The Duke’s Demon by Iris Foxglove

Chapter 7

Sariel did not understand what it was to dream.

It happened when the Host was prone in the warm nest, sleeping. His thoughts rose and fell, fragmented into too many pieces. Sariel would try and gather them, but the tide would take them away and he would fall into it and drift like the Host, the strange images flashing in the dark like lightning caught in the clouds of a storm.

Now the thoughts were no longer broken but peaceful and quiet. Sariel stretched and pushed forward, easier when the Host was asleep, and blinked open the Host’s eyes. It was sometimes difficult to see, when he did this. Host’s eyes were not the same eyes as Sariel’s. They did not see as well in the dark.

Beloved was next to them, sleeping. Sariel wriggled in the Host until he could lift the arm and place blunt, round fingers on Beloved’s head. He raised and lowered the Host’s hand, as the Host did, when Sariel came forth in the dark room and sat upon his chest.

Petting, it was called. But Sariel did this petting too hard, and Beloved jerked and woke up, eyes gone wide as he saw Sariel there, watching him.

“Oh,” Beloved whispered. “It’s you. Is everything all right?”

Host was deep in the place of dreams, and could not answer. Sariel knew the words, though. He was a clever demon. Very smart. He made the mouth move. “Yes. I would see you. Pet.” He tried again to move the hand. There were so many fingers. Too many.

“It’s, ah, a little too hard. Make your hand… here, may I show you?”

Sariel made the head go back then forward, which meant yes. Talking took a great deal of energy. Moving the limbs was easier.

Beloved reached out and placed his hand on the Host’s head. He made the gesture, then said, “May I take your wrist?”

Sariel made the head move, up and down. It made Beloved breath faster, but not like he had earlier, in the warm wet water when Host had made him build like a storm and crash into pieces of light.

“You are scared,” he said, carefully using the voice and making the words. Yes. He was very clever, indeed.

“I’ve never met a demon before,” Beloved said, showing Sariel how to do the petting correctly, for humans. “Yes, like that.”

Sariel beat his wings, but Host did not have them, and so there was only a rustle of them. Now he knew how to do the petting. He was very smart. He did it, again, and again.

“You are scared,” Sariel said, because Beloved was still breathing fast.

“I’m sorry,” said Beloved.

“I do not know the shape of those words.” Sariel curled the round-tipped fingers and made the petting again, on Beloved’s back. There were no wings there. But it was all right.

“To be sorry? It means regret. To wish I was not scared, if you do not want me to be that way.”

“Why,” Sariel demanded.

“I’m not used to creatures like you. And you change the way Sebastien looks. Is he asleep, then?”

These were many words. Sariel continued the petting, and thought of them all, arranged them to understand. “Yes,” he said, finally. “Host is in the place where thoughts become pictures that drift like rain.”

“Oh,” Beloved whispered. “That’s very. Hmm. Do you dream?”

“I do,” Sariel said. “I am clever.”

“You are, yes,” Beloved said, and his mouth curved, and he felt warm now, not afraid.

“Beloved,” Sariel said, pleased, wishing his wings could unfurl and spread behind him. “I see the heart of you.”

“That’s—it’s black as pitch, isn’t it.”

Sariel tilted the head of the Host. “No. It pulses warm, living fire. I am clever. Yes.”

“You are,” Devon laughed, softly. “You’re like a kitten and a toddler and somehow still terrifying.”

Sariel preened. “You are...Dev-on.” The name. Names meant things. Sariel had forgotten his, until the Host remembered. “Dev-on, you are. What are you. Many things.”

“The word you want is a mess.”

Sariel considered this, and patted Beloved on the head again. “You are a mess, Dev-on.”

Beloved laughed. He laughed so loudly that the Host came too fast out of the quiet place of dreams, and Sariel shrieked in dismay as he was pushed back behind the Host, whose awareness went to the front too fast.

“What on earth,” said the Host.

