No one would have touched you.

No one would have touched you.

I hate this fae male, not only for the torture he’s put me through, but that somehow he knows.

I’m fully clothed, but I don’t feel it. I feel bared. Naked. Vulnerable before him.

Still. I cling to his words like they’re the only thing keeping me from plummeting through the ice, plunging into a frozen river.

No one would have touched you.

“Except for you, you mean.” I’m relieved when the words come out even, with only the slightest tremor.

He knows what I’m referring to. I can see it in the way his blue eyes trace my jaw, where he applied the wraithseeker yesterday. Today? A week ago?

Time is an elusive thing these days.

He blinks, his expression utterly devoid of regret. “I won’t pretend what I did—what I’m going to do to you—isn’t extremely invasive. But as long as you’re in my care, no one will touch you like that.”

A wry smirk tugs at my lips; it’s not intended to be friendly. Fates forbid he finds me placated.

“Is that how you soothe yourself to sleep at night, Farin? You tell yourself the innocent people you torture should be grateful to you for not molesting them?”

Farin goes rigid, and his long, pale fingers grope at the air. He swallows, and for a moment, I think I’ve gotten to him, but then his lips curve into a grin, and he winks at me. “Last I heard, you aren’t exactly innocent, now are you?”

I bristle and open my mouth to retort, but what is there to say? It’s not as if I ended up in the King of Dwellen’s dungeons due to a clerical error.

“You can call me Nox,” Farin says as he leans against the workbench and crosses his arms. His sleeves are rolled up from when he was mixing whatever elixir he was concocting earlier, exposing the muscles of his forearm. They’re pale, like they haven’t seen sunlight in years, but they’re not exactly flabby either—not at all what I’d expect from a genius recluse.

“I’d rather not call you anything.”

He lets out an agitated sigh, and it fogs the cool dungeon air. “That’s fine, as long as you don’t call me Farin.”

“What? You don’t like your given name? You named after a creepy uncle or something?”

He lets out a huff that’s reminiscent of a sneer, but I’m used to people not knowing what to do with my crassness. “Farin’s not my name. It never has been.” He shuffles uncomfortably, and as much as part of me would oh so thoroughly enjoy exploring the source of his discomfort, I stop myself before the taunts form on my lips.

The queen was the one who called him Farin earlier, and if Farin isn’t his birth name… My gaze darts back toward his pale skin, the shadows lurking underneath his eyes. He’s fae, so it’s unlikely that he’s as unhealthy as he looks, but still. Between the name that is not his name and the lack of sunlight evident on his skin, I can’t help but wonder what else of his the queen controls.

So I drop it. Farin—Nox, I mean—pulls up a chair next to my prison table and perches on it backwards, his long, sturdy legs splaying around the backrest. “You know, it would make it a whole lot easier on both of us if you would just tell me what you know about the parasite who takes up residence in here.” He points toward my forehead, and for a moment, I think he’s going to brush a strand of sweaty, matted hair from it, but he must think better of it, because he crosses his arms instead.

“I’d rather not,” I say, smiling sweetly at him.

“You’d rather not?”

“Nope.”

He quirks a brow so that it disappears underneath the raven-black hair falling onto his forehead. “Are you always this obstinate, Blaise?”

My jaw jerks at his intentional use of my name, which I’m sure he learned from the queen, who learned it from my stepmother. “I delight in it, actually. You don’t find it charming?”

Something akin to a smile tugs at his lips, but he masters himself well enough and doesn’t allow it to overtake his face.

“At home, I’m known for being quite lazy. Perhaps you would know that if you’d done a bit more research on me,” I say, smugly settling into the cold stone slab and closing my eyes, yawning.

I can feel him bristle in annoyance.

It’s not that I’m opposed to ridding myself of the parasite that’s attached itself to my mind. Gone. Goodbye. But I still don’t know what the queen wants with the magic. Between my jealous alter-ego and the queen’s horrifically uncalibrated moral compass, I can’t imagine anything good coming from their union.

I’m definitely in need of more information before I decide whether to assist Nox.

“I know you’re not actually asleep. I can hear your heart rate, your breathing.”

I flick my eyes open. “How charming. Is that a line you use often on women?”

He winks again. “Only on the ones I have chained up.”

This time Nox stands, and I can’t help but notice how tall he is, how he towers over me. But maybe that’s just the me-being-tied-to-a-table thing.

“You’re sure you don’t want to make this easier on yourself?” he asks.

I spit in his face.

Annoyance washes over his pale features, and his eyes flicker bright, dazzling. Dangerous. He wipes the spittle from his cheek, and the lopsided smirk that pulls at his lips is not at all amused.

“I’m afraid you’re not going to like the trial and error approach.”

He pulls something from his pocket and stuffs it into my face, covering my nose and mouth.

One shocked inhale from me, and everything goes black.

Except for the shining moonlight eyes burned into my vision.

CHAPTER 5

NOX

By the time I’m finished with Blaise, beads of sweat trickle down her forehead, mingling with the tears stained against her sallow cheeks.

I put her to sleep this time. It had only taken a whiff of my mandragora-soaked rag for slumber to sweep her and her snide little remarks away.

When she wakes, I suppose she’ll assume I did it to shut her up as a punishment for spitting on me.

That’s what I’ll probably tell myself, too.

Seems like a less dangerous explanation than the truth.

It takes me a bit of rummaging, but eventually I find a clean rag to blot her face with, to dab against her hairline, so at least she won’t have to wake to a face full of sweat.