Pecan tarts have even started to make an appearance.

The hot food he brings, but each day my plate is suspiciously lacking any utensils sharper than a spoon.

I suppose that’s only fair.

The strength returns to my body drop by drop, and the layer of fat that usually coats my thighs and belly forms like a puddle underneath a leaky faucet. I’m healthier than I was when I first awoke, though the lack of sunlight leaves my already pale skin looking almost translucent.

I’m still not as pale as Nox, whose milk-white skin looks as though it’s never been struck by a ray of sunlight.

Though I am growing healthier, it’s clear Nox is not. The shadows underneath his eyes that I noted upon our first encounter have seeped toward his cheekbones, gaining ground every day. He’s constantly pinching his forehead, and when he looks at me, it’s as though he has to strain to get my image to come into focus.

If he were human, I would assume he’d fallen ill, but he’s fae, and the fae aren’t supposed to succumb to sickness.

And if they do, something has gone horribly wrong.

I shouldn’t be worrying about Nox. I’ve heard stories of girls who develop unhealthy attachments to their captors, and I’m fairly sure fretting over their wellbeing is like telling myself I can balance on the edge of a cliff on only my big toe.

But the male brings me pastries—often of the pecan variety now that he suggested as much to his cook after I gave him the idea—so what else am I to do but fret over his wellbeing?

He stands across the dimly lit room, his back turned to me as it so often is. It’s been days since he’s forced me back into my restraints, and the raw flesh that marks my wrists is just beginning to heal. I perch on the ledge of my table-bed, watching him slice a grayish root before pulverizing it with a pestle and mixing it into a brownish liquid.

The result is less than pleasant to look at, and even worse to smell.

A foul, sour odor leaks into the air, causing my nose to turn upward and my stomach to turn over.

“Please tell me that’s meant to be topical,” I say, swinging my feet and relishing how the backs of them scrape against the stone altar. It’s been days, but I still can’t get enough of moving freely.

He glances behind his shoulder at me and winks. “It’s meant to be topical.”

Something about the way he says it doesn’t at all sound convincing, but he’s fae, and fae aren’t supposed to be able to lie. Though perhaps he’s found a way to get around the curse so long as his lips drip with enough sarcasm to imply the truth in his statements?

Nox turns back toward his foul concoction, and I’m not as surprised as I should be when I feel the absence of his gaze. A hole where him looking at me had just been.

Just like the day I tried to escape, when he’d grabbed my wrists and pushed me back into my cell with the force of his body.

His touch has been lingering like an unwanted phantom ever since.

Not good. Very, very not good.

He’s the deadly sort of handsome. The type I know shouldn’t attract me as much as it does.

But I’m not exactly known for making the best decisions, either. For being drawn to the people who would actually suit me.

Evander’s laugh rings in my ears, and for a moment, I let the guilt seep through the cracks in the shell I’ve tried to construct around my heart. The guilt is a silly emotion, altogether misplaced. It’s as if I think sitting here appreciating Nox’s ghostly allure somehow betrays Evander, though I have no right to that sort of loyalty—I never have. And it’s not as if Evander would care if my attentions flitted elsewhere, except that I’m fairly sure the male who’s always seen me as a sister would find it displeasing that the object of such attentions has a tendency to torture me for long stretches of time.

Yeah, definitely shouldn’t be ogling my captor-torturer. Gross, Blaise.

“I’ve decided to take you up on your offer,” I say before my traitorous mind can run too far with my apparently very-sick fantasies.

Nox turns again, this time with the mortar of putrid paste in tow, and quirks a dark brow. “What offer?”

“Un-uh,” I say, pointing toward the abominable concoction. “You’ll have to put that away if you want to find out.”

His pale eyes light with suspicion, like he thinks I’m trying to forestall my daily dose of torture, which I suppose is a benefit to bringing up this topic at this exact second. But he places the mortar on the counter behind him and covers it with a lid (which does almost nothing to douse the odor). He then props himself against the counter, clutching the edges with his hands, expectantly.

“You told me when I first arrived”—it occurs to me I was technically unconscious upon arrival at the castle—“well, when I first woke up, I suppose, that things would go much more smoothly if I helped you. You know, told you what I knew about it. I’ve decided that, although I’m not naturally inclined to assist kidnappers who torture me on a daily basis, assisting you does seem like the most efficient way to put an end to the kidnapping and torturing.”

Nox taps his fingers underneath the edge of the counter as he sizes me up. “Why the sudden change of heart? Your situation hasn’t changed since you first arrived.”

“Yeah, well, it’s difficult to reason when you’re starving,” I say, and I don’t know if it’s the way the light flickers or if he actually flinches. “Now that my mind is fully functional, it seems pretty clear that we have the same goal.”

I’m rather glad he doesn’t ask if it matters to me whether the queen gets her hands on the parasite. Since I decided it was in my best interest to assist him, I’ve pretty much banished from my mind any thought of the consequences of the queen possessing such a power.

It’s not so hard to pretend away problems that don’t yet exist.

After all, I am so very good at pretending.

“And after we extract the magic from your veins?” he asks. Am I imagining it, or do his pale eyes flash with color on that last word?

I swallow. This is the part of the conversation I’ve been nervous about. Not as much because I don’t already know that the queen is likely to dispose of me once she gets what she wants, but it’s unnerving to have that confirmed in the way Nox shifts under my gaze. “One would think cooperation would gain favor in the sight of the queen. That someone close to her might convince her to let me go.”

Nox lets out a laugh, and it’s equal parts cruel and agitated. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stake your hope in my sway over the queen.”

“I’m not,” I say, too embarrassed to admit that I was, “but surely she’s motivated to have the magic extracted as quickly as possible. It might be worth it to her, to swear to let me go if I aid you.”

“I can certainly try, but I find it unlikely the queen will ever allow you to leave these walls.”

The words aren’t unexpected, but it’s like he’s laid a damp cloth over my heart.

He must recognize my disappointment, because he says, “If it’s any consolation, I doubt the queen will end your life.”

“Why not?”

Nox sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “The queen has her own moral compass, if you will. I wouldn’t exactly say that it points due north, but it operates by her own standards. She doesn’t like to murder unnecessarily. Don’t misunderstand me, she’ll take a life without batting an eyelash if she deems it inevitable, but she prefers not to if she can help it. That doesn’t mean she’ll allow you to leave, though.”

“And what about you?” I can’t help but ask. “Does she let you leave?”

Instead of answering, he rolls down his sleeves from where he secured them out of his way earlier when he was mixing the foul potion. He buttons them at the wrists, then reaches for a leather-bound notebook. When he crosses the room and hands it to me, I notice the notebook isn’t black like I first assumed, but a deep scarlet, like blood just before it dries.

I unbind the leather straps securing the notebook, but when I open it, I find the parchment inside is blank. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

He cocks his head to the side. “You can’t write?”

“Of course I can write,” I snap, with a bit too much bite to be entirely believable, but if Nox notices, he doesn’t comment on it.

I can technically write, but it’s effortful, and I’ve been told by the plethora of tutors the King of Dwellen hired on my behalf that my writing is practically illegible. Not only does my script come out with random spaces between the wrong letters, words often find themselves misspelled. The letters have a way of coming out of my brain in one direction and finding themselves in the opposite once the ink touches the page.

“It’s just that I can talk much faster than I write,” I feel the need to explain.