Sebastien. Sariel knew his name. Sariel felt warm about the Host. There was a word for it. He would know it when the Host knew it, and the Host almost knew.

“Your demon was petting me. I taught him how to say, you’re a mess, Devon.” Beloved laughed and the warmth was so much that Sariel wondered how Host did not burn, when he reached out the hand and drew it over Beloved’s head, to his mouth.

The Host drew Beloved closer, so his breath spilled on the Host’s neck. Sariel liked this, even if he was still not pleased to be pushed back behind the Host. He was petting. It was important. “I tried so hard to be unlikeable, yet I failed to make a demon dislike me.”

“You don’t want him to dislike you, my flame,” the Host said, wrapping around Beloved like he was trying to wrap him up in the wings that he did not have. “He eats things he doesn’t like.”

“He didn’t eat my brother,” said Beloved.

“He wanted to,” said Host.

Sariel flared his wings. I would speak, he said, to the Host in his mind. I was not done petting.

“Sariel said he was not done petting you.” Beloved’s hand lifted, and he resumed the gesture, though it was not quite the same. Sariel could not feel it now, far back like this. And things were starting to blur, he did not have the strength to stay as he was for much longer.

“I thought he was the cat, but maybe not. Maybe it’s me. A pet for a demon and a duke, is that it?”

“Perhaps.” Host smiled. “There are worse things you could be.”

Host kissed Beloved there in the bed. It was the same as he would do when Sariel feasted on the souls of those who screamed, but now the soul stayed there, deep in Beloved’s heart, glowing and safe from devouring.

Sariel curled up and left them to it, this strange way of speaking without words, that made them warm and hot. As he wrapped his wings about himself and faded back, he thought of Host when he was small and hurt, screaming and afraid, and how Sariel waited so long for him to come, to call to him, to want him. To open a place for him, inside.

Sariel had waited and Host had come. Now Beloved had come to Host. That would be how it was, from now on. The darkness gave and Sariel would spread his vast wings over them both, keep them safe.

They were his.

* * *

Sebastien could not rememberthe last time he’d slept quite so late. The curtains were drawn when he woke, and Devon was asleep on his back, one arm up, breathing easy.

Sariel was quiet, and as much as Sebastien wanted to ask the demon just how often it woke up and moved him about while Sebastien slept, he did not wish to tire Sariel out.

For the first time, Sebastien wondered if there was anyone else he could speak to, who harbored a demon as he did. Mislians, he supposed, but Sebastien knew little of them, or how to find one to ask. The king hated them, and Mislia was far across the sea from Staria. Even if he could reach the mage’s country, would anyone know of Sariel, there? Was anyone left to remember the demon they trapped under the cold sky near the winter sea?

No, Sariel whispered, a sigh in the back of his mind. Not once they learned how to catch the old ones from the sky, turn them too fast to bone.

“What?” Sebastien asked, curious, but Sariel did not answer, so Sebastien left it alone.

He got out of bed and stoked the fire, and shivered for a moment in the chill. The Longest Night was fast approaching, and with it would come the ribbon lights in the sky. Perhaps Devon would enjoy seeing them, a bit of beauty in the unending cold, soft light illuminating the relentless dark.

Devon was still asleep when Sebastien was dressed for the day, so he left him there with a warm fire and a thick, heavy robe to wear when he woke. There was a commotion in the hallway, which was unusual, and Sebastien’s cane clicked on the polished floors as he rounded the corner. There he found Clara, frowning at a sobbing servant girl of no more than thirteen. They hired them out early, here in the rural villages. He did not know the girl’s name.

“It ain’t right, ma’am,” the girl said, and then caught sight of Sebastien. Her eyes went wide, her face pale, and then she fainted right there, collapsing in a pile of cheap fabric on the hallway floor.

Clara sighed. “Here, now, Your Grace. The girl says there’s a hellspawn creature in the woods, and I thought maybe...you weren’t out and about last evening after I saw you, were you?”

