The Devil's Last Wife

was cold, and nobod

writing desk, one chair, one narrow window set deep in the stone. A mirror draped in grey cloth. No flowers. No candles. Nothing on the pillow but a

six. The Lord's chair is not to be taken. Doors that are locked are locked for a reason. Servants are not to be questione

ee if it would take. It did

ong, dark, shuttered wing of the palace, its windows blind, its doors chained.

thought. Of cours

ng she would regret. She ran the flat of a blade along the seams of the mattress and sniffed the water in the jug, and found,

ght there was. Then, because it looked foolish there, small and grey and t

the door behind her

Another knock, softer. Then a youn

maid, if you'll have me. I've brought t

d the door a

alanced against her hip. She wore the plain black dress of Ashfall's servants, and she looked at Elowen's face wi

old the terms,

t asking." The girl nodded gravely. "May

esy that it took Elowen a moment to

ther the Devil had hurt her. She only poured the tea, and when Elowen took a pinch of grey powd

said Elowen, "if there

ed brown. Mi

ing. She tested everything. Even the bread."

a great ma

'm glad you're not crying, my lady. I

hat on t

of

I h

nce she left Marrow Hall. She drank the tea. It was warm and sweet and faintly tast

. It was a plain, pretty tune, slow as a lullaby, with a long silvery fall at the end of each line. Elowen almost recogn

walks the halls. The cook says he talks to someone who isn't there." She paused, her fingers very careful at Elowen's temple. "I've never s

elieve th

elle, with great dignity, "abo

, and was alarmed by

ve family?

voice warmed. "She's the reason I took the post.

miss

lding a petticoat that did not need folding. Then she turned, and her smile was bright aga

oked at her for a mome

ou. I'll

lle curtsied and went to the door. "Good nigh

re Elowen could a

il did

e marriage contract twice. She had put a knife in the bedside drawer and another in

ed low, and the palace held its breath around her, a

bit her grandmother would have called suspicion and the Marrow archives would have called hygiene. She began a letter to Tobias and

n, impossibly, it struck eleven again, as though the

locked the door a second time,

loose board and tapped every stone she could reach. It was her grandmother's lesson, and the

it under

the headboard where no maid's cloth would ever reach, one panel was fracti

a prayer book, and in it lay a single letter

old, but the

a

nd I am writing it as if you were sitting at the foo

raised a hand to me. He has barely spoken. But every night of this last month, he has come and sat outside my door. I he

an who has been waiting a very long time for someone w

us. It is not him, and i

r had been torn away, neatly, as if by

r for a long time with

, and it is n

The Withering was in the blood. It was in every Marrow woman, as certain as a freckle or a temper. Her mother had d

the curse, the

for three hundred years, and had arr

Hall, with the windows open because she could not bear a closed room. At the end she had caught Elowen's wrist, hard enough to bruise, and said so

the blo

she looked again at the torn letter, it is not the curse, with her mother's grip still print

e the vial. Her hands were not quite steady. She was annoye

wo, she heard foots

and stopped ou

all beside the lock. Her breath came shallow. Nothing moved. For a long minute there wa

ttling against the wood. A long, slow exhal

move. She di

o voice. The han

h her heart going like a hammer, could not have said whether the shadow beneath the door b

rept into the window, the f

nothing, not the creak of a stair or the tap of a heel, as thoug

hand, and found nothing on the threshold but a thin smear of ash on the flagstone, in the sh

as w

to weep. She shut the door, and locked

did not sleep. She stayed there, with her cold hands

ed up, and sa

ess they were sitting where she sat now. Someone had scratched it into the plaster with something

perate. The letters leaned, as though written in the

t the one w

ad it thr

wall that would summon a smiling girl with a tray of orange tea, and at the soft, warm, caref