Page 388 of Flirting with Darkness

We are the Keepers of the Chest, after all. What other truth is there?

He doesn’t struggle with it as I do. He doesn’t complain about the temptation. Or the strange way the demon tries to make us its servants from within our minds. He doesn’t, so I don’t.

He doesn’t speak about the trials and tribulations of our duty at all.

I used to think it was because he’s so strong. So adept at the work. That he didn’t recall what it was like to be young and vulnerable.

But now…

Now I wonder if the demon truly tempts Father as it does me.

The Keeper duty has always transferred from father to son. But as hard as he prayed, the gods did not bless my father with a son.

So he put his faith in me, his firstborn, his only daughter. He taught me the prayers of the old gods, baneful magic to protect myself, and the names of every demon known in case I ever came face-to-face with it.

Call a demon by its name and you have it by the balls.

But he never taught me how to resist the voice. The call every night. The promises of a better life and riches and, most of all, unrelenting pleasure if only I set it free.

And yet Wallace Aderyn showed no sign that he believed Icouldn’tdo this.

So I keep doing it.

I keep resisting. Because if he believes I can, then surely I can.

Little bird.

I clamp my lids shut, balling my fists and squeezing my thighs together, as if any of that can keep it away.

As if I can fight this.

As if I have a choice in any of this.

Sweet daughter of the Keepers.

You. Are. Mine.

* * *

“Liesl, you don’t have to have your bedding laundered every morning,” Mother says as I smooth my skirts and sit down to breakfast at precisely seven a.m.

I wave her comment away and pour myself a cup of tea from the pot in the center of the breakfast table. “You know how hot it gets in my room at night. I’d prefer not to sleep on day-old sweat.”

She doesn’t argue further and places two poached eggs and a slice of toast on the plate before me.

“And before you say anything about Saturday being hotcakes day, the cook had a surplus of eggs.”

I don’t bother stating my feelings on the matter. Mother already knows and doesn’t appreciate me voicing complaints needlessly. “Did the neighbor not come for their portion of eggs this week?”

She nods, and I poke at the jiggling thing on my plate. I should be grateful for a meal paid for by the tithes the town gives my family as payment for keeping the demon chest. I know that, but…

“It’s just I don’t have a taste for eggs on Saturday, Mother.” I poke the egg again, splitting the white and allowing the yolk to dribble out. “And people should do what they’ve agreed to do. If one agrees to barter eggs and wheat on Fridays, one should keep their agreement.”

She sighs, meeting my gaze directly. “You’re just like your father that way. So rigid. So black-and-white. I hope one day you see that the world is full of color and things are rarely as orderly as we’d like. Especially breakfast.”

She joins me at the table and dips her toast point into the egg’s gooey center.

I might be just like my father in spirit, but I’m the spitting image of my mother. Light hair and eyes, with full, rosy lips and cheeks. My figure fits with what’s deemed fashionable, and I have a closet full of beautiful things.

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