The Rise of Deragon (The Deragon Duology #2)

14

Pandora

D espite my constant protests—the majority of which consisted of, “I’m fine. Really, I’m good to go, now” —Madman had insisted on waiting another night before sailing me into his cave again. Which, granted, was probably smart. The rocking waves and uneven current nearly send the boat hurtling into the moonlit dock. Had I ventured here yesterday, the tides would’ve made me sick all over again, even after throwing up what felt like my entire soul .

He wouldn’t come clean about where he was or what he was doing, and while I didn’t expect him to, I at least anticipated some sort of conversation. Instead, the boat ride to his inner sanctum is dead silent. When we’re finally shut inside the candle-strewn dwelling, the air between us is thick with suspended tension. I know that something rages in Madman’s mind, I just don’t know what.

In my head, however, I’m running out of easy-pitch questions to ask him regarding how he knew to take care of me so well where the answer isn’t, “I observed your life for so long, I’m bound to know everything about you.” I decide to confront my futile wonderings at the root.

“How long, exactly . . . did you watch over me in Broadcove?”

He doesn’t miss the strategic use of language—watching over me rather than just watching me. It pulls a vague smile across his mouth. “How long do you suspect?”

The humor in Madman’s voice alerts me to the fact that I may not want to know the answer. If not because it would startle me, then at least because of how torturous an existence living in the darkness of the tunnels must have been.

“Two years,” I highball.

“Five.”

I audibly gasp, smacking a hand over my mouth. Saints above .

“How did you even survive down there?” But then an even more dangerous thought comes to mind, one triggered by the memory of days where I’d sneak through the underground pathways to spy on Flora and her male conquests. A lump forms in the base of my throat. “Were there ever times when we’d be in the tunnels together and—”

“I longed to touch you?” he finishes darkly.

Alarms sound in my head.

Danger! Danger! Flee now or—

“I was always so good at keeping quiet when you’d go exploring. I’d walk barefoot to keep my shoes from giving me away. Ensure no rim of clothing would scrape the floor, whether it meant removing my cloak or rolling up the hem of my trousers.” He takes pride in his past secrecy, lounging further into his chair. “But on a handful of occasions, I certainly called it close, most of which occurred in the months leading up to Queen’s Feast.”

Madman’s revelation should flood me with terror, but instead, a crazed sense of, dare I say it, excitement , takes over. Maybe it’s because I’ve been a rule-follower all my life, but something as close to happiness as it can get without it being happiness clouds what remains of my rational judgment at the thought. At the mental image of my back turned to him in the dark, and Madman’s trembling hand being mere centimeters from my shoulder, aching to make contact with flesh. Shivers crawl up my bones at the idea of Madman going stir-crazy just to touch me.

My internal alarms start blaring as I begin to feel similarly.

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” I say when all other meaningless lines of conversation fail.

Madman makes a face that reminds me of a person blushing, but any proof of the possibility remains hidden beneath his mask. Then, in a slow and calculated turn, he angles his body towards the silver harp. “Would you do me the honor?”

Unlike the first time I played for him, I’m not nervous anymore. In fact, settling down before the strings, I feel a sense of total serenity.

I elect to play a tune that’s similar to a nursery rhyme my mother and aunts grew up with, but I do not sing. I haven’t warmed up, but if I’m being honest with myself, a dull pain still hangs in my throat from all the hilarious shouting Kit and I did last night.

Madman’s face shifts in subtle recognition of the tune, and he begins to sing.

In the blooms, a creature looms

With venom in its maw

She picks a rose and sudden blood flows

For beauty comes at a painful cost

The dirge-like song always fascinated me as a young girl. Every four lines told a short, bitter tale that needed little detail to describe its depth. But hearing Madman’s baritone carry the dialogue into reality . . . my head spins in newfound awe. His voice is raw magic, unexpected optimism in midnight packaging.

It moves me so much I don’t even realize that my fingers have stilled over the strings.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“It’s not that,” I rush to reassure him, my eyes wide and heart beating frantically fast. “You just have a lovely voice. It’s just, well, a bit . . . disarming.”

