Page 45 of The Darkening (The Darkening)

Bitterness twists his lips. “The Regia’s Guard.”

I shake my head. What is he saying? As if from a great distance, the memory comes of what the knitting circle told me about Amma’s burning:We know a pale-haired man led them. They used ikons to get it to burn so hot so fast.

But now, instead of Casvian, I picture the white-haired man in the sleek black of the Regia’s Guard. Is this true? I wouldn’t trust Dalca, but what reason would he have to lie to me? To him, I’m no one.

“Don’t the Regia’s Guard listen to you?”

He laughs, sharp and surprised, but there’s little humor on his face. “I wish. Much would be easier if they did.”

I force myself to clear my head, to remember the act, to not give away the jumble in my mind or the reason I care.

Dalca’s voice is soft. “It’ll be rebuilt. I’m overseeing it. A free home for any of the stormtouched.”

A fire burns in my gut. “It can’t be fixed just like that.”

“I can’t bring them back, you’re right. I’ll bear the responsibility for that as long as I’m here. But everything else, I can fix.”

The conceit of him. My fingers dig into my palm. “Everything can be fixed?”

“It’s what I must believe.”

And here I was feeling sorry for him after hearing about his father, thinking we might both have loved people we couldn’t help. Anotherminute with him, and I’ll do something I regret. I turn to leave. “I have to go.”

He touches my arm and murmurs to my back. “Not just yet.”

I twist around.

Dalca pauses, as if transfixed by my eyes. Perhaps Carver had a point about the power of a pretty face, but it goes both ways. His looks haven’t changed, but something in me has. Seeing him now... it’s the difference between the palace at night and the palace aglow with red-gold sunlight. Suddenly I see why so many of the apprentices were entranced by him, and it has only a little to do with him being born a prince. A sense of vertigo unsettles my stomach as the blue of his eyes fills my vision. Around the dark of his pupils is a ring of palest silver, like a crown.

Dalca blinks, and the moment shatters. He pitches his voice low. “You know who I came to meet.”

His father. I consider lying, but it must show on my face.

“Ah. You do.” Dalca sighs, running a hand through his black hair, turning it wild. “Tell me. What should I do with you? You now know something few are allowed to learn.”

“A secret for a secret,” I say. I’m playing this all wrong. I should be simpering, batting my eyelashes.

“Mine is a little more valuable.”

“Not to me.”

He makes a considering sort of shrug. “Perhaps.”

“I won’t tell. I promise.” I try not to scowl.

“I should trust you, when I know you don’t like me?”

There’s something small and fragile in his eyes. I speak to it. “I could like you.”

A strange little smile comes to his lips. It turns mocking. “Could you?”

I flush. “I won’t tell.”

“I know you won’t. Because if I hear that you’ve told anyone, you’ll have good reason not to like me.” He steps closer, so his breath caresses my face. “One of the best people I ever knew came from the fifth. For her sake, I want to trust you. And I owe Izamal a debt I can never repay. If he trusts you, so should I. And yet.”

He’s so close that I see his pupils grow, the dark eating up the blue of his eyes. “I don’t like the way you look at me, Vesper.”

Dalca steps backwards, keeping me in his view until he turns and marches away, his shoulders high and tense.