Page 127 of House of Salt and Sorrows
“Ortun’s is gone. You swore I would have a son! You swore—”
He held up his hand, silencing her. “I swore you’d have a son. And you did. Was the little body taken from this room by your husband not the perfect specimen of maleness?” His face turned stony, his eyes narrowed. “Next time you summon the god of bargains, remember to ask for exactly what you want.”
“I did!” she howled.
Viscardi shook his head, his eyes hidden in the dark shadows. “You went into great amounts of detail with what you wanted—the husband, the house, the son you so foolishly thought would inherit the estate—but you failed to specify the child should be born alive.” He reached out and cupped her cheek, running an elongated thumb across her lips. “But just think, my darling. Your boy provided ours with all the nourishment he’ll need for the long trip home.”
He scooped up the squalling monster from the bedclothes, peering down at the tiny, fanged face. Viscardi’s visage softened with tenderness. He even gurgled coos as the creature bit at his finger.
“No!” Morella cried, struggling to stand on the uneven mattress. “No! I gave you your son. You’ve taken two of the Thaumas girls. Our deal is off. I want this bargain broken!”
He whirled back to her, cradling his son in the crook of his arm. “Broken? Who are you to take back an oath?”
“I don’t want any part of this oath. You took my son; you don’t get the other girls!”
With fire swirling in his eyes, he licked a forked tongue over his teeth, considering the small woman in front of him. Across the wall behind them, the dragons reared back, giddy with bloodlust. “You can’t just say you want our bargain ended and expect it to be so. You know the price I demand. The only thing I’ll accept in payment.”
Morella blew out a shaky breath and nodded, resignation clouding her face. She glanced over his shoulder, meeting my eyes. “Don’t tell your father any of this. Tell him…tell him I loved him. Always.”
Viscardi looked back at us again, his lips—too thin to even call them that, really—raised into a painful smile, and he winked. Then, in that strange blur of movement, he descended on Morella, suddenly so much more than a man. Wings and scales and talons slashed in and out of the bedlam.
Cries rose from the chaos, and for one awful moment, they echoed the sounds I’d heard her make when I’d walked in on her with Papa. But the pleasure was short-lived, and her whimpers of ecstasy soon turned into shrieks. The shrieks turned to screams. And then the screams cut off into silence.
Camille covered her mouth, holding back cries of her own as we spotted the pale curve of a rib rising from the bedding. Morella had come from the People of the Bones and was now reduced to nothing but a pile of them.
A man once more, Viscardi turned to us, a lusty appreciation shining in his flaming eyes. “I always did like dancing with you two best,” he said, his gaze burning over our bodies like scorched earth. “Pretty, pretty Annaleigh and my darling Camille…what fun we could have together…you need only ask.”
Camille’s jaw clenched as she stepped forward. “How powerful are you, Trickster? Are you able to change the course of things? To change the past?”
“Camille, no!” I shouted, sensing what she was about to do. I grabbed at her arms, pulling her away from the grinning god.
“He could bring back our sisters!” she hissed. “He could bring back Mama!”
“At what cost?”
“I could,” Viscardi said, raising his voice to be heard over us. “I could do all that and more.” A forked tongue slithered out from his blood-covered mouth, beckoning us. “And you might find you quite enjoy the trade.”
I shook my head. “Never!”
He looked at me with his glittering, fiery eyes. “You’re worried about what happened to Morella? I understand completely, Annaleigh. But you’d never be so foolish as to make the same mistakes she did. You’re far more clever and so much more…dazzling.”
My feet started to inch closer, seemingly under my control, but as I tried to force myself to stop, they continued forward. He drew me toward him like an anglerfish luring in prey with its hypnotic, flashing orb.
His fingers traced over my cheek, caressing the skin with a seductive tenderness I was unable to resist. It wasn’t until I nuzzled back into his palm that I realized it was covered in Morella’s blood.
“Annaleigh, stop!” Camille cried out, grabbing my hand and yanking me out of the trance and far from Viscardi’s reach. She squeezed me tight, rooting us to where we stood.
Viscardi sighed, a cloud of sulfur wafting from his lip, but shrugged it off, offering a low bow to us both. “Suit yourself.” Swooping up his wailing progeny, he disappeared in a crack ofthunder.
Camille and I stared into each other’s eyes, gasping in the smoky air, as we absorbed everything that had happened on this horrible day.
Was it truly over? I’d expected to feel different, to feel less marked. Surely there ought to be something to signal the bargain was broken—but there was nothing.
A cry from the corridor snapped us back to the present. The fire raged unchecked through Highmoor. If we didn’t leave right now, we would not get another chance.
We raced into the hall as a ceiling timber, blazing as red as Viscardi’s eyes, splintered to the floor, catching the runner on fire. Orange flames licked up the wallpaper, and in a sudden burst of fire, an oil painting of Eulalie and Elizabeth was gone.
“The back staircase!” I had to shout to be heard over the crackling flames.