Damn me for saying it aloud, and damn Madman for grinning in response. Because even though I trust him more than anyone else on the Isle, there are too many sounds that should keep me from caving in like I just did. The desperation in Ardian’s voice as he registered what was happening to me. The bang of the lone bullet leaving Whisper’s chamber. The crunch of Ardian’s body hitting the ground and never rising again.

And yet, Madman’s melodic voice traitorously overrides them all.

“You sound classically trained,” I add to fill the painful silence.

“You flatter me, angel,” he returns, and knowing I do not have the concentration to continue playing, I rise from my bench and pace about the dark room. The scattered candlelight casts speckled, golden bokeh across his relaxed frame. “How are you faring in Andromeda House?” he asks.

There’s an iciness laced within the question, as if bracing himself to hear that I’ve been harmed. No doubt, my drunken stupor didn’t ease any of his preconceived worries.

“All right,” I mutter quietly. “Andie—Maia— Lady Andromeda ,” I choke out, unsure of how to distinguish her so that Madman doesn’t lose tabs on who I’m referencing, “is nice enough.”

“No need to feel jumpy,” Madman replies calmly. “As long as you are well.”

“I am.”

“Good,” Madman says with a stern nod, and I’m almost inclined to believe that he’s going to drop the subject altogether until—

“How long had you been drinking before I found you?”

I cross my arms before my chest uncomfortably. “All afternoon.”

I anticipate him scolding me about knowing my limits and pacing myself, considering he found me slathered in paint and sleeping on top of my bed rather than fully inside it. The reminder makes more humiliating color rush into my cheeks. But one of the corners of his mouth tweaks upwards in what almost looks like relief.

“Conversation with Mr. Andromeda is that wretched?”

Kit had barely made eye contact with me this afternoon once I finally emerged from my vicious hangover. Andie had cleaned up our place settings and playing cards, and Kit had eradicated every hint of paint from his face, save for the splotchy, red irritation marks from all the scrubbing he had to do. It saddened me to know his previous disposition was a fluke. But said sadness has now hardened to bitterness.

“The alcohol helped,” I mutter dryly.

Madman chuckles. “Until it didn’t. Did you try and touch one of his prized textbooks?”

That certainly catches my attention. “How do you know about them?”

“It’s my business to know everything about the people I work for,” Madman remarks, an eyebrow arched as he looks back at me. “Besides, a blind man could figure out that Kit Andromeda is a pretentious history buff.”

“Why is that?” I ask. “I mean, Kit did confess to enjoying the subject, but I never learned why or what his favorite subjects were.”

“Mosacian Root History, likely,” Madman says. “Customs and lore that descended from a previously fallen empire. As for why, even I’ll admit, the knowledge in those books proves to be exceptionally entertaining—particularly the tall tales.”

My nose scrunches at the third mention. “Tall tales?”

“Of course,” he says, coming out of his seat to move closer. “Especially now that you’re in his custody—”

“Oh,” I sigh. “Right. My name.”

Madman senses the unease in my voice, the lack of understanding in the reference. “I do not know what kind of stories your family wove together about your namesake, but Pandora isn’t just some pretty, feminine identifier. The name ties back to the origins of Urovia’s greatest rival and of . . . gods, humanity ,” he says emphatically.

“Tell me, then,” I say.

I don’t realize that I’ve closed the distance between us, and in my desperation, clasped my hands over his. Immediately, I yank them away, worried that the undetected gesture repulses him.

“I’d much rather see you steal one of Kit’s manuscripts to learn the truth than tell you myself,” he answers after a long while.

Despite my annoyance, any information Madman omits often proves to be for the better, so I don’t push back. I do, however, feel the need to try for a work-around. “Would any of these transcriptions make sense of the sculpture on the second floor?”

A puzzle expression graces what pieces of his face remain visible. “What sculpture?”

“The lady with hair made of snakes.”

“Ah, the Medusa,” Madman recognizes. “Yes, her history is quite renowned, although often misconstrued. I do notice, though, that you didn’t indicate the piece as something scary.”

I shrug. “Serpents aside, she appeared somewhat beautiful to me.”

