Page 62 of A Match Made in Hell
‘You can’t go on like this,’ I say. ‘If the gates open . . . There has to be something you can do to control it.’
His eyes flicker. Not with his flames, not this time, but with actual, human emotion, like he’s warring with himself; every movement they make is like his brain processing a new thoughtand putting it to one side, trying to decide which to settle on. His gaze lands on me, properly, and it’s like he’s had a sunrise snatched from him too soon. He immediately looks away.
‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s nothing.’
I tilt my head. ‘Nothing at all?’ The gates have been here since, what, the dawn of time, and now they’re falling apart and he can’t doanything?
‘Nothing,’ he repeats. And then he looks at me again, and it’s filled with such an unexpected longing that my lungs stop working.
I mean. They weren’t working anyway. Now they can’t bring themselves to pretend.
I’ve seen that look before. The memory’s hazy, but it’s there. Last night, with the wine, when his hands were on me, and I was leaning towards him, wanting him, and – I grit my teeth. I have got to stop thinking like this. I can’t let a fleeting attraction turn into something more, not when I’ll be leaving. If I thought I could go home and forget him, I’d be tempted to suggest we start something fun, with a clear time limit and no strings on either side.
Only Sath is made of nothing but strings, and I’m tied to every one. There’s no forgetting that.
‘Well,’ I say. My throat feels scratchy. ‘You seem . . . calm now. I should go.’
His throat bobs. ‘That’s probably best.’
Oh. I thought he might at least try and offer me tea again. Well. Fine. That’s good he didn’t.
I leave with a nod, lingering in the corridor outside with my back pressed to the wall, trying to use the coolness of the stone to slow my breathing.
I have got to get myself under control. I shouldn’t be having thoughts like this at all. There’s a ring waiting for me back home. The ultimate accessory, one that declares I’m a grown-up withan idealistic future headed her way. Everything Mum wanted for me.
Think of Noah. Think of Noah. Think of Noah. It’s more difficult than it should be. His memory has faded; I can’t get his image into focus.He’ll keep you safe. Honestly, I think Mum was more concerned with the bank balance he’d have once he was a hotshot lawyer. Money is safety. Happiness is irrelevant. Look at her and Dad.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remember the last time Noah made me happy. It’s difficult. Everything about him is far away, and I want to chase after him – I’msupposedto chase after him – but he’s out of my grasp, my mind latching onto nothing, and as the vision of his face fades entirely, I realise I’m not scared about losing Noah.
I’m scared that I’m not scared at all.
22
The solution to my current predicament is clearly avoidance.
If I can stay out of Sath’s way until the next task, maybe I’ll have gotten over . . . whatever this is. It may not be the most mature solution, but it’s the only one I have. I see, now, why he made me wait a month between tasks. All of this would have been easy in the beginning, with Noah fresh in my mind and Sath nothing more than a stranger.
I spend the next week suffering more of Harper’s raised eyebrows and constant questions. Today we’re in a large, domed cave filled with oil paintings, statues made out of clay, and crude figures scratched on the walls. I guess all the real artists have taken up residence in a part of Asphodel I’ve not found yet, because every piece on this floor is the definition ofwell, it’s nice you have a hobby.
Abandoning Harper while she inspects a statue of – honestly, I’m not sure, but I think it’s a slug with a basket on its head – I retreat to a far corner of the cave. Mushrooms growing from the walls glow with a dim blue light, as though the piece in this section is sensitive to anything brighter.
Clusters of humans talk in low voices as they admire the art. Everything here changes daily to keep things interesting, but there’s one painting that remains fixed. It’s fairly abstract, a grey arch on a black canvas, a jagged line sliced through the middle.From within that line bursts a large blue spiral, like a child has spray-painted what they think a tornado looks like atop the whole thing, with a scowling sketch of a screaming, snake-like head at its centre.
‘That’s his favourite.’ Harper sidles up to me. Earrings shaped like fairies rattle as she moves. ‘He’s been obsessed for the last year, coming in here to stare for hours on end.’
I don’t bother asking who she means. ‘Then he has terrible taste. It’s hideous.’
Looping my arm through her elbow, I drag her away from the ugly picture before she can use it to turn the conversation to Sath once more. She’s been like a dog with a bone ever since that day in the park, like me giving her a sliver of truth about my life gave her a taste for more. But confessing why I’m evading him would mean confessing I’m not staying here at all, and that opens up a whole heap of questions I’d rather avoid.
She beams at various humans as we weave through another section of statues – these are all moulded into misshapen clay flowers – calling out invites to Dionysus to everyone we pass. Sometimes I think of her as the Pied Piper, only she offers smiles instead of music and the dead come running.
‘How do you do that?’ I ask. ‘You’ve been here centuries and people still . . .’
‘Still what?’
It sounds pathetic, saying it out loud. ‘They stilllikeyou.’
‘Are they not supposed to?’ Her tone is a combination of genuine confusion and gentle mockery as we settle on a granite bench near a painting of a lake covered in swans.
