Page 32 of The Ruin of Eros

“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, nolife. 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 willnot. 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.

“Yourjailer? 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 enjoyedthere?”

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 into rescue me?”

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

“Iknow 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 weresavingme. 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.

Chapter Thirteen

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