Page 67

“Like you’re in pain.”

He sits there quite the same, tight and stuck, tapping away, so I sit here too, unable to move, long enough to notice the tapping is a beat, a drum, a song without words, and slowly—slowly, it unfreezes me.

It could be because he carried me away from that awful man and the Vaile hunting me, or the way he held that girl through her final moments, or the bed and buckets and bars, or it could be that it hurts to look at pain, even his. Like a chisel driving slowly through my chest, closer to cracking with every strike. It could be that, or the inexplicable lightness pulling me toward him—or not—but something quiet and fearless shifts in me. I rise from the sofa, my movements smooth like a flower unfolding in the dead of night.

He watches me, side-eyed, glaring at my every step.

“You’re stiffer than an old man.” I push him down against the corner of the sofa, my hands on his chest not my own—I’d never. “Like you haven’t gotten off in years…but we know that’s not the case.”

His eyes flicker and widen, and I don’t miss the relocation of his hand, the light squeeze of the fabric bulge in his pocket.

“What are you doing?” he growls, but lets himself fall back.

“It’s painful to look at you.” I tuck my hands behind his calves and lift his legs onto the length of the sofa.

His eyes dart around, surprise stealing any chance of resistance. I sit down next to his feet. “What was your father like?” As if my hands don’t belong to me, I pull at the laces of his boots.

His forehead creases. “Like me.”

“And your mother?”

“No.”

“No?”

He doesn’t answer, so I move on. “Then tell me why you need me to take magic. Aren’t you going to get a link and a gift of your own magic soon?” I untie the laces, wiggle off his boots and toss them to the carpet. He glances my way, two ruinous brown eyes, so ruinous that I slide under his feet and plop them onto my lap.

His whole body jerks in response. His hands grip the sofa, and the shelves quake, a single jolt gone so fast, leaving only the lingering clangor of metal parts.

“You’re misbehaving.” His voice is gravelly and forced, full of warning and threat, but his legs stay right on top of my lap. The room darkens another shade.

“Are you going to stop me?” I reach inside his pant leg, ease my fingers under the edge of his sock and inch it downward.

Every muscle in his leg contracts, tightening into rock-hard swells and divots against the feathering of my ringed fingers. Hesits forward, terror all over his face, the angles sharp enough to slice me open.

I peel off a sock and chuck it over my shoulder.

His chest fills and empties, deeper and deeper. “Don’t make me,” he says with the threat of a storm. The shelves and doors and furniture become mere shadows around us as night slinks its way across the room.

“Make you what?”

I fling his other sock behind the sofa.

This man—this manwho is always ready, always dressed, pockets full, knife sheathed, boots on all night guarding the door—his bare feet on my lap, his skin, the veins, that ankle bone. Maybe it breaks something in me.

I blow on his toes.

Then something cracks in him too.

He slams his feet back down to the floor, and he’s up, towering above me, his face bent with fury. He lifts me, hands under my arms, turns us around and propels us toward the wall. My feet slide and stumble over the carpet, trying to keep up with his long strides. It’s only seconds before my back smacks flat against a wooden door between the shelves.

His arms cage me, his chest heaving in my face. My heart stutters, and I tilt my head back and look up at him. His eyes—deeper than invisible scars. He looks straight into me,seeingme.

I should be afraid of this man, of his temper, his hands. But no. I want to know more. So slowly, I creep my big toes into his, the tips touching. Our breath mingles. We look down at our barely visible toes, at the contact, at the shrunken space between us.

He drops one arm from the door and his fingers brush my cheek, so forcibly soft and trembling, as though he’s afraid of his own touch.

His nose wrinkles in the most perfect way. “My toes itch.”