I don’t need to clarify.
“The last bit of animal blood I drank was after we hid behind the tapestry and then when we were on the roof,” he says, and I remember then, the way Nox tucked his face into the crook of my neck, the way he stopped breathing, like he was holding his breath. Swigging from his canister after he pushed me away from him. “I usually require it every five hours. But that’s…” He holds my stare, even as he chokes on the word. “That’s with most other humans. What I felt for you tonight when we kissed… It’s almost like my desire for you enhanced my bloodlust. I shouldn’t have gotten so close to losing control as I did.”
The sound that escapes my mouth straddles the line between a cough and the squeals of a strangled pig.
Nox’s eyes go wide as I press my palm against the cold stone wall to steady myself. The crevices in the stone provide the friction I need, the reminder of where exactly I am. My limbs are shaking, my gut writhing as I break into a fit of mingled sobs and laughs.
“Blaise?”
“It’s just…It’s just…” My other arm, the one not keeping me from collapsing, clutches my aching stomach. I force out as controlled of a breath as I can manage. “It’s just that I spent…years in love with a male who could never love me back. And now.” Fates, my stomach hurts. “Now that I’ve gone and fallen for someone who feels the same way…” My stomach spasms, and I let out a pitiful hiccup, the time you might hear from the maw of a newborn puppy. “It just seems fitting…that’s all…that…that your feelings would make you want to eat me.”
Nox’s breath fogs the cool chill of the dungeon as he stares at me. Just stares. His ears twitch in the lantern light.
“What?” I ask, finally catching some semblance of breath. “You fantasizing about sipping on my blood right now? Puncturing an artery? Painting the walls with my blood?”
Nox’s nose turns upward at my crude humor, and the first smile I’ve seen from him since Abra caught us brushes the corners of his mouth. “Only a little,” he says, his blue eyes glinting.
My laugh is more exasperated this time.
“I was just thinking about how beautiful you are when you laugh. And wondering how someone with a smile like that ever fell for me.” There’s sadness in his smile, a darkness that tints it, but I find I don’t mind.
He runs his fingers through his hair and slumps his head back against the stone wall.
Then he pushes himself up and walks over to the workstation and begins searching through a pile of texts.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask, wishing I could go to him, wrap my hands around his fingers and pry him from those books, cup his jaw in my hands and make him look at me. It’s a horribly foolish urge. I should be terrified of Nox, and I am, but it’s not as if he’s the only person in this room who’s possessed by a bloodthirsty ancient murderer.
“Searching for a way to extract the parasite,” he says. “You know, save your life. What does it look like I’m doing?”
I cross my arms. “It looks like you’re wasting the last few hours of my life.”
Nox’s shoulders lower, and even with his back turned I can picture the exasperation lining the shadows on his face.
“Personally, I’d rather you have decades than hours.”
“You’ve been searching for a solution for weeks now. If you haven’t found it yet, it’s not going to magically appear in one of those books. We’ve already read all of them.”
Nox turns to me and rests both hands on the edge of the counter. “What are you suggesting we do with the time you have left?”
I interlace my fingers behind my back and shoot him the most mischievous grin I can muster, given that my death is impending. “Oh, I don’t know. I might have a few ideas.”
Nox’s throat bobs, and I catch the way his gaze locks on my mouth. When he speaks, his voice has gone dry. “Blaise, you know I can’t…Not without…”
I brandish a folded piece of parchment from my pocket. It’s bent at the corners, but recognition still dawns on Nox’s face.
“I meant we could play a game. With that dais there safely between us. What did you think I meant?”
CHAPTER 30
BLAISE
Nox lets me win most every round.
I let him ask extra questions on the rare occasion he allows himself to score.
We keep most of the questions light, skirting just around the hard truths. I learn that Nox’s favorite color is the green of the swirl in the center of the aurora. I learn that his sister was his twin (though Gunter’s already told me as much) and that the village children excluded them from games, believing twins to be cursed.
I learn that Zora’s hair was fair to Nox’s dark, her skin kissed with the sun whereas his never seemed to absorb it. I learn that she trampled through the world as if she owned it, running headfirst into trouble while Nox stayed back and observed, watched for any danger that might befall his sister.
I don’t learn what happened to her.
How she died.
I don’t ask.
It’s not that I don’t wish to know, that I don’t ache in my last few hours to absorb every last morsel of Nox’s history, to hoard every crumb of information I can get.
But there’s a reason Nox isn’t telling me. Perhaps the queen has bound him to secrecy. Perhaps it’s part of their deal, and if he tells me what became of his twin, he’ll forfeit the safety of his family.
So he doesn’t tell, and I don’t ask.
I tell him of Ellie, of our fencing matches on the palace lawn, of how her presence commands the attention of everyone in the room, even though that’s not her intent.
I tell him how much it hurts that she hates me.
I tell him I don’t blame her for it.
Then there’s Evander, and when I speak of him, there’s a tenderness that tugs deep at my heart, but it pulls in a different direction than it did just a few months ago and I wonder if this is how Evander feels toward me.
