“A secret in exchange for a bit of trust. A bit of faith in me.”
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms.
“What if I told you I had a friend once who had a taste of that Old Magic? Who let it possess her until she told the grandest stories?”
I quirk an eyebrow, but he notices me shift on my feet in recognition.
A grin spreads across his face. “You know her too, don’t you?”
“You mean to tell me you’re friends with the Queen of Naenden?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
He shrugs. “She wasn’t always the queen, you know. She didn’t always have those scars, either.”
There’s a distance in his gaze, and I can’t decide if I find it sweet or despicable. On one hand, I imagine him remembering the occasion on which Asha lost her eye.
On the other, he looks as if he’s mourning who Asha was before the accident. Before she was queen.
I quite like her the way she is now.
“So she’s told you then,” he ventures, “about the female whose Magic closed the Rip between this world and the next?”
I frown.
“What, you’re still not convinced?” he asks.
I was. Just not ready to admit it yet. “The magic used the force of closing the Rip to separate itself from its fae host.” Who turned out to be the queen of Mystral, I don’t add.
“Exactly,” he says. “So here’s what I’m thinking. If the Old Magic closing the Rip between the realms was enough power to sever its connection to its fae host, then—”
“Then what if the power from opening the Rip would have the same effect…” I whisper, my voice trailing off as I turn to look at Nox.
And suddenly, there’s hope. As small as a termite in my chest, but burrowing forward all the same, until all my resolve to distrust this man threatens to crumble.
Because it’s not simply hope. At least, not the kind that wishes for the impossible.
It’s the kind that sees the evidence and puts all its trust in it.
It’s the kind that glimpses beyond the fog and leaps, not because it can see past the haze, but because the ledge is crumbling and there’s nowhere else to go.
“It’s been done before,” he says, shrugging.
“It’s been done before,” I repeat. My head snaps up. “But how would we even go about opening it?”
“Now that,” he says, leaning up against the wall, “will be up to you recruiting one of your friends to help us. I’d thought perhaps you would be able to open the Rip yourself, but you seem to have lost the power to do so.”
I frown, and it takes a moment to realize he’s talking about the parasite.
My mouth goes dry. “I’m not sure Asha will be easy to convince. Not with how much her Magic fears whatever’s on the other side of that Rip.”
A sly smile lines his lips. “You don’t strike me as the type to let something like a strong will keep you from getting your way.”
I turn and take one last look at Nox, at the way his eyes beat against his pale lids, and I can see it. Him holding a child that is not mine, embracing a woman who is not me.
There are things I can live without, but he is not one of them. Even if Lazarus’s Comet would work, there’s no guarantee I’ll live long enough to get the chance.
“And what’s your stake in this…?” I realize I don’t know his name.
He gives me a carefree wink, the kind that takes my breath away despite myself.
“My friends call me Az.”
“All right, Az.” I don’t bother fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “What’s your stake in this, and if Asha is your friend, why don’t you convince her yourself?”
For the briefest of moments, I think I catch his eyes narrowing, but then the moment’s over, and he’s back to wearing his carefree persona. “Let’s just say our goals no longer align.”
Hesitation braces my heart, the hope threatening to swell past the point of something I can manage. “And if I’m not able to convince her?”
“Well, then,” he says, sweeping a casual glance over Nox, “I suppose you’ll just have to determine with whom your goals align.”
I follow his gaze, allow my own to land on Nox, his skin pale and littered with speckles of light, his black hair combed back, his eyelids obscuring those beautiful blue eyes of his.
Eyes I don’t think I can wait a century to see again.
It’s in this moment, I know who I am. Though I should have guessed it already. Should have known the moment I chose my happiness over Nox’s wishes to fade into the night, to be erased from existence on his own terms.
Perhaps I should have realized before even then.
The moment the bell clanged above Madame LeFleur’s door.
