By the end of the story, I find I’ve scooted down further into the floor, resting my head on Nox’s leg. He’s running his fingers through my hair absentmindedly as we sit in silence, as if we’re both trying to grasp onto the world of the story a little while longer.

The caress of his fingers against my scalp is so pleasant, I feel I could fall asleep like this. That perhaps I could drift off into this world he’s opened up for me—a world where the heroes defeat their villains and love is requited, and when the struggle is overcome, the heroes are rewarded with a happy ending.

Silly servant girl, only princesses get happy endings.

I suck in a breath at the same moment Nox asks, “Are you asleep?”

I clear my throat, the fog of Nox’s lulling voice and his warm touch dissipating, the panic of allowing myself to become so vulnerable in front of him stirring anxiety within me.

This is just like me. Just like the Blaise I’ve always been, trusting the male whose literal job is to torture me. Who values me only because of the parasite that lurks within the shadows of my mind.

I shoot straight up, placing as much distance between myself and Nox as possible. He frowns, and confusion sweeps over his impeccable features. I try not to let it affect me, but am rather unsuccessful. He glances down at his hand, where my hair was entangled just a moment ago, and his leg where my head was resting as if he’s feeling their absence. “Did I overstep?” he asks, his voice calm but reticent.

I swallow, but I can’t bring myself to answer his question. Not when another question lies beneath the surface. Did I overstep, and does it have something to do with why you freaked out when you thought someone might have touched you when you were Cinderella?

Cinderella. “What day is it?” I ask.

Nox blinks, clearly confused. But then understanding washes over his expression like snow slipping from the side of a steep mountain slope. “The final day of the mooncycle.”

“Right.” I bring my knees to my chest. Apparently I think the pressure from my bony kneecaps will somehow express the anxiety bulging in my ribcage, like a fingernail to a zit.

“Blaise.” Nox reaches for me, but I must look like a feral animal, because he bites the side of his lip and withdraws his hand. “We’ll keep her under strict watch. Between Gunter and me, we won’t allow her to—”

“No.” I shake my head frantically, the rocking motion becoming more intense.

“No?”

“No, you can’t. You and Gunter, you can’t see her.”

The crevice between Nox’s dark brows deepens. “Blaise, I promise we won’t let her get away with anything that might harm you. She needs to be monitored. We have no idea what she plans to do, and perhaps, if we could reason with her…”

“No. Please. Please promise me you won’t speak to her, won’t come near her.” I’m practically sobbing now, any peace from Nox’s beautiful book having drained from my pores and seeped into the grout on the floor.

“We won’t—”

“No. She’ll try to make a bargain. I know you think you’re clever enough to outsmart her, but she’ll find a way. She always does. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s ancient, Nox. I saw the effect she had on Evander, and if you get anywhere near her, she’ll sink her claws into you, too. And Gunter. She has this thing about seducing males, and—” I hold up my hand, because Nox has opened his mouth to say something. “Please, just let me finish. I promise you, speaking with her, interacting with her; it will only cause trouble. And she’s beautiful and I can’t, I can’t…”

Images of a pale-haired woman climbing into Nox’s lap flood my mind, her lips upon his, his hands snaking up to unlatch her clothes. And then I’m back in that closet, being carried into the pantry hardly big enough to fit two.

Rage and shame barrel through me, and though it’s the parasite I should hate in this moment, Derek I should hate, it’s not them I despise. It’s the little girl, too stupid to know what is happening, too dull and desperate for attention to scream.

My lungs are moving, but only to push air out. They’re malfunctioning, refusing to allow me to take a breath. Black spots speckle the corners of my vision.

Faintly, as if in the distance, I can feel Nox’s presence as he draws near. “It’s just me,” he whispers. “I’m going to hold you until you can breathe again,” he says. I nod my head, and then strong arms engulf me, bringing me into his warm embrace.

“I won’t come to see her tonight. I’ll make sure Gunter doesn’t either. We’ll find another way,” he says.

Nox holds me until I can breathe again, and quite a long time after that.

CHAPTER 15

NOX: AGE ELEVEN

The queen is a dreadful instructor; I find soon enough.

Her workshop is adjacent to her quarters. On my first day as an apprentice, she tells me the king had had it specially hewn into the ancient stone just for her the week following their wedding.

It’s spacious and dark and dimly lit by lantern light that bounces off the curved glass edges of the assortment of vials that fill the room.

I feel instantly that this is home.

There’s a twinge of guilt that accompanies that thought, but the reminder of how proud my parents will be when they receive my letter quells it until it’s manageable.

It’s then that the queen gets to work, and everything unravels from there.

In the first few weeks of my training, the queen is insistent on demonstrating.

That is about all she’s good at.

It’s not that the queen isn’t a genius when it comes to magic—she is. She can mix dried prawnberries and smoked lentils and make a remedy for croup, but then if she grinds the prawnberries only a bit finer, she can use the same recipe to concoct a poison that accelerates the disease.

It’s fascinating, and I don’t understand how she does it.

That’s most of the problem.

I’m not sure she understands how she does it, either.

Anything she makes in front of me, I can replicate with ease, but as soon as she wants me to change the product, to alter the recipe, she can’t seem to provide any guidance.

For instance, she can’t tell me why grinding prawnberries into a finer powder draws out the more deadly aspects of the fruit, only that it does.

She also can’t tell me why the same principle doesn’t work for hyacrith, a close cousin of the prawnberry.

It’s like her mind is a recipe book, but she wasn’t the one to write it.

Which I find confusing, since she claims to have been the first to discover most of these solutions.

It’s not long before I come to realize that, though I will learn to mix a variety of potions under the watch of the queen, I will never match her abilities.

I will only ever memorize, though my mind, the same mind the queen so aptly complimented, wishes to do so much more.

It wants to take the properties of the queen’s ingredients and rearrange them, turn them into something bold and new. But there is a key to the properties of these ingredients, and it’s locked away in the queen’s mind, and I don’t believe she quite knows where it is or how to share it with me.

Three weeks in, and I start to wonder why it’s taking so long for my parents to respond to my letter. When I ask the queen about it, she laughs and comments, “Children, such impatient little things.”

I don’t appreciate being referred to as a child, not when I’m her apprentice, but that doesn’t end up mattering, because that morning when the servant arrives to fetch me from my room, he doesn’t take me to the queen’s quarters.

Instead, we wind through dark stone corridors, down a grisly staircase, and into the dungeons.