The Demon in the Pastry Shop

16: The Ants at the Picnic

"Get under it," he ordered.

Kit pinched her cheek up in a mixture of confusion and disgust along with a knotted brow, but after Silus' eyes flared white and his snakes hissed at her, she threw her hands up in surrender and climbed under the table. Once she was under it, Silus crouched down and joined her.

He let go of what he held up for a second and then caught it and then another second and caught it lower until he effectively set it tenderly on top of the table. When it was done, he seethed and shook out his hand. He pulled his legs into a bend to keep them safe from the falling rocks (though once the biggest ones fell first, the rest were less threatening in size) and hung his elbow over his knee so he could stretch out his stinging fingers.

Even though Kit was so quiet, there was a way in which she was so loud. Silus wasn't looking at her and he still felt the slap of her gaze on him. He tried to stare at the rushing Returners, volcano-ing out of their new den and earthquake-ing the space around them. It was true that he needed to keep a steady eye on them, but the attention he was giving them was far greater than was required (and in fact, rather strange in light of the fact that Kit was right there next to him and after all, he had promised to ruthlessly capture her and take her to her doom).

She whipped her pen out. He cringed. He couldn't talk to her anymore. It made his heart feel funny and he wasn't in the mood for jokes. Silus forced himself not to turn his head. All of his snakes were facing her, but he faced away.

The notepad shot into his vision, right under his nose.

"Is he alive???"

"Yes," Silus said, doing his best to cut the conversation off where it started. She must be talking about the man she was with. He was alive. He would stay alive because he was useful for motivating (manipulating) Kit.

Before he could shoot her a glare that warned her from interacting with him again if she wanted to stay in one piece, she held out another note. Eyes watering.

"Where?"

Silus snatched the note out of her notebook with a snarl. He turned himself toward her, one hand planted on the ground in front of her and the other on the underside of the table as he stoked flames in his eyes.

"If I could've left you to get crushed, I would've," he sneered over the rushes of the ants, "get that through your head. I already did my due diligence and I warned you. Don't mistake anything now for what it isn't. It would be easier to slit your throat but I won't because the Collector wants you alive first."

Kit tore her eyes away from him and hugged her knees into her chest with a pathetic exhale of panic. Her skirt sank down from her knees and Silus only just noticed that she wore the tiniest little blue heels.

Maybe he could kill her now and then explain later to the Collector that it was impossible to bring her in alive because that would be much less of a headache than hunting her down and tying her up and betraying her trust right in front of her eyes a million times.

Not that Silus wanted to kill her. He was scared to try because his second heart was a madman's heart and would withold the blood from any limb that raised itself against her, Silus was sure of it. He was scared to find out what kind of person he was in a situation like that. Scared to be merciful. Scared to be brutal.

Kit tapped his sleeve and then turned herself away from him. When he glanced down, he saw a note from her turned face down.

"I've met croquembouches scarier than you."

The blood drained from Silus' face. He choked out a sound he couldn't pin on any particular emotion or thought as he crinkled the edges of the paper. He decided instead of getting flustered, he would get angry.

"A croquembouche won't sneak up on you in the middle of the night and put a knife to your throat. I will. The fact that you're still talking to me tells me you've got a death wish or something," he fumed, throwing the note on the ground between them.

She picked up the note in what seemed like a calm manner, but Silus noticed how her hands trembled. She smoothed the paper and wrote on the back before sending it back to him.

"What will you do to me when the ants pass?"

He didn't know that!

Did she know that he didn't know that? Was she calling him out for the inconsistent moral compass he kept stacked on top of his fidgety and reckless second heart? Silus cleared his throat and stuck the note in his breast pocket.

"When the ants are gone and the path is clear, I'm going to use my magic to paralyze you and then I'll take the light from your eyes for some time as I tie you and carry you back to my partners." He wished he knew if he was telling her to intimidate her or to comfort her.

Quickly, another note from her.

"But you're too tired to use your magic now."

Silus clenched his jaw. Too tired was an exaggeration, but his magic would be sluggish and loose if he tried to wield it now.

"You think you've been paying close attention," he said.

Kit caught his eyes and stared at him a long time. The cavern jostled and crumbled in little pieces around them, on top of them. He couldn't read her face. Not even the title or the first line.

She took a big breath and he thought she was going to attack him, but she pushed up from the ground and burst out from under the table, dashing out into the cave amid the crowd of Returners.

"Kit!" Silus shouted after her. He wanted to tell her she was going to get killed. And then he remembered that if she got killed, then he wouldn't have to do it himself. And then he realized as she lucked out of the flood of ants into the greater cavern that she seized the perfect headstart from him on her own.

She might be harder to catch than he thought.

He felt sick.