Page 57 of The Book of Blood and Roses

“That would be easy and convenient,” Aliz says. “But it’s not there. I looked already.”

“I want to look again,” I say, handing her back her notebook. “We can go after class.”

“I can’t.” Her voice is tight. I lean against her coffin, unsure what’s going through her mind. “I can’t be alone with you.”

“We’re alone right now,” I say.

She stares at the floor. “I’ve spent the day thinking of nothing else but you,” she whispers, and her words latch onto me, twisting my sanity. “I thought the feeling would subside if I saw you, but instead…” She stares at me, and my chest tightens as I guess what she’s going to say next. As I recognise the thirst lurking in her eyes. “I want you even more.”

My skin burns, waiting, each second spent apart from her like a thorn digging deeper and deeper. I want her, too. “Being apart might make it worse,” I whisper, pushing her words away, not allowing myself to cling to them. She doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t feel that way. Not really.She’s a vampire,I remind myself. As if I still care about that small technicality.

“Maybe.” She looks at her polished shoes. “But I don’t trust myself. You’ll be safer if we’re apart.”

“I’m not scared of you.”

She stares up at me, gaze hard. “You were scared in the dream.”

Aliz was there for me when I woke up. She indulged me with an embrace, told me I was safe. Meanwhile, when Aliz woke from her own nightmare, she was alone. “I’ll search alone, then,” I say, my chest tight.

“Don’t go to the hunting lodge,” she says. “It’s too far from campus. Anything could be lurking out there.”

“Like what, a vampire?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“Funny,” she says, reaching over to pinch me. “Please, Cassie,” she adds, her fingers lingering on my skin. I spot a stray garlic pill and put it into the jar, screwing the cap tight. “I’ll take you there once I’m a bit less…thirsty.”

The word makes me jolt, and I take a step back from her. These are the symptoms Nocth told us about. “What makes you think your thirst will decrease?” I ask. “The dean said the symptoms would only get worse.”

“There must be a few remedies for thirst in the library,” she says,her cheeks gaining colour. “There has to besomething.And once I’ve figured that out, we’ll go to my sister’s palace.”

I can go, anyway. She can’t stop me. But for some reason, I decide to listen to her. “I’ll keep searching in the tunnels,” I say, and Aliz nods, relieved. “But if I don’t find anything in the next few days, I’m going to the palace, with or without you.”

“I’ll go to the Palau Collection, then,” she says.

“And will you be picking up books or girls?”

“Jealous, are we?” she asks, cocking her head to the side.

“Unbearably so,” I reply, which makes her smirk harden into a thin line. “We need to keep each other updated, so you should give me your number.” I draw out my phone and hand it to her.

“You only had to ask, Cassie,” she says, quickly typingit.

“I’m quite literally asking,” I say. She makes another face, disappointed by my reaction.

Never in a million years did I expect to have anAstrain my list of contacts.

I don’t waste time, getting ready to spend the next few hours down in the tunnels. “Good luck,” she says, just as I’m about to open the door.

I turn to look at her. She’s leaning on her coffin; a strand of her white hair has fallen over her brows. She brushes it away.I want you,she said just a minute ago. I know it’s just the thirst speaking. I know it’s not real. I know I shouldn’t believe it. But I’ve never wanted to hear anything as much as that before.

“You, too,” I say as I leave our room.

Chapter

Nineteen

I stare at Aliz’s number. I’ve never been away from Penny this long, and I have a feeling she’s monitoring all my devices. Even if she isn’t, I can’t risk it. I need a burner phone, and luckily enough, the campus village has a couple of charity shops, each with a collection of phones and SIM cards.

I head into one of Tynahine’s many cafés, one filled by only humans, and send her my first text.Hi, this is Cassie.Then a moment later, I add,Cassie Smith,because I don’t know how many other Cassies she might have on her phone.