“No,” Sebastien said. He paused. Sariel, did we leave the Abbey?

We were warm, in the nest with Beloved, Sariel answered. Why is that one on the ground, is it dead.

“No, just...ah. Overcome.” Sebastien turned to Clara, who was used to him carrying on conversations she couldn’t hear half of. “We were here. All three of us.”

“She seems to think there’s a monster in the woods,” Clara said. “Saw it, heard it yipping.”

It is a little one, Sariel said. A small ratchet.

“A small—ah. I shall take care of it.” Sebastien stared at the young woman on the floor. “Either assign her to the laundry or send her back. The fainting is tiresome.”

“It is good to know that love hasn’t made you impractical,” Clara said, amused, then leaned down and slapped the girl lightly on the face. “Cosette. Wake up, you daft creature. Go and take the sheets out, you’re not interesting enough for His Grace to bother with.”

Sebastien snorted softly and turned, heading outside. The day was overcast and windy, and the cold roused the demon, who was fluttering excitedly about. “Is this your doing, then?”

You came to me when you were small, Sariel said, as Sebastien headed toward the edge of the woods ringing the side of the Abbey grounds. And Beloved came to you, so now a small thing will come to Beloved, and the circle that was broken is now unbroken, made anew.

“What,” Sebastien said, but then he felt himself drifting as Sariel—emboldened by whatever unnatural darkness that lived in the woods—pushed forward and guided him through the paths to the heart of the forest. “Sariel, an explanation.”

For Beloved. Sariel’s wings fluttered, again. A pet. For petting.

“Oh, no,” Sebastien whispered, as he realized what this meant. The forest was the domain of the preternatural hounds, and Sariel seemed to think Devon needed one to keep as a pet. “I am almost certain hellhounds do not wish to live inside.”

The hounds were the only other demons Sariel permitted to live on the Abbey grounds, for whatever reason, and all Sebastien had ever seen of them were the hellfire glow of their eyes, the occasional silver glint of teeth or the blur of bristly fur caught just on the edge of one’s vision.

A small ratchet, Host, Sariel said, and how was it that the demon had learned stubbornness? So many things were changing in their household.

“Speaking of small things,” Sebastien said, as he let Sariel guide him, trusting as always that his demon would protect him from whatever things lurked about in the dark forest. “Clara, do you—do you know who she is?”

The woman who smiles, Sariel said. She is with the man who grows flowers.

“Yes,” Sebastien said, charmed. “Clara and Joaquin. They are ours, too, now. Clara will soon have a...small thing, and we must not harm it, all right?”

The thing inside, it will come forth. As I do in the dark room.

“No, it...isn’t quite like that.” How did he describe childbirth to a creature who did not understand any of the mechanics of being human? “Do you recall what I said, about how humans like myself, like Beloved, are born? Clara and Joaquin created one together, and it will be born some time from now. It will be small and helpless, as I was, when I too was a child.”

Sariel was distracted enough to make Sebastien stop walking entirely. You and Beloved. Make a small human for me.

Sebastien said, “I am afraid that is not possible,” and then tried as best he could to explain as they kept walking. Sariel, with the same attention span as a small child, eventually grew bored with the complexity of human reproduction and intent on his task of leading Sebastien somewhere in the woods.

Sebastien felt it, the moment they grew nearer, the skin prickling on his neck. “How is it that a servant girl who fainted at the very sight of me knew there was something here?”

Many years ago, one of her line could speak with the dark, Sariel said. She knows the sounds it makes, the shapes, but not the words.

“Oh,” Sebastien said, intrigued. He had not imagined there were those who could sense demons here, as he did. Perhaps there was some remnant of the mages that once came here seeking Sariel, magic left in the earth that bled into the clear waters of the streams, the wells in the village. A legacy of all those who were born here, in d’Hiver. Winter children, all of them.

You are clever, Host. I am clever, too.

