Tales of Arilland by Alethea Kontis Page B

power, and be free from this place. I will defile heaven and pull demons out of Hell to do my bidding. If you get in my way, I will kill you.”
    I did not turn back at his words, but I did straighten. The ash bin suddenly felt lighter. “I accept those terms” was all I said before leaving the study.
    The next time the baron “sent for a messenger,” I accompanied him into the study...and stayed.
    Those next few years were the happiest times of my life. Instead of letting our failed attempts at summoning get the best of us, we made a game of it. We gathered young boys from far and wide, for a variety of reasons, and never raised so much as an eyebrow of suspicion. We sometimes drew it out for days, seducing the boys with lavish feasts and mulled wine and games. The baron was pleased to discover that I had a steady hand at runes, despite the hard calluses I earned from scrubbing and soap making. I drew many a circle and lit many a candle. Sometimes we let the boy draw and light them himself. We would stoke the fire high and keep it hot. We always burned the clothes first.
    Over time, I even came to tolerate Prelati. It was never anything so bold as “friendship,” but we knew each other for what we were, and we each respected the other’s loyalty to the baron. Prelati saw that I was a quick study and taught me to read so that I might continue their conversation with new ideas and a fresh perspective. After months of watching me soak ashes in rainwater and strain liquid and boil lye, he invited me to experiment with his incense. I, in turn, taught them both the rudiments of soap making. The baron had a deft hand at floating eggs. I imagined those strong, careful hands on my body many, many more times than I’d like to confess. And the marble was so much easier to clean when we could pour the hot lye right down onto the fresh stain.
    I did not let the baron touch me intimately, though I knew at times he wanted to. It was a rush to have such power in one’s hands, to literally feel lifeblood slipping from between one’s fingers. I drew my best work in that blood. We cleaned the middle of the floor so well and often that I was eventually forced to scrub the rest of the study to match.
    Our efforts were not entirely unsuccessful; otherwise, we wouldn’t have wasted so much time. There were days when the candles’ flame changed color, or the air filled with tiny starbursts of light. Some chants brought a wind that left the room in complete darkness. One even made it rain indoors—I ran so much that day saving the ash pots and collecting fresh water that I fell asleep in wet clothes on the wet settee and did not wake until the next afternoon. Certain chants made the incense smell strongly of roses, or rot. The flavor of everything we ate on those days was wrong. Not always bad , mind you, but roast duck that tastes of chocolate pudding is a shock to any palate.
    We celebrated our little triumphs. We danced barefoot in the blood, painted ourselves with red and black and white, finished off the mulled wine and sang every silly song we knew until we’d exhausted our repertoire. Then we pulled on our bootstraps, divined what we could from the entrails, added to Prelati’s endless stack of notes, and cleared the stage for the next attempt.
    I began to dread the day we actually summoned a demon, when I would lose my place in this exclusive club, and lose the baron altogether. My baron. We were close to success; I knew it. I could hear it on the wind. I could taste it in the spiced air. I could feel it in my bones. I feared it so much that I finally let him kiss me.
    “Let me in,” the words were soft, growled into my neck in frustration. My toes slipped in the blood beneath our feet, but I held my ground.
    “Make me your wife,” I whispered back.
    “I have a wife,” he said, and not kindly.
    I placed my palm flat on his wide chest, leaving a small red print on the white silk. “Your title is married to her. Not your