No Greater Pleasure Read online

  Strong hands grabbed her calves, then her waist, and she let go, falling into Jericho’s arms. He, too, had been blackened by smoke, his blond hair gone gray with it. He wore a shirt and trousers, the shirt undone to his waist, sleeves unlaced and flapping. His bare feet slipped on the half icy cobblestones. He set her down, taking her by the arm to get her away from the house.

  She slipped and almost fell but he held her up. “Gabriel went to get Dane!”

  He could have heard no more than one word out of her sentence, so hoarse and choked had been her voice, but whatever he heard made him turn back to the house.

  “Dane is still inside?”

  He did not wait for an answer, but pulled his shirt off over his head and thrust it into her hands. It took her an eternity of instants to understand why—she was still naked and had not noticed.

  Quilla turned toward the sound of shouting and saw the stable hands Luke and Perrin rolling what appeared to be a cartwheel wrapped in tubing into the courtyard. Jutting from its top was a handle. A pump handle. She turned from it to shout after Jericho, but he had already run back toward the house and disappeared into the door as she watched.

  She pulled his shirt over her head, the sleeves too long and the hem hitting her midthigh. Her feet were cold. Luke and Perrin had unrolled some of the tubing, and Billy had grabbed the end, pointing it toward the house. Luke jumped on top of the wheel. She saw now that the tubing trailed off toward the garden. He pushed the pump handle. Water jetted from the end of the house. Perrin and Billy ran toward the house with it.

  Of course. A hose. Her mind, dulled by shock and smoke, had not recognized it. Quilla stumbled on the uneven cobbles, but before she could fall, another strong hand caught her.

  “Up, girl,” grunted Florentine. “Let’s get you tended to.”

  Quilla did not move at first, her eyes locked on the sight of Glad Tidings. Flames now flickered in some of the third-story windows. The entire second floor appeared to be covered in red and orange and black. Smoke poured from the windows, which began to break one after another.

  “Come, Quilla!”

  She followed Florentine on numb and bleeding feet. The blood from her hand had slowed, gone thick, but painted Jericho’s shirt with crimson calligraphy. Florentine sat her on a bale of hay covered by a horse blanket, and grabbed up another from the ground to wrap around Quilla’s shoulders. It smelled of beast, of warmth and comfort, and as Quilla pulled it close, she shook so hard her teeth clattered.

  “Sinder save them,” Florentine said as another window scattered glass onto the courtyard below.

  “Invisible Mother save them!”

  Quilla turned to the sound of the voice, and her face felt suddenly frozen into stone. “Jorja!”

  The nursemaid’s cheeks had streaks of white left behind in the soot by her tears. Her grief did not impress Quilla, who stood and slapped the woman across the face as hard as she could.

  “What are you doing out here when they are still inside!”

  “Quilla—”

  Quilla ignored Florentine and slapped Jorja again. The nursemaid went to her knees screaming pleas of mercy, but Quilla ignored those, too. She slapped Jorja’s face a third time, knocking her over. Quilla slipped in the mud left by the snow, but struck again.

  “What are you doing out here when they are still in there?” Her fingers doubled up and she punched Jorja, missing her nose but catching her jaw and knocking the woman to the ground.

  “Quilla! Stop it, Handmaiden! Stop!”

  Again, Quilla ignored Florentine, fury making her strong enough to shake off the chatelaine’s grasp. Quilla grabbed the neck of Jorja’s night rail and hauled her upright, shaking her like a weasel shakes a chicken to break its neck.

  “Quilla, ’tis not her fault! She took him! Saradin took Dane!”

  Quilla let go of Jorja, who fell back to the ground, wailing. Quilla turned. “What do you mean?”

  Florentine put her hands on Quilla’s shoulders. “She took him, Quilla. Saradin took Dane and set fire to her rooms. ’Tis not Jorja’s fault.”

  “Oh, by the Arrow.” Quilla spat the taste of smoke from her mouth. “Oh, that cursed mad bitch!”

  “Yes.” Tears had also streaked Florentine’s cheeks. “Yes, she is that.”

  Quilla reached for Florentine’s hand. Their fingers linked, and they stood side by side, watching the house burn in front of them.

  Time had slowed, had stopped, and yet had begun to go twice as fast. The roof of Quilla’s gable room collapsed. Her vision doubled, tripled, blurred with tears. Florentine’s fingers tightened in her own, the wound on Quilla’s palm covering their hands with her blood.

  And then, she saw her. Saradin, atop the roof. The wind picked up her long blonde hair and spread it out behind her like a wedding veil scattered with fireflies. She wore a dress of flame, the black lace of smoke at her hem and sleeves, the ripple of yellow and gold at her throat.

  “Sweet Invisible Mother,” said Florentine.

  Quilla took a step toward the house, her hand outstretched, but Florentine held her back from going farther. “Dane?”

  Saradin screamed, the sound horrid and high, the screech of a teakettle left too long on the flame.

  “She’s going to jump,” said Florentine.

  But though Saradin might have planned to take a final flight from the burning roof, another figure appeared beside her, out of the smoke. They struggled, wraiths dancing in the smoke.

  “Gabriel?” Florentine cried.

  “No. Jericho.”

  Saradin screamed again. A jet of flame burst from the roof, obscuring the struggle for a moment before revealing it again.

  Both of them were cloaked in flame. Saradin hovered on the edge of the roof, arms outstretched as though she were trying to fly. The wind buffeted her hair and the flaming shreds of her night rail, and for one last instant, she did, indeed, seem about to soar. Before she could leap, Jericho pulled her back from the edge.

  Saradin disappeared, tumbled onto the roof. Jericho teetered on the roof ’s edge, against the flame-licked balustrade. And then he fell. It took but a moment to turn the man who’d danced and laughed with such inherent grace into a broken, lolling puppet whose strings had been shorn.

  Quilla heard a sound like growling and realized it came from her own throat as she ran toward the body sprawled in the muck made by the fire-melted snow. Jericho’s blood mixed with the mud and spread on the cobblestones. Quilla slipped and went to her knees, reaching for him.

  He was not dead. Jericho smiled at her. Crimson lined the edges of his teeth and left his lips looking kissed. His blue-sky eyes no longer matched; in one the pupil had dilated into a void, while the other had shrunk to a pinpoint.

  Blood from his ear painted his blond hair. Quilla pushed the hair from his forehead as she knelt next to him and then took his hand.

  “It would seem,” he told her as more red burbled up to paint his lips, “I cannot fly.”

  She hushed him. “You’ll be fine, Jericho.”

  Even now he tried to charm her. “Fine as silk, Quilla Caden.”

  She smiled for him. “Jericho, we will get a medicus—”

  His slow blink and the fading of his smile stopped her. Tears fell onto his face, mixing with the blood on his mouth. His tongue slipped out, as though to taste, and he focused on her.

  “I would make you feel,” he whispered, each move of his lips spreading crimson. Now it oozed down his chin and over the line of his jaw, down his throat.

  Quilla hushed him again, stroking his cheek. “You have made me feel, Jericho.”

  He smiled, gaze dimming. “You did not belong to me, Quilla.”

  “No.” She bent to kiss him, tasting blood and tears, the taste of a metallic ocean. She touched his cheek. “Friend by choice, Jericho. Not of necessity.”

  From behind her she heard shouts, but she did not turn. She kissed him again, hearing the whistle of his breath from something broken inside him.