I already know what waits inside.

It takes three days locked in a room with her for me to break.

I never hate myself more than the moments I dig my canines into her limp wrist, the moments I steal the blood from the person I love the most in this world.

The worst of it is that I don’t know how to stop, not without the queen behind me to break my neck before I go too far. I suppose proving that is the point of the queen’s exercise.

So when I’m moments away from taking too much blood, when I’m a breath away from stealing life from this world, I’m grateful for the queen’s gentle hands in my hair, the sharp snap of the bones in my neck, for the shadows that steal me away.

CHAPTER 23

BLAISE

I recover well before Nox returns.

There’s little I remember about the days following our failed attempt to rid me of the parasite. Most of it’s a blur of flashing white light and languishing moments of the deepest darkness.

The rest of it is absolutely nothing.

It’s almost as if for a few days, I don’t exist.

But then there is a hum, gentle and deep, and it tugs at my consciousness and drags me to the surface.

Later, I come to find out that the tune that moored me to reality was Gunter’s, and that the melody is a lullaby his mother used to sing to him as a child.

I ask him to sing to me the words, but he doesn’t remember them.

There’s a sadness in his eyes when he tells me that, and I can’t help but wonder what else he’s forgotten.

Gunter’s been staying in my cell since the accident. He sleeps on the dais, while he allows me to have the plush pallet on the floor. It’s the best sleep I’ve stolen since I arrived here. The blankets are made of alpaca wool. They’re soft and warm and a stark contrast from the dais atop which Gunter now sleeps.

I’ve offered to switch places with him, but he refuses. He says he doesn’t want me toppling off the dais and hitting my head in the middle of the night, but I think he just prefers I sleep somewhere more comfortable.

I’ve determined I like Gunter.

In only one aspect does he fail me, and that’s his refusal to tell me what’s become of Nox. So even though I sleep through the night now, I dream of a boy with pointed ears and shadows under his eyes and irises as frozen as a lake in winter.

In those dreams, Nox is always soaked in blood.

I can never tell if the blood belongs to him or someone else.

What it did to Nox when he almost killed me by accident, I can’t imagine. Surely that has something to do with why he hasn’t been to see me. I would prefer that to the other option: that he’s unable to see me. That the queen is displeased by his failure and has decided to punish him.

Gunter won’t tell me either way, so I listen to his gentle snores and wish Nox would walk through that dungeon door, if only so I could tell him I don’t blame him for what happened.

Once Gunter is assured I finally have my wits about me, he explains what he believes went wrong. He says the potion I drank attacked the site at which the parasite has joined itself to me, but that it wasn’t powerful enough to fully sever the connection. Gunter believes the parasite fought back.

He doesn’t say it this way, but I get the impression he thinks the parasite dug its claws in deeper.

Apparently, the agony of the struggle sent my mortal body into shock.

I don’t fully understand at first, but he tells me it was like stomping upon a spider, only to realize too late that the spider is carrying an egg sac, and now there are hundreds of little spiders crawling about instead of just the one.

When he is done explaining, I tell him I wish he hadn’t.

I ask him if that means there’s more than one parasite in me now, and he shakes his head. Says that he only means we’d multiplied the problem.

Basically, that we hadn’t stomped hard enough.

I’m thinking about the baby spiders when the door creaks and Nox enters the room. Maybe that’s why I notice the dark veins underneath his eyes that remind me of webs.

But there’s nothing about Nox’s appearance that could keep me from doing what I do next.

And when I leap from my pallet on the floor and into his arms, wrapping him up in a hug, I can’t help but notice he’s shaking.

Nox returns my embrace, but his limbs are stiff and trembling, and he’s so still it’s like he’s holding his breath.

When he pulls away, a bit of my heart crumples.

“I was so worried about you,” I say, hugging myself and not sure where to look now that I’ve launched myself at him and he’s responded by placing a distance between us that feels about as surmountable as a chasm.

He doesn’t acknowledge my admission. He just scans me with those icy blue eyes of his. First my neck, which his gaze lingers on long enough to make me fidget on my heels. Then my mouth, which I suppose he last saw foaming—so that’s not mortifying at all. Then the rest of me.

A shudder sweeps down my spine, and Nox’s gaze bounces behind me, where he must have noticed Gunter asleep on the dais.

“Do you have any lingering symptoms?” he asks, and though I’m a little shocked this is his first question, that it sounds so technical, I shake my head.

“Just a little weak, that’s all.”

He swallows. “Good.”

We stand there in silence for a moment before he speaks again. “Blaise, I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what to say. I should have never pushed you into taking the elixir so quickly.”

I shrug, trying to lighten the mood, but Nox looks as ill as ever. “It’s not like you shoved it down my throat.”

This doesn’t have the effect I intended, and Nox’s eyes smooth to glass for half a second. But then he’s back and apologizing to me. “I don’t know what came over me. It’s not like me to rush into that sort of experiment. Not without an antidote in mind. Not without Gunter there to assist should something go wrong.”

I reach out to place a hand on his arm, but he shrugs it away.

My heart wilts, and though his look is apologetic, it almost makes it worse.

Fates, I’ve misread him. He cares that he hurt me unnecessarily, but only because he’s not heartless. Not because he’s been harboring anything other than natural kindness for me.

I steel myself.

If I know how to do anything well, it’s smirk in the face of unrequited feelings.

“Was the queen so troubled over my condition that she punished you on my behalf?” I tease, though I draw my hand to my side and start picking at my trousers. Nox’s trousers, technically.