“That’s a good thing. You don’t even know the story, and yet you somehow understand that she wasn’t the monster the records portrayed her to be.”

I don’t bother saying anything about how I tend to view all humans that way. How I view him that way. Madman likely already knows.

He gestures for me to take his previous spot, and as I do, he follows me there and sits down at my side. I try not to let my thoughts meditate too long on the warmth his presence seems to carry despite such a cold exterior.

“Before she became what most remember her as, Medusa was a lovely mortal maiden with two sisters. She was the object of great beauty, so much so that she captured the attention of the sea god, Neptune.”

When you control the sea, you control everything, I’m reminded again.

“Medusa was intent on being faithful to the goddess of wisdom and warfare, Minerva. However, Medusa’s radiant beauty, specifically her hair, rivaled that of the goddess she sought to please, to the point where Minerva resented Medusa for it. All the while, Minerva and the sea god were at odds with each other, so after Neptune learned of Medusa’s beauty—and his romantic advances had been continuously rejected by her—he ended up taking Medusa by force to spite his divine rival.”

I swallow hard at the sight I picture. “And yet Medusa was punished?”

Madman nods. “Essentially yes. As a means to punish Neptune, the goddess turned her into a creature too devastating and hideous to behold directly, with serpents for hair and eyes that could turn mortals to stone. The transcriptions say her disenchanting stare turned hundreds of poor souls to pillars of stone—that is, until a man decapitated her by tracking her movements through the reflection of his shield. Root History always likes to acknowledge mortals as fickle beings, but this story always fascinated me, seeing as a goddess among women proved to be as petty as the rest of us. That, and the mortal man who slew her goes down as the hero when Medusa was merely a misfortunate woman.”

Abruptly, an icy chill rushes through my blood, but there’s no chance of smothering it—not when I retrace my steps through her tragic story.

Medusa had two sisters, was devoted to wisdom and war, and captured the attention of a god.

Then, I remember how the Medusa statue that silently looms over Andromeda House’s second floor possessed that slight flicker of beauty—beauty that, I now recognize, holds a vague likeness to Aunt Venus.

“Madman,” I breathe, the sound ragged.

“What is it, angel?”

When I don’t respond immediately—unsure of how to form any sort of response—his disposition shifts into something alarming. Madman senses the bleak urgency in my eyes, and he stares into them with the intensity of one of Whisper’s bullets. I swear, I see lightning strike in its depths.

My bottom lip quivers as I come to terms with the most bitter reality of them all.

“Kit will destroy me in order to punish Venus and Jericho, won’t he?”

Madman holds my gaze without blinking, without breathing. No sudden movement graces his features. Not even the nervous tick of his strong jaw or the slight adjustment of his teeth beneath the closed doors of his tight-sealed lips. The stillness of the cave and the sudden ceasing of every candle’s previous flickering makes my heart stall in my chest.

“Dear Saints,” I exhale, the sound coming out strangled as the beginnings of frightful tears sting my eyes.

“Listen to me,” he urges, his hand suddenly moving to my left thigh. If he means to steady me, his touch has the opposite effect. “You need to find the means to get your hands on those books. I don’t know enough Root History to inform you of everything myself, but it is imperative that you equip yourself with as much knowledge as possible.” I start to stumble over some sort of self-deprecating statement—that I may not be able to accomplish this dreaded task in time—but then, Madman’s other hand clutches me by the soft flesh along my upper arm. “I’ve watched you long enough to know how your mind works. You’re brilliant , Pandora. You crave knowledge, and you retain it better than most scribes know how to record it. Just find a way to collect them, and you’ll be safe.”

“And if Kit catches me combing through his books?” I squeak, my eyes unable to peel away from the placement of his gloved hands.

I know Madman longs to have a conversation about it—about how I turn flush beneath his hold and how my trust is beginning to transform into outright codependency—but he resists the impulse. He lays down everything he’s hinted at before now and tells me with the kind of sincerity that cracks my ribs open, “You charm your way into a clearing. You picture the softer version of him as you do—the one the wine lured out. And then, no matter what, you don’t let your actions eat away at your soul afterwards.”