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Three days, I told myself, ignoring the violent twisting of my stomach as I stared unseeingly into the dark. If we hadn't heard from them in three days, I would walk into Thysandra’s cell and make her talk, damn the costs and consequences, damn the sensation of filth spreading below my skin at the thought alone. Until that time, I would do whatever else I could and pray it was enough.

And then we might still lose the battle.

I scrambled upright in the blankets, unable to lie still a single second longer as the anxiety crawled into every toe and fingertip.

Creon didn’t move as I untangled myself from his arms and slid to the foot of the bed, where I would not need to climb over him to escape. Even as I looked for clothes in the impenetrable darkness, my mind was a whirlwind of sounds and flashes of more and more pressing images: piles of wooden blocks, sharp voices and sharper glares, arrows protruding from bloodied skin …

‘Cactus,’ a sleepy voice rasped behind me.

I froze, then turned, blinking against the darkness as my eyes fought to make sense of shadows and silhouettes.

The rustle of wings against fabric told me he was sitting up. Another whisper of motion, and the faelights lit up around us, silvery rays flooding the room and revealing the exquisitely sculpted, extremely naked body I had left behind in the blankets a moment ago.

Gods help me.

No matter how hard I willed myself to be sensible, no matter how familiar the view after all this time, my heart still skipped a beat at the sight of that raw male glory – rendered all the more tantalising, somehow, by the vulnerability of his half-woken state. He truly didn’t know hownotto be irresistible. Even fogged with sleep, he oozed beauty and power; when he yawned and propped himself up on his elbows, muscles flexed inunfairly ravishing ways, sending his chest and abdomen rippling like liquid gold in the dusky light.

Some of the tightness in my belly turned into an entirely different sort of tautness, spreading like wildfire through my veins.

‘Must you?’ I managed, suddenly achingly aware of my own nakedness. ‘I’m trying to get things done.’

‘Ah.’ He rubbed a hand over his face, wiping the sleep from his eyes. ‘Making an attempt to rinse the guilt from your system by running around all day and slaving away on tasks dozens of others could be doing in your place?’

I stared at him.

His eyes were still a tad bleary, his words sluggish in an oddly endearing way … but none of that softened the crisp edge of his point in the slightest. He didn’t have theright, damn it, to be so painfully perceptive before he’d even set a foot out of bed; how was I supposed to quietly beat myself up if he insisted on looking straight through me even while asleep?

‘Thought so,’ he added when I stayed silent, sitting up straighter with a small groan. His wings strained wide behind him, as if to stretch out the stiffness of the night. ‘Wasn’t writing that letter enough?’

‘I could be doing more,’ I said weakly, crossing my arms over my bare chest. ‘You know I could be.’

I hadn’t even mentioned the possibility of smooth magic to him last night, exhausted and occupied by the White City spinning around my head – but of course he knew exactly where my thoughts had run. There was no surprise in his shrug. ‘Yes, butshouldyou be doing more?’

I scoffed. ‘It would save lives.’

‘It would destroy you,’ he pleasantly pointed out.

‘Then maybe I shouldn’t be such a squeamish bloody coward, should I?’ I bit back, unable to help myself. Of course he wasright. It wasworse, somehow, that he was right. Just like it was worse to know I’d done this to myself, that Zera had refused me and warned me andstillI’d asked for these damned powers I couldn’t possibly have grasped – powers that made me feel like something dark and putrid was digging its roots beneath my skin.

He arched an eyebrow, running a hand through his tousled hair. ‘Ah, yes. Just become someone else. A brilliant solution that has always worked well for you in the past.’

If I’d had anything red within reach, I might have obliterated the bed he was sitting on. As it stood, I couldn’t come up with anything more intimidating than a couple of Alvish curses Edored had taught me during a particularly lively card night.

Creon burst out laughing. ‘Don’t let your father hear you.’

‘It’s not funny!’ I snapped, flinging up my hands. ‘I could have unbound half of the Underground by now if I’d just used my stupid magic yesterday – youknowI could have. Do you really care so little about that?’

He sobered up so abruptly that I startled. ‘What?’

It came out too harsh, that one word. Too brusque.

I opened my mouth, closed it again, got out an unpleasantly defensive, ‘I mean—’

‘Of course I care about the bindings, Em,’ he interrupted sharply – much too sharply, the bite in his voice a flawless match to the sudden bitterness twisting his lips. As if I’d mortally offended him. As if I’d crossed some invisible line no one had ever pointed out to me. ‘You know damn well I want to win this war as much as anyone else. I just want you safe and happy first. Do you really expect me to care more about everyone and their mother’s bindings than I care about your sanity?’

I stared at him numbly, feeling myself grow just a fraction smaller, just a fraction stupider.

My sanity. Which would have been a heartwarming reassurance if not for that look on his face, for the way he’d thrown his question at my feet as a reprimand rather than a declaration of love – such a sudden shift from his careless amusement that I found myself repeating the conversation two, three times in my mind, trying to find my mistake. Fine, I’d been pushing. I’d been arguing. But there was no need for this merciless retaliation, was there – as if I had been trying to attack him in all earnestness?