The Ruin of Eros

Chapter Twelve

My sleep is troubled and fitful; all night I toss and turn as though on a boat. And when I wake my stomach grumbles fiercely. I think if I were to see that peach on the table this morning, I would take it. I know I cannot keep this fasting up forever. Sooner or later, I will have to eat.

I wince, and roll over to the sight of a new landscape outside the window: a wide meadow, dotted with black opium-poppies under a wind-tossed sky.

The sound of voices in the room outside rouses me from bed, and takes me to the doorway. I open it just a crack, enough to peer through. They are speaking in low voices, the demon and Aletheia, over by what I take to be the kitchen door. Or at least, he is speaking, his black cloak shimmering around him as before, while Aletheia listens, looking nonplussed. Then her gaze turns, and although my door is only the minutest bit ajar, her dark eyes fix on me, I am sure of it. I tell myself that I will not be the first to look away, but her gaze burns hot, and I drop my eyes.

“Psyche, will you not join us?”

He turns around, the hood low over his face, and it occurs to me that if he has bothered with the cloak at all, it is because he suspected I would spy on them like this.

I clear my throat, and inch out of the bedroom.

“I trust you slept well?”

“I slept,” I say shortly. “But not well.”

He inclines his head.

“That is regrettable.”

His words suggest sympathy, but his tone does not. I can’t help thinking back to last night, and my unanswered questions. Why did he save me from that monster; what’s in this for him? No mortal bridegroom would have waited an hour before taking his new wife to the bedchamber. I wonder suddenly if demons find mortals repellent, as well as the other way around. Perhaps everything about me that the boys of Sikyon found so appealing, he can barely stand.

If so, that is my good fortune. I clear my throat.

“I thought you said you were absent from this place during the day?”

“And so I am. Only this morning, I had some instructions for Aletheia.”

“About me?” I say, guarded.

The black cloth shimmers slightly as he nods. The fabric seems to hold the light, even though it’s the color of midnight. There’s something mesmerizing about it, and the small movements beneath its surface.

Aletheia shoots a last glance my way before disappearing through the kitchen door.

“I said to let you roam as you wished until I arrive home,” the demon says. “And to prepare you a lunch at noon.”

I’m about to tell him I have no need of it, even though my stomach growls at the very prospect, but I hold my tongue. I don’t want to antagonize him: I have a question I want answered instead. I keep my gaze on the black hood, holding steady.

“Have there been others?” I say. “Have other mortals come here before me?”

He doesn’t answer at first; I have the sense he doesn’t wish to.

“You are the first.”

I turn it over in my mind.

“No other mortals have seen this place? At all?”

He sounds irritated.

“I have explained it to you, have I not? No mortal can find this place alone. None may enter unless I myself carry them over the threshold.”

“But you could,” I say. An idea is coming to me slowly. “You could bring any mortal here that you chose, and then return them to their realm. You could, for example, carry my father and sister here. To visit me.”

“No.”

“ No ?” I repeat. He expects that one word to satisfy me?

“I do not wish to, and besides that, I do not trust them.”

“Trust them?” I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

His voice is taut, prickling with irritation.

“Aphrodite does not know where you are—yet. But if tongues begin to wag…”

“My family,” I say hotly, “would not betray me.”

He is quiet for a moment.

“Psyche, they already have.”

“That’s not fair.” I feel the tears squeezing against my throat, and push them down. “My family had no choice.” But even as I say it, I know it’s not true.

There is always a choice, however poor, however small.

I remember how my father could not meet my eyes that morning, as the king’s men locked me in irons. How he got into the king’s carriage without looking back.

And yet, perhaps he did the best he could.

“If you will not have them visit,” I say, “you must get word to them, at least. You can tell them that I am alive, that I will see them again.”

There’s a pause.

“I cannot,” he says.

I turn angrily.

“I cannot allow you to make such promises…”

“But…”

He cuts me off. “…when it would be a lie.”

Dread pools in my stomach.

“What are you talking about?”

“Psyche.” He says my name as though I am a child, a fool. “What did you think would happen? That you would roam freely between the mortal realm and mine? That you would have a palace as your home, yet keep all the freedom you once had?” His cape seems to shimmer with dark color, as though his emotions are visible there.

“Don’t you understand? We have gone against Aphrodite . The goddess was angry at you before; only think how enraged she would be now, discovering you have thwarted her. Did you think that you would spend a few months here, a year, and then all would be forgotten? You should already know how quick the gods are to anger, and how slow to forget. You think this will simply blow over ?” He scoffs. “Your lifetime—yours, and your father’s, and your father’s father’s—is nothing to her!

The words move through the air like shards of glass. Small, light, deadly.

“Inside these walls,” his voice continues, drumming the words into me, “you are protected. Outside them, you will perish, and painfully. This is your home now, and you will not travel outside it.”

I stand very still. I ball my hands at my sides, trying to keep them from shaking.

“I cannot stay here forever.” My voice comes out small and sharp. “With no friends, no purpose, no life . I…I cannot. It does not matter how grand your palace is, how vast your gardens. They’re like your windows, that show whatever you want and none of it real. It’s meaningless.” I take a breath, clench my fists tight.

“You will take me back.”

“Little fool,” he says coolly. “Did you not see the sea-monster? Have you so soon forgotten?”

“At least a sea-monster wouldn’t have locked me in a cage and blindfolded me!” I snap. “You call this a palace, but what it really is is a prison.”

“Ungrateful mortal!” His voice is hot with anger now. “You are like the worm who complains it does not like the earth, when above ground the eagle’s beak is waiting.”

I raise my chin.

“I’ll take my chances,” I say.

He smacks his fist against the dining table.

“You will not . You will not expose yourself to Aphrodite’s vengeance, and you will not expose me to it!”

My anger is a wave, bitter and sharp.

“So you mean to be my jailer, then,” I say.

“Your jailer ? When this palace is a hundred times your former home and more? Tell me,” his voice sharpens dangerously. “That mortal boy you were to marry. What great independence would you have reveled in under his roof? What heady freedoms do you think you would have enjoyed there ?”

I stare at him. He knows about Yiannis?

But of course he does. He knows everything, I realize: he knows exactly what happened to me at the feast-day, and what Aphrodite commanded afterwards. How would he know any of it, unless he had been observing our every move?

Until now, I’d had the half-formed idea that he just showed up that morning by accident—that he was drawn to the cliffside, perhaps, by the crowds or the chaos. That he intervened according to some whim. But now I realize how very calculated it was. He knew every part of my story.

So he knew how desperate I was.

“You say you, too, fear Aphrodite’s wrath.” I hear the shake in my voice. “But if you fear her, why defy her at all? Why step in to rescue me?”

The silence sparks, grows. From across the room I can feel his look of disdain.

“ I know why. Because you saw a girl there who would agree to any devil’s bargain: I was easy pickings.” I turn on him. “You said you were saving me. You did not say you planned to lock me up for the rest of my mortal life!”

“You came of your own free will,” he snaps. “You needn’t act as though I forced it from you.”

“I had no free will!” I yell. “You knew that when you had me come with you!”

“I made you a sacred promise, and I have not broken it,” he thunders. “Do not insult my honor!”

“ Honor ! What honor has a demon?”

I feel the fury building underneath the black cloak. He cannot hide what he is.

“What mistake did I make, bringing you here.” His voice snaps like an angry wind. He draws the cloak about him.

“But it’s too late now, mortal. The sooner you become used to it, the better.”

And he turns from me, and storms from the room.