone ever get a real choice?"

This wasn't working. To diffuse the tension somewhat, I went to sit on the edge of my bed.

I gazed at him. I knew he was mine in a way. But I didn't want him mine and unwilling, angry, condescending, dangerous. I wanted him to respect me. I wanted him to want to be mine - and otherwise, he should be free. Freedom wasn't something you earned, freedom was what you deserved, as long as you didn't hurt anyone by it. Now that I was seeing him trapped right before my eyes, I was pricked more sharply by the guilt of being his cage, and the urge rose to comfort him and make him promises that soon he'd be his own man again. Except - if I went too softly with him, I thought, he might never come to respect me.