Dark Light of Day by Jill Archer Read Free Book Online

crust of my meat pie and a few radishes on Ivy’s salad plate. I pulled out the unoccupied fourth chair and put my feet up—it seemed like the kind of place where that was more than okay—and undid my laces, hoping my boots would dry better closer to the fire. Neither Ivy nor Fitz seemed inclined to leave, and the place wasn’t crowded so we ordered some coffee.
    Ivy was short for Ivana Jaynes and she was here to study riparian rights and the law of navigable waters. Her family owned and operated a whole fleet of ferries, the flagship of which was the
Alliance
, a sturdy double-decked vessel that took mechanized cabs, as well as passengers, to the outposts up and down the length of the Lethe. She was well educated and well traveled. Fitz’s education and experience, on the other hand, seemed a bit more piecemeal. He had grown up on the Seknecai estate, one of the very few Host estates here in New Babylon. His mother—Ivy’s aunt—was the housekeeper for Waldron Seknecus, the dean of demon affairs here at St. Lucifer’s. I gathered from the looks exchanged between them that Seknecus might have pulled some strings to get Fitz accepted here.
    Both Fitz and Ivy were unbelievable gossips. They had the goods on everyone. But nothing they said was malicious, and they seemed genuinely interested in me, as I was them. I made sure to keep my answers vague though, although I soon found myself wishing I could confide in them. They were as warm and comfortable feeling as the place they’d invited me to for lunch.
    I had just finished lacing up my boots when I started to feel the prickly, skittering feeling along my arms and back like this morning. This time Peter’s spell doused my magic faster but left my half-digested meat pie feeling like a mound of red-hot lava rocks searing through my stomach.
I have to get out of here,
I thought. I stood up to go and that’s when I saw him—Ari, the Hyrke who’d saved me from drowning in the Lethe not two short hours ago.
    What was he doing here?
    He looked better than I remembered. Here in the underground warmth of Marduk’s, his strong features looked even more ruggedly handsome. In this small space, the bulk of his body appeared twice as big. On his arm was a tall, statuesque woman with hair the color of Ivy’s. But that’s where the similarities ended. This woman was a showstopper, a real knockout, with pouty red lips, porcelain skin, and sky blue eyes. But just above her sternum were two nasty red burns—two wounds the size of thumbprints pressed into the slender hollow of her throat. Immediately behind her was another woman, a pretty brunette with ash-colored eyes and a dimple in her chin.
    “Ah,” said Ivy quietly, following my gaze, “That’s Ari Carmine.”
    “I know,” I said, slumping back down in my seat. Her eyebrows shot up.
    “You do?”
    “Uh-huh. We shared a ferry ride across the Lethe this morning.”
    “He always dates the beauties—powerful Mederies from the Gaia Tribe,” Fitz said, looking over with a frank look of half-admiration, half-envy.
    Ari and his companions slid into a booth along the wall near the front. Ari reached for the redheaded beauty’s hand in a gesture that was all too familiar. The sick bubbling feeling in my stomach wouldn’t go away.
    How had she gotten those burn marks? And what was Ari doing at Marduk’s? Was he a student at St. Lucifer’s too?
    If so, it was surprising that it hadn’t come up during our discussion this morning, but then I’d steered purposefully clear of any talk about where we were headed after the crossing. More surprising—and infinitely more disappointing—was my reaction to seeing him with the beautiful Mederi. It irritated me. It irritated me even more that it irritated me at all. I sat in the half darkness at the back of Marduk’s stewing. I grudgingly realized that Ari was even more confident than I’d given him credit for. Handsome, charismatic Hyrkes dated Mederies, sure, but not many from