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“Typical.” I push away from him to seize Odessa’s desk instead, stripping off my heavy cloak before it suffocates me. “Death doesn’t affect you anymore. You’ve killed too many people.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Yes, Idosay. I really do.” A pause. “Out of curiosity... how many peoplehaveyou killed?”

The corner of his mouth lifts—more grimace than smile—and he stalks around me, tucking the bottle of absinthe inside Odessa’sdesk. He shuts the drawer firmly. “That’s a very personal question, Célie Tremblay.”

“I’d like an answer.” I lift my chin. “And my bottle back. I only drank for Ansel, Ismay, and Victoire, but I still need to drink for—”

“And I’d like you not to vomit on my shoes.” His eyes narrow when I sway again, blinking as the heat from my cheeks washes through the rest of me. It happens quite suddenly, quite unexpectedly, and—I hesitate, glancing around the semi-lit ballroom in surprise. It seems pleasantly distorted around the edges now, almost like I’m in a dream, or—or perhaps seeing it through lovely, clouded glass. Michal scowls at something in my expression. Snatching my wrist, he drags me around Odessa’s desk and forces me into her chair. “It looks like both of us are going to be disappointed.”

I lift a hand in front of me, examining it curiously in the flickering lamplight. “I feel... strange. I’ve seen other people intoxicated, you know, but I never expected it to feel so—sonice.” I leap to my feet and whirl to face him, stumbling slightly. He catches my elbow once more. “Why don’t people do this all the time?”

Impatient, he exhales hard and pushes me back down. “A sip of your mother’s mulled wine didn’t make you feelnice?”

I wave an airy hand. “Oh, I lied about that.”

“You what?”

“I lied.” A muscle in my cheek begins to twitch as his expression darkens. Ignoring him, I open Odessa’s desk drawer to steal back the bottle of absinthe. He nearly slams the drawer shut on my fingers. “You said I couldn’t lie, but I can and Idid. And you had no idea.” I cannot help it now—a giggle bursts from my lips as I turnin my chair to poke his stomach. He swats my hand away. “I told you I tried my mother’s wine, but I never did. She doesn’t drink wine. She doesn’t drink alcohol at all—she doesn’t approve of it—so I’ve never had asipin all my life before this.” I clasp my hands together in delight. “It’swonderful, though, isn’t it? Why didn’t anyone tell me it’s so wonderful? Haveyouever been drunk?”

He glares at the ceiling with a pained expression, as if questioning how, exactly, an ancient and all-powerful vampire could land himself in such a situation. “Yes.”

I gaze at him intently. “And?”

“And what?”

“Well, andeverything. How old were you? How did it happen? Was it absinthe too, or—?”

He shakes his head curtly. “We aren’t discussing this.”

“Oh, come on.” Though I turn to prod him again, he sidesteps in a blur, and I’m forced to merely point my finger at him instead. “Thatisn’t fair,” I tell him. “You may be able to—to dart around with yoursuper-special speed, Michal Vasiliev, butIcan be super and speciallyvexingwhen dismissed, which is quite unfortunate for you because I’malwaysbeing dismissed”—I wave my finger emphatically—“which means I’m quite comfortable being vexing, and I’ll simply keep asking and asking andaskinguntil you tell me what I want to—”

He seizes my finger before I accidentally poke him in the eye with it. “That much ispainfullyclear.” Exasperated, he drops my hand back into my lap. “I was fifteen,” he says irritably when I try to jab him again. “Dimitri and I stole a keg of mead from my father and stepmother. The entire village came out to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, and they never noticed it was gone.”

He was fifteen.“You drank all of it?” I whisper in awe.

“No. Mila and Odessa helped.”

“Were the four of you the very best of friends?”

He scoffs, though the sound isn’t nearly as cold and dispassionate as he wants it to be. No, he almost soundsfond, and I bite my cheek to hide my smile. “We almost set the barn on fire, and we spent the rest of the night vomiting in the hayloft. Our parents were furious. They made us muck the stables for hours the next day.”

Despite the vomit and horse muck, I cannot help but sigh at the story—inexplicably wistful—and lace my fingers together in my lap. “Did your father love your stepmother very much?”

“Yes.” He casts me a long, probing look. “He loved my mother too.”

“He sounds lovely.”

“Yes,” Michal says after another slight pause. Then, more reluctant— “He was... much like Dimitri in that way.”

Huh.

I purse my lips, considering him with keen interest for several seconds. The absinthe still blurs his features into a dark painting of sorts—all alabaster and obsidian—until he doesn’t look entirely real. I shake my head in bemusement. Because heisreal, of course, even if the thought of him at fifteen with exasperated parents and mischievous cousins and a barrel full of mead fills me with an inexplicable and unexpected sense of loss.

I laugh reflexively.

“And to think—whenIwas fifteen, I still slept in a nursery and played with dolls.” I laugh again, unable to stop myself, and tip back abruptly to balance on my chair’s hind legs. Though heopens his mouth for a scathing reply, I speak over him, faster now. “Lou and Reid and Beau played a game of truth or dare with whiskey last year, but I was sleeping in the other room. I wish I hadn’t been, so I could’ve played too. I’d like to play a game like that sometime—and you’d think it would’ve been awkward, all of us traveling together, but it wasn’t awkward at all. Do you know why?” I pause dramatically, craning my neck to look at him upside down, waiting for his eyes to widen, riveted, or perhaps for him to lean forward and shake his head in anticipation.