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“No.” A slight panic mounts in his eyes, and he smothers it. “I brought you in here to shut you up. You’re loud as fuck. I have enough in my head without that.”

I wait for the rage to ripple over me. It doesn’t. I slowly roll my head his way. “You wanted to make me feel better.”

Eli inhales again and holds his breath, a shadow of a smirk on his closed mouth, then smoke billows out and disperses into wisps of purple clouds. “You have no idea how I could make you feel.”

I cough, my face heating. He’s all over the place. “Too bad you’ll never—”

“No.” He sends me a sharp look. “If you insist on talking, tell me something I can use as a trigger.”

“Why would I do that?”

I get a raised eyebrow in return, and he slaps down another square of paper in front of him. “Because you want me to rescue your wimpy boyfriend.”

“He isnotmy—do you even know what you’re doing?”

“There are endless ways to trigger the right emotions to wake up your magic. I can try them all—or you can give me a hint.”

I run my hands over the unfinished bench at my sides, my rings scraping. “Fine.”

“Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

Of my own mind, serving up death after death. The answer comes easy, the feeling behind it muted and soft with the teva.Cam spent years coaching me not to say things like that, not to let on to the chaos within.Stuff ’em deep, hun. Don’t let them see.

I give him something vague. “I’m afraid of…places.”In my head.

He rolls another stick of teva, his dexterous fingers too busy not to watch, and I wonder, for a fleeting, foolish moment under the influence of the purple haze, what else those fingers are capable of.

He glances down the bench at me, the slightest rise in his brows. “What kind of places?”

He’s prying at closed doors, but the teva keeps me talking. “The kind you won’t find on any map.”

“Helpful.”He takes a long drag. His disembodied voice comes from behind a dense cloud. “And what would you find in these places?”

Death.

“Nothing,” I say.

“How am I supposed to use that?”

I drop my gaze back to his hands, one shoulder rising in a half-shrug.

“You’re not cooperating.” He gives me a warning look and bounces the roll between his fingers. “Who would you find there?”

Pretty much everyone I know. They all end up in those dark places with me, dying. Eli could be there with me soon too. What would it feel like to watch him die? Would I cry like I do for Kelter?

Kelter. The rough bench fights against my tightening grip.

“Ow.” I suck my finger into my mouth.

“Splinter?” Eli slides back down the bench to me, passing through the purple smoke.

I tuck my hands under my thighs, pain thrumming down my finger. “No. I’m fine.”

Two fingers nudge my jaw, turning my head toward him until our eyes meet. “A thiefanda liar?”

Yes and yes.“It’s nothing.” I whip my face out of his grasp.

“Let me see it.” Sitting right next to me, thigh to thigh, he holds his hand flat, waiting for mine.