CHAPTER 19
BLAISE
Nox can’t seem to stop bumping into me today.
At first, I told myself I was imagining it, reading alternate meanings into casual accidents. I have a propensity for reading into things, after all. One could argue that’s what got me imprisoned in the first place—reading simmering desire into Evander’s brotherly affection.
But this is the seventh time today Nox has either nudged me with his elbow, bumped into my hip, or brushed his fingers against my hand while he passes me a vial, and I can’t shake the notion that I am definitely not reading into this.
He can’t seem to keep his hands off me, and while I should be complaining, I’m not.
“You seem oddly…cheerful today,” I say when he scrapes his arm against my shoulder while reaching for a flask he could have easily circled around me to get.
I’m not really sure what I’m doing at the workbench with him. It’s not as if I have a clue what any of the materials that fill the vials are, but when Nox strolled into the dungeon this morning, he asked me to join him, and I did.
It’s not as if I have anything better to do.
“Is that a problem?” he asks, flashing an uncharacteristically charming grin down at me.
“I don’t suppose so,” I say, eyeing him warily.
I can’t say I mind Nox’s change in mood. I liked him just as well when he was all sulky and depressed, but there’s something about the lightness in his step that’s as disarming as it is contagious.
People always say that good moods are infectious, but as someone who’s carrying a parasite within my body, you can’t blame me if I’m suspicious of anything that sounds remotely transmittable.
I bite my lip, chewing on whether to ask him about what’s actually bothering me. There’s a part of me that can’t shake the dread that Nox’s mood has something to do with the fact that last night was the full moon.
It makes me sick to even think it, and I know Nox promised me he wouldn’t pay a visit to Cinderella, but there’s something about losing control of my body for several hours and not remembering a thing that leaves me ill.
At least I didn’t wake covered in blood this morning, though my muscles were sore and I did feel as though I’d been hit by a carriage. My pulse thuds through my wrist, knocking at a dull pain, but each time I examine it, there’s no sign of injury. I must have slept on it wrong last night after the parasite lost control of my body. If I know her, she probably curled up with my wrist at an odd angle just to torture me.
In the end, I decide the anxiety gnawing at my chest can’t be any worse than the humiliation of asking Nox what he was up to last night. “So you didn’t end up spying on my evil alter ego last night?” I ask, hardly masking the tension in my throat.
Nox creases his eyebrows and sets down the frothing flask into which he’s been measuring canary yellow powder and turns his focus on me. “Of course not. I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Right. Of course you did. I don’t mean I thought you talked to her or anything, but you didn’t even take a peek? You know, let your curiosity get the better of you? I wouldn’t really blame you if you did.”
I taste the lie as soon as it leaves my lips, but I am too embarrassed to take it back.
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.”