“You are,” Sebastien said, and smiled. He heard the sound of a creature scuttling, and a muffled yipping coming from near a large, dead tree. Sebastien went down on his haunches. “Show me this pet that you would give to Devon, then.”

Something wriggled out of a hole in the trunk of the dead tree. It was small and had the red fur of the hounds that had once brought Marius here, the same big red eyes and snapping teeth. But it was small, and its paws were too big for its body, and as it bounded toward them, it tripped over a tree root and tumbled with a yip. When it righted itself, it shook its little head and barked excitedly at Sebastien, and went down on its front paws and wagged its tail.

“Sariel,” Sebastien said, carefully, holding a hand out to it. “Did you will this creature into being?”

I called to it and it came, Host. Take up the demon and let it have the scent of you. Then bring it to Beloved. Sariel’s wings flared, that curious rustling sensation that felt like a flutter within. No other demon does this, Host. I am the most clever. I call pets from the dark places.

“So humble, my Sariel,” Sebastien murmured, as the—puppy—bounded over and stuck a cold nose against his hand, snuffing at him. “Tell me this, my clever demon, is this place we are in, now, is it really a forest?” It was different, vast, too thick to be this close to the Abbey. The trees seemed to arch toward him, grasping with dead branches.

One branch had a smattering of bright red flowers blooming improbably on the gnarled, dead black wood. As Sebastien watched, the flowers fell and turned to ash on the ground, one by one.

It is a forest like the place beyond the doors is a room. It is the same place, my Host. Hurry now or it will keep you here. These are not my doors to open and close for you. The flowers fall with the time you are allotted. There are few left.

“I would like to see you,” Sebastien said, warmth and affection pulsing hot through him, driving some of the chill away from this strange place, caught between two worlds of the living and the arcane. “Embrace you.”

Not here. There are other things here that watch us. I have promised to let them be. Take the small ratchet and we will go to Beloved. He will like this pet.

Sebastien wondered if something dreadful would happen if Devon didn’t like it, or if they’d have to return and come back with a creature that looked like a hellspawn kitten, or perhaps a rabbit. He gathered the tiny yapping puppy in his arms and turned around.

The entrance to the forest was right there, the spires of the Abbey clearly visible. His own footprints were only a short walk to the entrance. Sebastien sighed. They had walked for what felt like an hour on the way in. He glanced about and saw only evergreens and the bare branches of bushes; no circle of towering black leaves, no red blooms falling soft to the ground. “I surmise this is your doing, my demon?”

I am clever, said Sariel, again, preening. Am I not.

“You are the most clever demon,” Sebastien praised, and looked at the puppy as he walked out of the forest. He half expected the thing to disappear into smoke, or be strange and paper-thin as Sariel was when he manifested. But it was a ball of warm fur and claws and sharp little teeth, and made a racket as Sebastien carried it inside.

The servant girl was there, in the front hallway. She dropped the handful of sheets she was carrying and fainted again.

Clara, who was behind her, sighed loudly, hands on her hips. She looked unsurprised to see the puppy in Sebastien’s arms, though perhaps she simply was not surprised by anything she saw here, anymore. “I’ll find a bowl for it, I suppose, and a collar.”

“You’re an admirable housekeeper, Clara,” Sebastien said. “I shall have to give you a raise.”

“You’ll have to give me a few, Your Grace,” said Clara, and turned to go.

“Come along, little one.” Sebastien patted the puppy on its head, and it growled and tried to bite the head of his cane. “Let’s go find Devon and see what he makes of you. Sariel, is this creature...does it have a gender?”

It is whatever Beloved wishes it to be, Sariel said. That is why it is a gift.

Sebastien wondered briefly if Devon were a gift, as after all, he had found him hiding in the brambles of a bush on his family’s estate.

The circle is broken and the circle is unbroken and the circle is made anew.

