I wait, and after a moment, he continues. “I got it into my head that if I could bring back the queen’s son, she’d finally decide I was no longer of any use for her. That her obsession with me would fade, eclipsed by her joy of being reunited with her son. So I sought to bring him back.”

“You wanted to resurrect him?”

Nox shakes his head. “Not exactly. There wasn’t a body to resurrect. Only ashes. But I thought if we could find a host, a body to act as a shell, we could imbue the body with Farin’s spirit. His soul.”

My mouth goes dry. “Souls stick around in the ashes of a body?”

“Not exactly,” Nox says, and I feel a bit of relief. “Even then, I didn’t expect the boy to truly be Farin. More like the essence of him. But I hoped it would be enough for the queen. It took very little convincing to get her to agree. I told her to recover a corpse she thought was befitting to house her son.”

“But she had other things in mind.” My stomach recoils.

“Exactly.” Nox still doesn’t look at me. He just stares at the same spot on the floor like his life depends on it.

Like my life depends on it, I suppose.

“Gunter warned me not to dabble in this sort of magic. Not to trust the queen. But I wouldn’t listen. And when it came time to perform the ritual, the queen hadn’t produced a body. I thought she was just being particular and couldn’t find a body worthy of suiting her son, but I was wrong. She’d had a plan all along. The first part of the ritual involved drinking…well, a rather displeasing concoction that included the ashes of the deceased.”

My dinner churns at the thought.

“She shoved it down my throat before I realized what was happening. I remember nothing after that. Not until I woke up, at least. She performed the ritual without me, but it didn’t go as planned. When I woke I was different. Something else. Something not quite fae. I could lie without consequence, and then there was him…”

He trails off for a little while, and I debate whether to prod. Not that I wish to rush his story, but the more he talks, the less tense his muscles seem, the less he looks like he’s moments away from closing the distance between us.

“Does that mean he’s inside you now?” I whisper when the silence stretches on for too long.

Nox picks at the grout between the stone that makes up the floor.

“His essence, yes.”

A shudder creeps up my spine, but it’s not fear that rattles me.

A brilliant flare of commiseration rushes through me, and I try to shove it down, tuck it away.

I’ve no business glorying in someone else’s possession, even if it does make me feel less alone.

And I don’t. Not really. I ache for him, even more than I ache for myself.

But there’s an understanding there too. One I’m grateful to be privy to.

“Can you feel him?” I ask, and Nox nods.

“Sometimes. He’s hungry. Always. But not for food or drink. He’s hungry for…for pain. I can’t describe it, but when I cause pain…” He swallows, like he’s trying to force the words out. “If I go too long without causing suffering, the headaches and body aches set in.”

A chill sweeps through the room. “You started rubbing your temple all the time. It was after you stopped torturing me,” I say.

Nox doesn’t look up. “I didn’t want you to suffer.”

I bite my lip. “But then, there have been times since then that you’ve seemed…better.”

The question lingers between us, stale as the dank dungeon air. All the question implies.

And all of a sudden, I’m picturing Nox, but it’s not the Nox I’ve come to care for. It’s the Nox from the day of the parchment cut, the Nox with his hands wrapped around me like I was his possession.

What if I’d rather keep you?

It’s that Nox I picture slicing into the flesh of his victims with a scalpel. That Nox I picture ripping bones from sockets.

I feel as though I’m going to be sick.

“What do you do to them?” I ask, because it’s the only thing I can do from hurling my guts up all over the floor.

Only then does he look up at me, and the shadows underneath his eyes have darkened.

Hunter. Predator.

Teeth pressing against my flesh. The way Nox went crazed the day I sliced my finger on the parchment of the grimoire.

The way his eyes brighten with hunger.

My hands find my mouth as I stifle a gasp.

He eats them. Fates, Nox eats them.

I lose the contents of my stomach all over the floor.

Nox flinches, but it’s not disgust with my retching that I glimpse in his cold, dead eyes.

I wipe the bile from my mouth with my sleeve. “How often do you eat people?”

Nox frowns, and it’s as if realization registers on his face. “I feed on blood, not flesh. I try to keep myself full on the blood of animals to stave off my hunger. It’s typically effective, though not always with the headaches. Animal blood helps, but it never fully assuages the symptoms. Even feeding... There’s a venom in my fangs that numbs my victims. It’s like the Fates doled out a punishment befitting their convict.”

“I’m not sure why the fact that you only drink people, rather than eating them, makes me feel better, but it does,” I say, and Nox’s laugh comes out strained. Shocked.

“You can make light of anything, can’t you?”

“It’s a specialty.” I shrug, though I hardly have the balance for it with my head still spinning.

Nox goes silent and answers my next question. “I’ve slipped before. Killed humans and fae alike. Most of my victims happened in the beginning, in the year following my Turning. The hunger pangs were more difficult to control then, and I would sneak out of the castle at night and find my victims in the surrounding villages. Gunter did his best to keep my thirst quenched, but the animal blood didn’t satiate me the way human blood did.”

“Why not lock you up?” I ask.

“The queen forbade it. She hated me once I turned. Blamed me for wasting the ashes of her son. I suppose she thinks I ruined any chance of her truly having him back. So she let me stalk the villages, because she knew when I woke the next morning, I would blame myself. That I’d drown in guilt to the point my body craved blood like yours craves air. It was a horrible cycle, but Gunter ultimately got me through it. Eventually the hunger pains became more manageable, and I stopped letting my guilt control me. It only made my cravings worse.”

“But you still kill sometimes.”

It comes out as an accusation, and I’m not sure that’s accidental.

“When I think I can go longer stretches without drinking animal blood. When I think I’m strong enough to control myself, someone always dies.” It’s a statement of fact. A logical assessment. One stripped of emotion, lest it send Nox spiraling. “But when the bloodlust sets in, it’s not just me in my head any longer.”