14
Everyone knew how it worked. The cubs shared Tasha’s bed whenever she wanted. Saturn did as well, if the two of them weren’t feuding. Tasha could have anyone she wanted, as many as she wanted. But she didn’t share. Even I understood that.
I woke up that day to the sound of screaming, and discovered that Livilla had crawled in with me again. She felt safer with me than with the cubs, who wanted more from her than comforting warmth. My first thought was that Madalena was having another of her fits, then I remembered that Madalena was dead.
The screaming didn’t stop when I sat up and looked around.
‘Is it her?’ Livilla asked.
She never said Tasha’s name, nor ‘my Lady’ or ‘my Lord’ like the cubs. She still hadn’t been up on the rooftops with us, either, not yet. All she knew was that we were different, and that no one was going to hurt her here. (I hadn’t admitted to her yet that maybe that part wasn’t true — she’d learn soon enough.)
When I nodded, she made a small noise and burrowed deeper in the blankets. I didn’t blame her.
I crept out into the main room and saw Lysandor, naked and bleeding. Three long claw marks had laid his belly open and he was whining like a wounded animal.
‘And you,’ Tasha blazed at Ashiol and Garnet, who hung back out of the way, making no move to help Lysandor, ‘did you know about this betrayal? This disgusting breach of trust? Did you know he was frigging that bloated owl-wench?’
They protested their innocence, but we all knew they were lying.
‘Come forward,’ said Tasha. Both obeyed. ‘Put your hands on him,’ she ordered.
Ashiol did it first, hesitating only a little. Lysandor cried out at his touch. Garnet gritted his teeth and did the same.
Tasha smiled horribly. ‘Hurt him, and I’ll believe you.’
Ashiol closed his eyes and sank his fingers into one of the wounds in Lysandor’s stomach, making him writhe with pain. Garnet kept his eyes open and drove his fingers in harder, forcing his friend to scream. His face didn’t show revulsion or pleasure. Just … nothing.
I stumbled away, out of the den, thinking of Madalena and how I’d been living all year with the animals who’d torn her apart because she’d bedded Tasha’s sometime lover. It was the one thing I managed not to think about, most of the time. I wanted to be sick, but it wouldn’t come up. I pressed my head against the cool stone of the tunnel and waited to stop shaking.
Some time later, I realised Saturn was standing over me. I didn’t know how long he’d been there. Celeste was with him, but she stayed in owl form. I didn’t blame her. If Tasha was that mad at me, I’d want to be able to make a quick getaway, too.
‘Well, boy,’ Saturn said. ‘Are you ready to accept that the demme is a monster?’
I thought of him and Tasha drenched in each other’s blood and rolling around on the floor of the Haymarket, like half-killing each other was their way of loving.
‘We’re all monsters,’ I whispered. Truest thing I ever said.
‘Are you so desperate for a family? Go back to your theatre.’
‘I need to be here.’ I was miserable. ‘I don’t belong anywhere else.’
‘Boy,’ said Livilla, behind me. She wore an old shirt of Ashiol’s and nothing else. Her feet were bare on the dirty tunnel floor.
‘Poet,’ I corrected, angry at her for not bothering to remember. I wasn’t Boy any more. He didn’t exist.
‘Poet,’ she repeated. ‘I — what happened to Lysandor?’
‘He broke the rules,’ I said, staring at Saturn, who walked past me and into the den. I didn’t know if he was going to punish Tasha or join her in making Lysandor scream.
Livilla came to sit next to me and let me rest my head on her shoulder. Celeste shaped back into human form and sat with us, her pale skin gleaming in the near-darkness.
‘Lord Saturn wants Lysandor,’ she said quietly, miserably. ‘He wanted me to seduce him away from her. Everyone thinks Tasha has too many courtesi, too much power.’
‘Because of us?’ Livilla said in surprise.