The puppy stared at Sebastien with wide, intelligent hellfire eyes. Something else was in there, looking out at him. Something far more intelligent than a hound puppy. Sebastien sighed, tucked the creature under his arm, and went to look for Devon.

* * *

Devon had never actually wantedfor anything, as a noble. While other houses languished under the weight of keeping their estates running, birthdays at the Chastain grounds were always lavish and exorbitant, despite few of his peers from the city bothering to attend. Devon received horses, swords, bows, even the rare, engraved firearm he’d used on Sabre, all without batting an eye at the cost.

In all his years, though, Devon had never received a present quite like the one Sebastien handed to him that afternoon.

“Sariel called it for you,” Sebastien said, as Devon stared down at the wriggling, squeaking bundle of fur and hellfire in his arms. “As a gift.”

Several of the staff were watching them, inching closer as Devon gingerly set the puppy down at his feet. He crouched to examine it properly, and it tried to scramble onto his lap, hard claws digging into his trousers. Its eyes burned with flame, and when it stared at Devon, it seemed to be debating whether to adopt him as part of its pack or rip him apart as prey.

Devon surprised himself by laughing. One of the boys cleaning the stables shuffled a few feet closer, and the puppy growled softly, paws on Devon’s chest.

“We’ll have to nip that in the bud,” Devon said, distracting the creature by ruffling its ears. “What’s her—is it a she?”

Sebastien tilted his head. “She is, now.”

“What’s her name?” Devon asked.

“She doesn’t have one.” Sebastien shrugged. “Sariel wants to know if you like her, I think.”

“Oh.” Devon snorted as the dog tried to lick his face. “Yes. Thank you, that was very…thoughtful, Sariel.”

“Look at those teeth,” the stable boy whispered, from somewhere behind Devon.

“Does she eat like normal hounds do?” Devon asked. “I’ll need to know, for bribes. Dogs respond well to bribery,” he added, for Sariel’s sake.

“She’s sustained by the hunt, Sariel says.” Sebastien seemed just as intrigued by the dog as Devon was. “She’ll need something to chase.”

“I’m a decent shot,” Devon said, ignoring the momentary, discomfiting twist of guilt at the thought of Sabre falling to his knees in the snow. “She could be a bird hound, I suppose. Do you have grounds for hunting, here?”

Sebastien shrugged, but there was a soft, nervous sound behind him, and Devon twisted round to look at the stable boy.

“We have more birds than we know what to do with, really,” the boy said. “And when it’s season, we go to the, uh, the lands where it’s allowed for deer.”

Devon raised his brows. He highly doubted that the people of the d'Hiver lands bothered to follow the boundaries of noble hunting grounds with a Duke who didn’t regulate them. Even in Chastain, there were always a few overconfident hunters who thought their lord wouldn’t notice if a few does went missing from the herd.

“Would I be…” Devon glanced at Sebastien. “Permitted, or…”

“You’ll come back,” Sebastien said, like it wasn’t even a question.

Devon supposed it wasn’t. He’d made his choice, hadn’t he, when Marius offered to take him out of Staria? A small part of him pulled loose, like he’d been holding his breath for so long that he’d forgotten how to exhale.

“Yes,” Devon said. “I will.”

“You should name it Terror,” said the stable boy, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. “Or Night Terror. Bloodkiller. Furytooth.”

Devon slowly turned to look at the boy. He was perhaps ten or so, with wide brown eyes and blond hair in the kind of curls noblewomen spent hours trying to replicate. “Furytooth,” Devon said, slowly. “What’s your name, boy?”

“You can’t call me that, you’re just a musician,” the boy said. “I’m Andre. I look after the duke’s horse, Mary-Beth.”

“Lwyd,” Sebastien said.

“Yeah, but my sister’s a Mary-Beth,” the boy said, as though that made any sense whatsoever. “You should go with Shadowcrawler for the dog. I have a whole list of ghost names if you’re interested.”

“You do,” said Devon.

