“You never told us your name,” I say, examining Zora as she scarfs down the berries I left untouched before my and Farin’s expedition. She’s thinner here than she is back home. Her cheeks are caverns compared to what they usually are. The sullenness of them highlights her cheekbones and makes them look as if they’ll slice anyone who comes near, especially in the light of the fire we’ve lit in the cave. Her hair is different too. In Abra’s shrine, it falls across the emerald dais in waves before cascading to the floor. Here she has it cropped short and messy, barely long enough to cover her pointed ears, as if having it any longer would only get in her way.
“Elini,” she says in between handfuls of berries. “And you are Nox,” she says, nodding at me. She gestures toward Farin. “And you are?”
The grin that warps Farin’s lips has my fingers clenching into a fist.
“Whoever you want me to be,” he says, as easily as one might expect from someone as schooled in manipulation as he is, being Abra’s child.
Zora’s cheeks flush red, leaving me for once grateful for the disgusting hare blood currently sloshing in my stomach. I’ll have to be careful to keep myself satiated around my sister. My hunger is always worse around those whose blood I’ve already tasted. For years, Abra punished me by forcing me to feed on Zora. I’m just waiting for the cravings to kick in, nauseous as it makes me to consider that.
Still, whatever makes blood in this realm taste so vile must also have an appetite-curbing effect, because though I note the smattering of blood across her cheeks, my hunger doesn’t stir.
My irritation, on the other hand, does.
Apparently it’s not enough for Farin to gloat about taking Blaise away from me; he also feels the need to flirt with my sister while he’s at it.
“Your true name will be just fine,” she says evenly, schooling her voice even if she can’t hide her flush.
He tells her, and she tries the name out on her tongue. “Farin,” she says, as if it’s familiar to her. “Kind to meet you, Farin.”
“The pleasure is mine,” he says back, and the curious smile that brushes his features almost makes him look sane. It’s unnerving.
“What landed you on this island?” I ask, hoping to break the smoldering stare between my sister and the male who’d rather see me dead.
“A shipwreck. Same as two of you.”
“Yes, but why were you on a ship?” I ask.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “To sail. Are there other reasons?”
“I think what my companion means is where were you hoping to arrive? I imagine it wasn’t this island,” Farin says.
“Ah. That.” Zora wipes her mouth hesitantly on her tattered sleeve. “I was…” She furrows her brow for a moment before shaking her head. “The word is gone from my head.” Zora makes a starburst motion with her hand before returning to her food.
Farin and I exchange a look, but we don’t press her further.
“And you?” she asks. “You find cave, yet you leave it at night when caves are most useful.”
That question catches me off guard, but Zora’s staring at me, not at Farin, so I can’t let it show on my face.
“Oh, that’s to be more accommodating to Nox’s sleep schedule,” Farin says, not helping in the slightest. It’s technically not a lie, though it only barely borders the truth.
“In our homeland, most of the game is nocturnal,” I explain. “Those of us who hunt must do so under the cover of night.”
I’m fairly pleased with my answer until she looks me up and down and says, “Forgive me. You don’t look same as hunter.” Then she turns to Farin. “You look like hunter.”
A smile flickers at Farin’s lips, but his eyes don’t partake. “That was my father. I’m afraid I didn’t inherit his skill.”
It strikes me then that Farin is speaking the truth.
“Hm. Too bad,” she says before looking at her berry-stained, empty hands with a forlorn expression. Then, without warning, she curls up on the ground and goes to sleep.
I decide that when I manage to wake Zora from her enchanted slumber, we’re having a long talk about safety awareness.
Farin retires next, leaning against the cave wall and closing his eyes. I listen to his breath until it slows, though I don’t trust him not to be faking sleep.
I spend the next several hours playing over my plan in my mind, though calling it a plan would probably be more generous than it’s worth. More like the beginnings of a dozen plans, none of them actually taking form, since all of them seem to have unpleasant consequences if they go wrong.
My inclination is still to kill Farin, but there seems to be a fifty-fifty chance that this will send his consciousness back into my body. My body, which resides in the same world as Blaise. That’s not exactly something I’m willing to risk. We seem to be on our way to fulfilling whatever Blaise’s tapestry has in store for us now that we’ve met Zora. Because of the ritual Abra performed on my body, I’m still fairly certain this will end with me waking in my own body, but trapped under Farin’s influence, so I’m less than enthused about his plan.
I could kill myself, hoping that would send my consciousness back to my body, but again, this seems risky, given that if I die here, I don’t know that I won’t die there too. Or worse, die here and allow Farin free rein of my body with me out of the way.
Free to sweep into Blaise’s life and take my place.
There’s a part of me that feels guilty for even thinking that way, for doubting her. For entertaining the idea that Blaise could allow herself to be entranced by a monster like Farin.
But she’s fallen for a monster already, hasn’t she?
She discovered I was a bloodthirsty murderer who preyed on the innocent, and she’d seen herself in me.
There’s a part of me that worries Blaise loves me because of the darkness that haunts me. A part of her that loves that we’re no different. That I understand her.
That same part of me worries that Farin’s darkness might be just as intoxicating, if not more potent.
I try to trust her, but it’s a struggle between the two sides of my consciousness, and I’ve never learned to master the balance.
Besides, there’s no unfeeling her kiss on my lips, hungry and desperate and consuming. But that kiss wasn’t for me.
It was for him.