I didn’t blame her. She and I were hangers-on, everyone knew that. We weren’t warriors like Ashiol and Garnet and Lysandor. We weren’t even allowed to fight the sky yet.
Celeste shook her head. ‘He wants to break up the cubs. The other Lords fear them. The three of them are just so … powerful together. Powerful for Tasha.’
‘That’s because we’re a family,’ I said.
The two demmes exchanged a look like I was a child and didn’t know any better.
Saturn had tried to take me away before, but this was different. Garnet was already on edge. He needed Ashiol and Lysandor to keep him on his feet, to keep him strong. Tasha needed all of us — she wasn’t as strong as she pretended to be. She was just like Madalena — she screamed and fought when she thought people might have stopped loving her for a moment.
She was screaming now.
Celeste stood, and Liv and I followed her, creeping back to the den. Tasha was hurling objects at Saturn — plates and goblets and bronze lions. His cane lay on the ground near the entrance and I picked it up.
‘Jealous,’ Tasha shrieked. ‘All of you. Trying to destroy what I have, trying to peel my warriors from my side. You will never make my boys stop loving me.’
‘They don’t love you,’ Saturn scoffed. ‘You’re a vicious wench with a murderous streak and you drag them down to your level. You hide behind them because it’s easy, because they protect you. You are nothing without your army of corrupted children.’
Tasha slapped him, claws out, and blood streaked hard against his face. ‘Get away from me,’ she hissed. ‘Never touch me again.’
Saturn considered her, his beautiful face taking in all possibilities as he looked her over from top to toe. Then, after great deliberation, he punched her in the face.
Everything went red. Garnet and Lysandor lunged for Saturn, with only Ashiol cool enough to hold them back.
I got there first.
Saturn turned, looking at me in bemusement. Blood blossomed on the front of his very white silk shirt. He opened his lips and blood flecked there too, filling his mouth. Only then did I notice the gleaming skysilver tip of his cane sticking out of his chest. It had been driven directly through his body from behind.
Let me rephrase. I drove his cane into his back. I killed him. It was me.
Saturn fell to his knees and slumped sideways. Celeste threw herself upon him, holding fast. She didn’t scream as demmes always do in the theatre. She was silent, grasping her Lord, daring any of us to come close enough to touch.
Tasha stared at Saturn. Blood ran out of her nose from where he had hit her. To my surprise, she stepped back, and made no objection when the cubs moved between her and the fallen Lord, as if protecting her.
A rushing sound filled the cave when Saturn died. It hummed in my ears, along my veins and flesh. It made my skin feel bright. Celeste rocked with it, light filling her body and glowing out of her face. Some lashed out at the cubs. Livilla felt it and straightened up, looking pretty for the first time since I’d known her.
My stomach felt hot and then cold, and I was taller, stretched thin. The rats inside me woke up and wanted to dance.
Finally, Celeste stood up, still glowing all over. She leaned down and lifted Saturn’s fallen body into her arms as if he weighed no more than one of his hawks.
‘Congratulations, Lord of Owls,’ said Tasha in a mildly sarcastic voice, pushing the cubs aside to face Celeste.
Celeste bowed her head briefly, dislike evident on her face, then walked away.
I wanted to say something, but what was there to say? I had killed him, and I didn’t know why, not really, just that I had felt so hot all over when he punched Tasha.
‘Well,’ said Tasha when Celeste was gone. She looked at Lysandor. ‘Planning to abandon me for that trollop now she has a Lord form?’
‘No,’ said Lysandor, looking at the ground. ‘I know where I belong. I’m not going anywhere.’
Tasha passed by Livilla, touching her hair, a rare moment of softness for her. Then she came to me.
‘Well, my darling Poet,’ she said, resting her hand on my head. ‘Look at you. I think it’s time we let you fight the sky. What do you say, my cubs?’
Garnet glanced at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted or despairing or proud. Maybe all three.
‘I don’t know if there’s much we can teach him,’ he said finally. ‘May as well let him fly.’