“Oh, yes. You get a lot of inspiration in a big old haunted place like this. Did you know you have ghosts? Mary-Beth, my Mary-Beth, she says you can see them sometimes when the sun’s not up. It’s why I take all the morning shifts. Your Grace,” he added, to Sebastien.

“Andre! What did I tell you about shadowing the duke?” Clara strode across the courtyard like a vengeful spirit.

“Damn,” the boy said, and took off for the stables.

“You attract the strangest people, here,” Devon said, scratching the dog behind the ears as Clara bustled past. “What else do you have? A poet in the cellar? An oracle?”

“I don’t know,” Sebastien said, staring off after the boy. “I never noticed them, before.”

Devon thought about the servants at his old home, the way they avoided his gaze, skirting around him like he was cursed, somehow. He’d never bothered to pay any attention to them, either. “I wonder if anyone should tell him about that ancestor of yours, the one who married a ghost.”

“It would be best not to give him ideas, I think,” Sebastien said.

“Maybe we can teach this old girl to chase ghosts, then,” Devon said, still scratching the puppy behind the ears. She clearly loved it, sinking down in his lap with her tail beating at his legs. “She will need a name. Something to live up to. Duchess, perhaps.”

Sebastien was silent for a moment. “Sariel says her name determines her nature. She will lord it over you.”

“The best pets do, really,” Devon said. He stood. “Let’s see if even a hellhound can be trained, shall we?”

The first day of training was always the most chaotic at the Chastain estate, so Devon didn’t expect much, but Duchess proved to be fiercely, unnervingly intelligent. She learned quickly—too quickly, picking up Devon’s meaning before he could finish giving the proper commands, and Devon felt slightly dazed as he watched her race around the dry grass beyond the Abbey walls and run back to heel.

He gathered a small audience, servants from the village who leaned on walls and slowed at the archway to watch the duke’s musician train a hellhound with fire in her eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Andre the stable boy kept hovering nearby, and when Devon called the dog to heel a third time, there was a smattering of applause.

“I should note that this normally takes weeks,” Devon said, when the puppy finally wore herself out. She trotted around their feet as Devon passed through the arch to the courtyard.

“She’s really rather clever,” Sebastien said, and slowed, his gaze going distant. “No, not as clever as you.”

Devon suppressed a smile and raised a hand to stroke Sebastien’s hair behind his ear. Sariel was the possessive sort. “Yes, of course.”

He paused, fingers still brushing over Sebastien’s hair, as he realized that they were still being watched by some of the staff. Two maids smiled at each other and cast sidelong glances at them, and Joaquin gave Devon a slight nod when he met his gaze.

“Is it all right?” he asked. “Being seen with me, like this.”

Sebastien’s brow furrowed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Devon could feel a blush crawling up his neck. He’d made his choice, his father was dead, but the shame and fear of being seen was still there, gnawing away at the edges of him. Devon wondered if it would ever recede. Perhaps the shadow of it would follow him, always.

“Can you kiss me,” he said, softly.

Sebastien didn’t hesitate. He didn’t seem to mind the hushed whispers at the edge of the courtyard as Devon took handfuls of his shirt and stood on his toes to meet him. By the end of the night, half the village would be talking about how the Duke d'Hiver kissed his musician in the courtyard long enough for Devon to go breathless, and smiled at him warmly, a gloved hand at his neck.

“Thank you,” Devon said. “Can you do it again?”

By the time he managed to get a bed set up in the stables for Duchess, Devon had a feeling he was going to be the subject of local gossip for months. Maids kept sneaking by to get a look at him, and it took Joaquin gruffly supervising his work in the stable for Devon to have any sense of privacy.

“So you don’t mind it, then,” Joaquin said, as Devon guided Duchess onto her new bed. “Sharing him.”

“His demon isn’t…I think he’s…both very old and very new to things,” Devon said. “He seems to have claimed both of us.”

