Nox furrows his brow in concern. “I wouldn’t break a promise to you, Blaise.”

I note how he doesn’t appeal to being fae—how he doesn’t remind me he can’t lie—and I tuck that information away. Nox is fae, but there’s something different about him. I can’t help but wonder if that something keeps him from bearing the consequences of the fae curse.

Still, I believe him. As much as I find Nox a mystery, as blatant as it is that he’s hiding something from me, there’s an earnestness in his demeanor that’s rather convincing.

Besides. I want to believe him.

So I do.

He pulls a shimmering silver rock out of his robe pocket and begins grinding it into powder with a hammer.

It doesn’t seem like the type of rock to disintegrate easily, and again I find myself wondering at his unnatural strength.

“What is that?” I ask, eyeing the silvery powder that flecks off the rock.

“This,” he says, gesturing toward the strange substance, “is remnants of a fallen star—the solution to your little parasite problem.”

A fallen star. A celestial object—one capable of channeling elemental magic. My heart skips, and before I know what I’m doing, I slam my fist into his shoulder.

“Ow,” he proclaims, though I know it’s more of a farce than an actual indication of pain. “I thought you’d be excited.”

Excited? I can hardly keep from dancing on my tiptoes, but I scrape all the irritation I can muster from the depths of my hopeful spirit and say, “You’ve been working for over an hour and you just now thought to share that with me?”

He shrugs. “I thought it would be more fun to leave you in suspense.”

I shove him with both hands this time, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, his gaze lingers on where my hands grasp at his robes. He takes them in his hands, restraining me like he did the day I stabbed him in the back of the hand, but there’s a playfulness in the gesture now, and he even brushes his thumbs over my wrists.

Pinpricks of excitement skitter across my skin where he touches me, and I sense something similar emanating from him. His gaze dips down to where his thumb gently caresses my skin. It lingers there for a moment before tracing the path up my arm and neck, until he’s staring at my mouth.

But then he flinches and squints, as if banishing a rotten memory, and he drops my hands.

Mortified—because clearly he’s just remembered that I’m infested with an ancient parasitic creature—I clear my throat and spout out the first thing that comes to mind. “So you snatched a star from the sky for me? All the other girls will be quite jealous.”

He chuckles, and the tension between us dissipates. “Actually, it had already fallen, though if you’d like me to fetch you a fresh one, I’m sure I could think of something.”

I blush at that, and his back immediately goes rigid. “So, how’d you get the idea to use a fallen star?” I ask. “I read in a grimoire the other day that people used to collect liquid moonlight.”

Turning his attention back to the crushed star on the table, he says, “Liquid moonlight is dreadfully unpredictable. This is a much more stable element. As for how I thought of it, you’d mock me if I told you.”

“And why should that stop you from telling me?”

He laughs at that, and I cherish the low rumble of it. “I suppose you’re right. It came to me in a dream.”

I arch a brow at him. “A dream?”

“Indeed.”

“That’s not at all concerning. The solution to the plague that’s ruining my life came to you in a dream.”

“Would it comfort you to know it was the good sort of dream?” he asks, a violent blizzard in his eyes as they flicker to meet mine.

A rush of emotions floods my limbs, and I chew on my lip. “That depends. What constitutes a good sort of dream for you?”

He blinks and for a moment looks startled, but he recovers quickly enough. “I don’t see why it should matter to you where the idea came from so long as the logic behind it is sound.” His face is pleasant, but his voice is tight.

I cross my arms, more so I can hug myself and squeeze away the contracting feeling in my chest than anything. “Then please. Go on with your explanation then. Consider me a captive audience.”

“All right, then. The thought didn’t initially occur to me, since stars aren’t widely used for harboring celestial power. There’s a host of them, of course, but it makes them difficult to channel directly. In this dream of mine, you suggested I simply take hold of a star and grind it to powder, like I’d do with any other element. At which point I realized I could do just that, given I obtained a fallen star.”

“Are those just lying around for the taking?” I gesture open palmed to the object in question, pointedly ignoring his admission that he’d dreamed of me. “How did you get your hands on one so quickly?”

He turns his back to the counter and leans against it, gripping the edges with his hands. He rolled up his sleeves earlier to work with the star powder, and it takes a great deal of effort for me not to admire the deep cut of his forearms.

“There’s a crater not far from Ermengarde where a fallen star bored its way into the earth hundreds of years ago. Most of the site has been excavated, but there are still remnants of the original star scattered about the place if you know where to look for them.”

“So you traipsed out to a crater and dug around in the dirt in the middle of the night?” I ask.

“Mhm.”

“Why go last night? Why not wait until today?”

Nox’s eyes flicker with something I don’t recognize, but he’s smiling down on me, and it’s hard to focus on much of anything when he’s looking at me like that. “You aren’t the urgent sort, are you, Blaise?”

I bite down on a grin and cross my arms, pivoting my upper body back and forth as I hug myself. “Not if it means interfering with my sleep, I’m not.” I settle onto my heels and ask, “So you think you’ll have something ready by the next full moon?”

“The next full moon?” he asks. “I don’t see why we can’t have something ready today.”

“Today?” My eyes go wide and I fumble for words.

“What? You’re not ready to be rid of me yet?”

What if I’d rather keep you?

I swallow, but I find my throat has gone dry, and I’m suddenly acutely aware of how near Nox is. “No, it’s not that. I just…I thought we needed the full moon to channel enough power to get this thing out of me.”

He palms what’s left of the fallen star and tosses it in his hand. “Why would we need a moon when we have this?”

He has a point. I suppose a celestial object in the hand is better than one in the sky.

“And the blood sacrifice?” I ask.

His irises go thin as his pupils widen, but when I blink, I decide it must have been a trick of the light. “I think we can get away with a different sort of sacrifice.”

“I can’t say I like the sound of that,” I admit.

When he pulls out a pair of scissors from the counter drawers, my blood stills.

“How attached are you to your hair?” he asks.