Saving the Immortal

Chapter Nineteen: Dissipated Scoundrel

I woke the following morning to find him gone once more.

I told myself, at first, that his absence surely carried some reasonable explanation — matters of court, perhaps, or some early errand he had not thought to mention. But when the morning stretched toward midday without any sign of him, I found my patience wearing considerably thinner than propriety strictly recommended, and sent Bess to inquire after him.

She returned looking somewhat reluctant to deliver her findings.

"Well," I said, when she hesitated a moment too long.

"He is with Princess Cordelia," she said carefully. "In the eastern garden, my lady. They have been walking together most of the morning."

I felt something in my chest ignite immediately.

He returned to our quarters some hours later, entirely unbothered, humming something under his breath as he removed his coat, and I met him with an expression I imagine communicated my feelings rather more plainly than any words could have managed.

"You have had a pleasant morning," I said, my voice deceptively calm.

"Quite pleasant," he said, entirely oblivious, or perhaps entirely unbothered, to the particular danger building in my tone. "Cordelia has interesting views on—"

"I do not care what views Cordelia holds," I said, my composure finally abandoning me entirely. "You are UNBELIEVABLE, Ruselon."

He blinked at me.

"I am unbelievable," he repeated.

"You are a dissipated scoundrel," I said, warming rapidly to my subject now, "a moronic buffoon, and — and a degenerate born of hell itself, apparently, given how little regard you show for your own wife while parading through gardens with visiting royalty."

He stared at me a moment.

Then he laughed.

Not the quiet, careful laugh I had come to associate with him. A full, unguarded burst of genuine amusement that seemed only to fuel my fury further.

"A degenerate born of hell," he repeated, still laughing. "That is, I confess, rather a good one. You have been saving that phrase, I think."

"I have not been SAVING anything," I said. "I am simply describing you with the accuracy you deserve."

"You are jealous again," he said, grinning now with an ease that infuriated me considerably further.

"I am not—"

"You are," he said, crossing his arms, clearly enjoying himself a great deal. "You cannot even manage a simple horse without falling from it, and yet you believe yourself entitled to lecture me on propriety."

"That," I said, my voice rising dangerously, "was Marrow's doing, and you know it perfectly well—"

"Regardless," he said, still smiling, "you are rather weak, Ivy, without me. You cannot ride. You very nearly drowned in a lake without any assistance whatsoever. I begin to wonder how you managed nineteen years without my particular guidance."

I slapped him.

I did not entirely decide to do it — my hand simply moved of its own accord, striking his cheek with a force that surprised even me, and the sound of it echoed sharply through the chamber.

He stopped laughing.

"You," I said, my voice shaking now with a fury I could barely contain, "are the single most infuriating creature I have ever had the misfortune of encountering, demon or otherwise, and I regret every kind thought I have ever wasted upon you—"

The room tilted.

I do not recall deciding to stop speaking. I recall only that the words simply ceased, my vision blurring at its edges in a manner that felt entirely unfamiliar, my legs suddenly unable to bear my own weight as they had managed perfectly well only a moment before.

"Ivy—"

His voice, sharp now with alarm rather than amusement, and then his arms catching me before I struck the floor, the anger I had felt only seconds earlier draining away into something considerably more distant and confused.

"Ivy, you are burning," I heard him say, his hand pressed suddenly to my forehead, his earlier teasing entirely forgotten now. "You have a fever. Ivy—"

The last thing I registered, before darkness claimed me entirely, was the particular fear in his voice — considerably more genuine, I thought distantly, than any laughter he had offered me only moments before.