“So you’ll both do it,” Joaquin said. Devon stared at him. “What he does in the dark, when he calls those evil men here.”

“I don’t…” Devon hadn’t thought of that. Sariel was so earnest, these days, so curious, latching onto every new emotion with the same eagerness he had when Devon first came to the Abbey. “I think I might be enough, for his demon.”

“And if you aren’t?” Joaquin fixed him with a hard look. “I don’t judge, for what he’s done. In my father’s time, we called it the wild hunt. Someone committed a crime the lord wouldn’t punish, the village got together, and they’d drive them out. Or kill them, depending. The duke is a wild hunt all to himself.”

“I’ve done terrible things, too, you know,” Devon said.

“Ain’t killed no one yet, though,” Joaquin said.

“I meant to.”

“Ah, and that look on your face, that’s a killer who don’t regret it,” Joaquin said, voice dry. “I’m not one to meddle, now—”

“Then don’t.”

“Just figuring where you stand.” Joaquin’s gaze was sharp. “Can’t have anyone running off to drag the duke to the crown the moment they’re uncomfortable.”

Goodness, he was being threatened. Devon didn’t know whether to laugh or try and stare him down. “I’m not about to betray him, if that’s what worries you.”

“All right,” Joaquin said, rocking back on his heels. “Just so you know.”

Devon wondered if Sebastien knew the kind of loyalty he inspired, in his strange handful of servants. Probably not. Sebastien had been so caught up in his demon for so long, it seemed, that other people didn’t register. Now, both of their worlds were slowly expanding.

Devon wandered upstairs. The black doors were closed, the halls empty of ghosts, and the room that had, however briefly, been Devon’s was bathed in the glow of the sunset. Devon sat down at the piano and pulled out his notes. The song was almost done. Rough around the edges, still, like Devon, but he could play it all the way through if he had to. He set the papers on the stand and stretched out his hands.

Something squeaked behind him.

Devon twisted in his seat. Something was coming out of the wall at his back. A nose, black and twitching, followed by a muzzle, which barked, and two ears that flopped and flapped as the hellhound slowly pushed her way through solid stone.

“Oh,” Devon said.

Duchess barked again, her front paws came loose, and she started scrabbling, wriggling about like a puppy stuck in a fence. Devon got down from the bench and took her by the middle, and she kicked and pawed her way through the rest of the wall.

“That’s new,” Devon said, in a dull voice. Duchess barked at him, then tried to climb up into his lap. “Girl, I gave you a bed.”

She glowered at him, and Devon sighed. He’d never been allowed to keep hounds in the house, but he distinctly remembered trying to smuggle them in anyways, when he was young. It only went to show that this dog would be able to smuggle herself in, instead.

He set her down and returned to the bench, and Duchess scrambled onto it, staring in rapt fascination at his hands on the keys.

“Don’t hunt them,” Devon said. “I’m warning you.”

Duchess just stared. Perhaps all demons loved music, or Sariel had found one that resonated enough with himself to do so, because Duchess was content to watch Devon warm his fingers on the keys. By the time the door creaked open, she was asleep on the bench, curled up with her enormous floppy paws dangling off the side and the fire in her eyes banked.

“She disapproves of the stable,” Devon said, turning to the door. Sebastien was there, leaning against the frame, cane in one hand. “Oh. And she can walk through walls.”

“She…ah,” Sebastien said, staring at Duchess. “Curious.”

“That’s one way to put it.” Devon trailed his hand over the keys. “You know, I think I’ve finished it. The song I was writing.”

Sebastien raised his brows.

“I think I might have written it for Sariel,” Devon said. “I thought I should name it after him, if he likes it. Would you like to—”

“Yes,” Sebastien said, and there was something of Sariel in his voice, the toneless ringing. “Play for us, beloved.”

Devon flipped the pages. “Tell me if it’s terrible,” he said. He rolled his shoulders, and his hands hovered over the first notes of the song. His first. “Here we go.”