I couldn’t bring myself to kill him like he asked. Couldn’t bring myself to do what he wanted.

I’m as selfish as I’ve ever been, and loving Nox has not changed that.

Maybe he’s happy in the life he walks now, though I try to avoid the thought for multiple reasons. The first being Gunter’s tapestries, the ones that run the lengths of the hallways and have led Zora through a hundred different lives, all with different goals in mind.

But Gunter is gone, and there’s no one to weave a beautiful story into a tapestry for Nox, and I fear I’ve launched him into the abyss with no guidance.

I fear what will happen when Zora reaches the last thread of whatever tapestry she’s working through now. That when she wakes up and finds out what I’ve done to her brother, she won’t understand.

That she’ll despise me for it.

I don’t know that I can stand it if Nox’s sister hates me.

I’m so used to being disregarded, looked down upon, and most of the time I can brush it off.

But if Zora glares at me with eyes I imagine to be as stunning and fierce as the sun itself, I will wilt.

So I spin thread, and occasionally hold Nox’s hand while I wait for my friends, and try not to imagine that in whatever life Nox is living, he’s holding the hand of some other girl. That he’s got their child wrapped up in his arms.

I fear one day I’ll rip him from that happiness and bring him back to me.

If I can find a way to make an end of Farin, that is.

Which seems unlikely.

So perhaps I should wish for Nox to find someone else.

I’m not sure that I’ve grown into that sort of woman yet, but something tells me I’ll have the time while he sleeps.

My heart aches and hangs heavily in my chest. Day turns to night, and I’ve about decided to climb into the bed next to Nox and cry into his chest when the door opens.

Scattered moonlight peppers the floor and illuminates a man.

His hair is dark, his skin naturally tanned, though from his coloring it looks as though he’s been avoiding the sun about as much as I have. His sage-green eyes are kind and clever.

I recognize him as the man from the inn.

“You shouldn’t wander about in places like this,” I say, stretching my sore limbs and standing to face him. It’s odd, how like her I sound, how formidable and cruel.

I didn’t ask to be formidable and cruel.

I only asked to live.

I wonder if at some point, the queen of Mystral made the same bargain.

“From the looks of it, I don’t believe I’m the one who’s wandering,” says the man, his gaze quickly evaluating Nox and Zora as they sleep before returning his attention to me.

“You followed me,” I say.

“I did.”

“You can’t be in here,” I say, and it’s true.

“Why?” he asks, lazily putting his hands in the pockets of his black pants. “You can’t let it get out that there are two realm-walkers trapped in a suspension state lying unprotected in the castle?”

I let my canines flash. “I wouldn’t say they’re unprotected.”

If I unsettle him at all, he doesn’t let it show. Instead, he crosses the light-flecked floor and takes a seat at the edge of Zora’s bed.

When I hiss at him, he only returns it with an amused grin.

I return it by launching myself at him and pinning him against the wall by his throat.

His pulse tickles my fingertips, but it doesn’t race like I expect it to.

The man just looks down at me with those striking green eyes, evaluating me like I’m a table at an auction.

“What do you want?” I ask, unsettled.

“I already told you. I want a partnership,” he says, though his voice is a bit strained from where I’m still clasping at his throat. I could kill him right now and be done with it. Rid this world of a witness to Nox’s vulnerability.

I can tell by his scent exactly how his blood would taste in my throat.

“You’ve forgotten to feed,” he says, staring down at me in amusement.

I have no idea how he knows about my vampirism, but I’d rather him not see how much that unsettles me, so I quirk him a grin. “Maybe I haven’t forgotten. Perhaps I’m simply lazy and prefer my meals to come to me.”

“Perhaps,” he says, though he doesn’t seem as bothered as he should.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“A friend of a friend, so I’m told,” he says, which is utterly unhelpful. It works as intended. Though I’m still suspicious, I can’t shake the anxiety that Evander and Ellie sent him looking for me, and that’s why he stumbled upon me at the inn. That he has some news to relay from my friends.

My grip loosens around his neck, though not enough that I couldn’t snap it the next instant if I decided such action were necessary.

“It seems you’re in a predicament,” he says, his eyes flashing toward the two beds behind me.

“And it seems you already knew about it before you set foot in this room,” I shoot right back.

The corners of his lips bend downward like the bough of a pine carrying too much snow. There’s mockery in his frown. “We’ve already discussed this, regarding your friend Imogen. Servants talk, even after they’ve been run off from their former place of employment. Perhaps especially then.”

I eye him warily, but even I have to admit, it was likely a poor decision to force the servants to leave.

At the time, I’d been worried I might feed on them in my distress. So concerned that I hadn’t considered the consequences of sending them away. What sort of rumors they might spread.

Whose ears they might reach.

Then again, I’d expected my friends to arrive before now.