The Untold Tale

Twenty

"Who is she?" Kintyre asks.

Pip rolls her eyes. "Exposition time. Of course. This is Neris. She was my lady's maid in Turn Hall."

"Your maid is a Deal-Maker spirit?" Kintyre says, eyebrows wriggling up into an expression of confusion that must be identical to the one I am wearing.

"But you're Cook's daughter," I say.

"Cook has no daughter," Neris replies, spreading her hands. "I made her think she did so you would welcome me to your household. Which is the first thing you said to me, if you'll recall, Master Turn. You bid me well come, and to stay. And that was all I needed."

"What did you do?" Pip asks. "What did you do to me, while I was... ?"

"Nothing," Neris admits. "And do not forget, I cannot lie. I did nothing to you, Miss Piper."

"And you did nothing for me, either."

Neris pouts. "Was I not an excellent lady's maid? I enjoyed it."

"I meant Bootknife. The Viceroy." Pip's voice is shaking, but her hands are steady, her stance solid even though I know her back must still be a riot of pain from the Viceroy's spells.

"Why would I?" Neris asks. "That would be interfering with the deal I struck with the Viceroy."

"What did you exchange?" I ask, eyes narrowed, trying to decipher Neris's appearance, use her gestures to guess at what she's thinking, but she is a blank slate. She is unreadable. Because she is not real. Her body is not her, and it leaves me answerless and frustrated.

"Ah, ah," she scolds. "That is my secret to hold."

"It must have been something spectacular," Bevel says, "to summon down a Reader."

Pip and I both goggle at him.

"What?" he says, shrugging. "Did you think it was a secret? From us? Please, I'm not an idiot, for all that I'm in love with one."

Kintyre shoots him a look that is part lust, part fondness, part exasperation, and wholly inappropriate right now.

"It was Kintyre's soul, wasn't it? Or his life? Something like that?" Pip blurts, suddenly. Neris makes a face, which means Pip has guessed correctly. "I thought so. Something was strange about the way the Viceroy talked about Kintyre's death. Said it wasn't his to collect."

"So, why have you waited?" Kintyre growls.

"I cannot kill," Neris sneers. "I can only take your death when it happens. But it has been promised to me. And I will keep it forever. I will make you relive it a hundred times, and then a hundred times again, just to savor the sensation."

Kintyre lifts his sword, but Bevel stays him. "You can't actually hurt her. Save your strength."

Neris laughs.

"No, hold on, that's wonky," Pip says. "The Viceroy can't bargain with something that isn't his, that's not how the rules of this world work."

Neris's expression clouds, her fists clench, and, from between her teeth, she hisses, "No, he should not have."

"But you were forced to accept it," I jump in. "Why?"

Neris shakes her head.

"Tell us the truth," Pip demands. "You have to."

"I can choose not to speak!" Neris snarls.

"Tell us, and maybe we can break it," Pip says. She has her hands out before her, pleading, and I can see the marks on her wrists from where she first came to my world and cut them. Small, white pebble scars. I know how they feel against my tongue, even though I didn't know what they were at the time. That same conflicted yearning pulls at my insides, and I squash it back down. Now is not the time.