Page 71 of A Serpent in the Garden

What is this about coins and souls? I eventually chanced to ask as we went down the frozen Frost staircase. This is about the ferryman? He’s collecting more coins than he ought to?

The coin-to-souls ratio doesn’t always add up. Often he has more coin than souls to go with them. I would stay out in the river all day sometimes, counting them as he passed.

You think he’s not bringing the souls to the In Between like he’s meant to?

No. I think he’s letting someone steal them, he said, a loud, empty-room echo edging his words. I think my father found out and was murdered for it.

The guard seemed unsteady on his feet when we made it back to Its room, but he offered no comment and even held the door open for me as It shrank back and relinquished the reins.

Someone was already in there. He’d been folded into the desk chair I’d sat in earlier and rose slowly and sinuously, like a snake before its charmer, out of the corner of my eye as the guard shut the door. The man from the antechamber; Riquin, one of Its brothers. So white his skin drank in the firelight, dyeing him orange. Long and lean like an incubus, blue veins marbling his arms. Handsome in a way that barely even registered, the rest of him was so frightening.

He held up a hand as if he were pacifying me, wide eyes black and empty. “Did Remy tell you who I am?” His fangs flashed as he spoke, lips red as roses. I knew what fangs meant his diet consisted of, and I had never been more aware of all that blood, rushing ice-cold through my body.

I couldn’t help taking a step backward and into the door. “Who?”

His black eyebrows lifted, like for a moment he didn’t know what to make of what I’d said. Then: “You’re an ass,” he said, and it didn’t feel directed at me. “That’s his name.” Riquin gestured to me. “My brother.”

You are an ass, I said. I don’t know why you’re so secretive.

What did it ever matter what you called me? You have no other voice in here to confuse me with.

I think you just liked feeling mysterious. Keeping me in the dark gives you a thrill of power, since you feel you’ve got so little in there.

Riquin seemed perfectly composed but there was something rigidly controlled about his manner that made me nervous. And it must have shown on my face, because he said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I tried to smile but looked away, where I found a dusty snarl of bedding on the floor.

“I changed the sheets.” He was jerking a thumb at the bed when I looked back at him. “They were disgusting. Sabine wouldn’t have sent anyone in to change them.” And when my brow furrowed at the name: “His mother. Remy, do you tell her anything?”

“Did you want to speak to him?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Riquin moved deliberately slowly as he closed the gap between us, like I was a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. A shaft of light from the flames illuminated his pale face, the straight bridge of his nose, the sculpted bone structure, everything but his eyes, which were flat-black and without the smallest twinkle, like a moonless night.

He’s trying not to scare you. If he moved at his normal speed your heart would be in your throat, Remy said, tugging me back into the darkness.

Riquin hugged my body very carefully, as if I were made of glass. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Then why do I feel like you’re about to lecture me?” Remy averted my eyes as he crossed my arms over my chest.

Riquin sighed like a disappointed father. “If you want her to let you out you have to at least pretend to give a shit what she says. I hope you’re not plotting any more asinine stunts.” He tipped his head toward the door before Remy could wrench my lips around a furious retort. “I caught the guard as he was storming through the antechamber, likely about to tell your mother. Apparently he’d been stuffed in a weapons closet and relieved of his armor? I convinced him to keep his mouth shut. You’ve been here five minutes and you’re already stirring up trouble.”

“I was in here with her, minding my own business.” Remy sank onto the bed, jabbing my finger into my chest. “I would have stayed here all night if Valic hadn’t come. I didn’t do anything.”

Riquin looked unmoved, his black eyes unreadable. They were chilling to look into, pupilless and strange. He didn’t seem to shift around more than was necessary; he didn’t fiddle with his hair, didn’t tug on a sleeve. It was oddly unnerving. Remy was a restless fidgeter; I felt him all the time, racketing about his cell, so restive he always seemed a moment away from climbing the walls.

“You’ve done plenty,” Riquin said, in the same dry tone I’d heard on Remy’s tongue.

“You’re the one who told Valic I was back. Did you really think he wouldn’t come?”

“I told him because he’s your brother and he had a right to know. Stay in your room. I’ll bring you what you need.”

“I want to see Jessa.”

“That’s not happening,” Riquin said, heading backward toward the door. “I’m not going to risk pissing your mother off even more. You can see Jessa when you get out. If you get out. Which will only happen if you’re a good boy and don’t do anything stupid or lash out irrationally.”

“Irrationally?” Remy flung at his brother’s retreating back. “How else was I supposed to get him to come down?”

“Not like that.” Riquin’s hand found the doorknob. He stood there for a moment with his eyes pressed shut, the hollows beneath them darkening under the spray of his lashes. “Let her sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And he shut the door noiselessly behind him.