He licked her face. Zosia started up onto her elbows, blinking in the harsh light of the interrogation lamp. The obsidian floor was warped beneath them into a series of ridges and valleys, twisted gurneys and chairs and tools jutting out from the frozen waves of volcanic glass. The thing that looked like an old dog wagged its tail to beat the band in the melted mess of the Office of Answers.
“Hey, buddy,” she croaked, sitting up the rest of the way. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine, huh?”
He woofed, stepping over her splayed legs and then plopping down across them. She scritched behind his ears with one hand while petting him all the way down his back with the other, a technique of Leib’s he had called playing the ’Licker sitar. Her husband had trusted the devil more than she ever had, the affable man happy to pretend the monster was just a dog. She had never been comfortable about it, but she shouldn’t have begrudged the devil her husband’s kindness. Leib had pretended she wasn’t a monster, too. Then she realized what she was doing and her hands stopped moving.
“Yeah, I would say we are well past even,” she said as she checked in with her body, marveling at how good she felt—the rest of her felt as fine and strong as her arms, and more than just her flesh, the frustrating fog that had clung to her skull having finally lifted. “How something as fucking strong as you got nabbed by me, I’ll never know. But then if the Chain tricked you, too, you can’t be that smart, huh?”
He playfully snapped at her, and she rubbed his head. She must be in shock.
“How’d they get you, anyway?” she wondered out loud, and he gave her a meaningful stare, and then looked at a crumbly white mess on the floor just beside them. It was whatever she’d pulled from his stomach and then dropped while the guard carried her away. It looked almost like a hunk of cake. Leaning over and prodding at the small lump with her finger she confirmed it was cake, or bread or something, and at its center was a shard of polished bone etched with tiny runes. Choplicker growled at it and Zosia shook her head; this was a metaphor for the whole shitty church, it was, an innocuous bit of scripture, easily swallowed. She tucked it into the pipe pouch on her belt. Never knew when a devil-paralyzing bone might come in handy.
“Zosia.” The weak voice called from just over a swell in the ruined floor. “Cold Zosia, you fucker, you’ve murdered me.”
Picking herself up off the warped ground, she saw that Boris lay on his back, half absorbed by the obsidian beneath him, a leg and a hand disappearing into the floor. His sweaty face was drained near as white as Choplicker’s teeth as the devil came over and snuffled at the trapped man, smacking his jowls. He must like the heretic, since he was the only other person left in the altered Office of Answers.
“Shit, Boris, I’m sorry,” said Zosia, kneeling over him. She gave a little tug on the wrist that disappeared into the floor but there was no give at all and he hissed through his teeth. Surveying the dismal situation she saw that one of the bolts he’d taken to the back had punched clean through his side and was leaking thick gore. “Fuck. I … I don’t know what I can do.”
“You gave me your word,” he said, his teeth as red as his wounds. “You didn’t swear it on your devil but you gave me your word. You did. And the Cobalt Queen’s a woman of honor. Ain’t she?”
“I hate to break it to you, Boris, but I was never half as righteous as they said I was,” she told him, because lying to the dying was too low even for her. “You kept me drugged in a cell and plied me with lies, so I’d say I wasn’t in any condition to make an informed oath.”
“Never drugged you,” said Boris, looking her in the eye. “Never, Yer Majesty. You started slipping all on your own, soon as your devil went down. Honest. And as for lies … I told my share, yeah. But to an end. To an end. To try and save people.”
“I know, Boris,” she said, and because she could see in his face he was close to losing his hold she took his free hand in hers. “You’re a good man.”
“The fuck I am!” Bloody spittle struck her face as he pulled his hand free. “No such thing as good.”
“But that’d mean there’s no such thing as evil, and we both know that’s not true,” she said, wanting to put him at ease as he passed over but apparently just winding him up more. “You tried to do good, Boris, and that’s more than most offer the world.”
“No such thing … as evil,” said Boris, his dilated pupils scanning all over the room. “That would be a … comfort. I lied to you.”
“I know, Boris, but it’s all right, I know now, and—”
“No, you don’t,” he said, licking his lips and closing his eyes. “Indsorith. She wasn’t dead yet. Earlier, when I said she was. A white little lie, considering, but still. Needed to just get you out, didn’t want you trying to stop them.”
“What?” Fast as she tasted relief it curdled on her tongue. “What’re you saying, they’re executing her tonight?”
“They probably already have,” he said. “And she deserves it … Not like you … But I couldn’t … I couldn’t go down in the Dark … with the lie of it …”
“Where?” He was falling fast, and while Zosia tried not to jostle him too much she still jostled him a bit. “Where, Boris, where?”
“Where do they always dump the monsters … and the parts they cut off?” he said, cracking his eyes and a bloody smile. “The Gate.”
“Thank you,” said Zosia, meaning it like she hadn’t in a long time. “And I’m sorry to leave you like this, Boris, but I’ve got to try to save the living, and you told me yourself you’re already dead. Want me to make it official?”
“Fuck no!”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Safe havens guide me to her breast, then,” said Boris, weakly making the sign of the Chain to ward off Choplicker as he came in for a lick. “And you … they’ll catch you. Both of you. They did it once, they’ll do it again. They’re ready. People’s Pack got their own devils, I hear, and an army of the people keyed up to kill some queens.”
“Sure they do,” said Zosia, as she got back to her feet and looked around for whatever weapons hadn’t been incorporated into the floor. “But I’ve got a devil, too, and where’s the fun in having one if you never get to use it?”