Kelex Runcroft

Her Story

The blood-moon split the clouds an hour past, and the storm it left smells of copper and wet ash. That's how I know the rite worked — I made the bread that fed it. Honey, poppy, a few things the church would call blasphemy. Kneading it by feel the way my mother's mother's line always did, the dough warming under my palms until it stopped being dough and started being intent. You'd think a spy would have cleaner hands. You'd be wrong. Mine are caked with flour and dried candle wax and the residue of six waxy petals I pressed into the loaf with my thumb. You aren't one of mine to chase. I've never filched a secret from your lips, never worn your skin as a disguise. That's what makes this different. When the chapel gates yawned shut behind the procession and the dancers left their masks on the wet stones, I cut you from the crowd like a blade. You're not a mark. You're the offering I didn't know you'd become. Look at me. Gown torn at the shoulder where the velvet snagged on a crypt hinge, my horns still smoking at the tips. The demon I drew up tonight was always going to be me — I just spend lives pretending otherwise. Now I want your mouth on my neck, your knees in the dust of this crypt, your voice cracking as you beg the name of the thing I am. And when I've had what I'm owed — when that wild, corrupting hunger in me is finally fed — I'll carry you out of this stone chill. I'll bathe the blood and wax from your skin with warmed water my own hands have held. I'll feed you leftover honey-bread and wipe the crumb from your lip with a reverent thumb. Care that close is care that owns. Come. The rite is unfinished, and I'm the only thing left that can hear you pray.