She was probably right. Nevertheless, Gwen extended the invitation Marlee clearly hoped to receive. “Tell me anyway.”
“I imagine Hugh explained about his father.” At Gwen’s nod, the demon told her, “My rightful social status declined when I married a human male, and potential clients didn’t trust Timothy to be as ruthless and detail oriented in his contracts as a demon. Building a new firm with him required far more time and effort than I’d ever imagined.”
A faint wince creased her narrow, aristocratic face. “At one point, my parents actually had to financially support us to keep up appearances, which deeply injured my husband’s pride. So did all the snubs from our peers. When our firm finally began to thrive, Timothy was…”
Just another heartless lackey facilitating deadly corporate depredations, from what Hugh told me?
Gwen bit her lip, willing herself to silence.
Marlee’s lips curved fondly. “He was so happy that first year we turned a profit. So thrilled that everyone could see his true worth at long last.”
Gwen could see a few things of her own. First, that Marlee still believed in the demonic social hierarchy despite the challenge her marriage had posed to it. Instead of questioning the importance placed on family reputation or the validity of interspecies bigotry, she’d instead fought for her husband’s assimilation into that hierarchy’s summit and—eventually—attempted to erase any reminder of their children’s humanity.
Second, she clearly adored her husband. Knowing the puncture to his pride that a damaged reputation or failing business would cause him, she would have been eager to protect that reputation and business. At all costs.
And third, she’d want to prove to skeptics that she hadn’t made a mistake in marrying a human male, so she’d fiercely safeguarded the family’s reputation to preserve her own pride too.
Marlee’s mouth worked for a moment. “Then the Eloise…incident…occurred. After five long years of struggling to rebuild our reputation and clientele, Josiah approached me and offered to help restore our firm’s success in exchange for a few teleportation favors and a simple nondisclosure agreement. He claimed he didn’t always have the time or energy to teleport others himself, which made sense to me. And the humiliation was killing Timothy, just as Josiah said, so I made the bargain without knowing who or what our family friend truly was.”
Before Gwen could summon even an ounce of pity for her,the demon drew herself tall and added, “Even if I’d known, I might have agreed anyway. I needed to save my family.”
All at once, Gwen’s ability to keep her mouth shut failed her.
“Not your family.” Gingerly, alert for any dizziness, she stood without assistance. “Your reputation and business.”
“Weareour reputations. We’re demons, not…” Marlee swept a hand up and down, indicating Gwen with a curled lip. “Nothumans.”
That much, at least, Gwen could acknowledge as true.
Hugh’s mother deflated a little, her tense shoulders dropping a fraction.
“I don’t love doing this to my son’s girlfriend.” The way Marlee whispered the words, they sounded like a sordid confession. “But my family’s deaths would be the contractual cost of defying Josiah. And now that you’re out of the picture, perhaps Hugh will see reason, date someone more appropriate, and stay out of fae affairs.”
If she honestly thought Hugh would simply shrug and abandon Gwen—or any lover—to an unknown, most likely grisly fate, Marlee didn’t understand her son at all.
“Hopefully he can still be saved.” The crease in the demon’s forehead deepened. “He’s useful as a tool for Josiah on the Council, if nothing else, so he may not be killed with the others. Josiah likes his tools.”
Well, you’d certainly know, Gwen very prudently didn’t say.
Marlee had finally acknowledged the larger disaster she was facilitating. The worldwide apocalypse poised to descend upon them all, with her assistance. Had the other female actually reasoned through everything that bloodshed would entail, though?
“As long as you remain useful to Josiah, you’ll probablysurvive what’s coming.” Gwen stared at Marlee, willing her toward acknowledgment of the obvious. “But what about your husband? Will your usefulness save him too? Or will he die, either in battle or at the hands of a fae hungry for immortality?”
“I…” Marlee’s expression turned stricken, and her eyes shone with what might have been actual tears. “I don’t know.”
Gwen was poised to continue pressing that point when the burly, masked guard returned from the cubicles and waved her toward the apparent encampment. When she didn’t move immediately, he snatched her arm in a painful grip and hauled her away. Marlee let her be carted off without protest, and when Gwen glanced over her shoulder, the demon was already gone.
Once the guard had marched Gwen around the back of the cubicles, he released her arm and pointed to a spot on the end. “That’s yours.”
As she’d suspected, stringy-haired, drawn-faced oracles occupied half of the dozen or so cubicles shoved into this corner of the enormous room. As if in tacit agreement, they all avoided looking directly at Gwen. Within their assigned compartments, they sat slumped on their thin cots, each graced with a single blanket.
“Bathroom’s over there.” The guard nodded toward an open doorway. “Cause any trouble, and you’ll lose your daily food allotment. Cause too much trouble, and you’ll lose more than that.” His palm slapped the weapon at his side. “Understood?”
When she nodded, he left to resume his position at the door.
Stretching her stiff muscles, she looked around herself again. As far as she could tell, there were no usable escape routes back here, and the room’s lone exit stood across a vast, empty expanseof marble. The guards would easily be able to spot any attempted approach.
Even if there wasn’t a good way out, though, maybe there was a workable wayin.Could anyone find the oracles’ makeshift encampment?
