Page 40 of The Midnight Death Match

“You won’t lose yourself. I’ve known you your entire life, andItrust you.”

“Things are changing, and you can’t know that.” My voice breaks slightly. “Neither can I.”

The silence thickens between us.

“This isn’t about trusting Lys, Harek. It’s aboutsurvival. He knows things we don’t. He’s seen what this city has become, and he knows what it was before. We need that.”

“Your father knows what Courtsview was like before.”

“Not in the way Lys does. He’slivedhere.”

Harek’s jaw tightens. “Is it just about knowledge, or is it the way he sees you? Be honest.”

The question lands with more precision than any blade. I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter how anyone sees me. My feelings won’t save us. No one’s will. Our only chance is to break these curses.”

The distance between us grows wide even though neither of us moves.

“I’m not giving up on you, Eira,” Harek says softly. “Even if you are.”

“Giving up?” I stare at him incredulously. “What makes you say that?”

He narrows his eyes, but all I see is the pain behind them.

“What’s this really about?” I demand.

“I can’t believe you’re trusting him! This isn’t you, and you know it.”

“Isn’t me? How can you say that? I’m trying to find a loophole for a curse that’s going to make me fight a death match with the father I just found. Don’t you get that? Then there’s the whole matter of my mother’s line! Nobody knows anything about this Secret Keeper stuff. I’m supposed to figure that outon my own, and all while my siblings and your parents are in danger. The pressure is more than I can bear. Of course I’m going to listen to a fae who knows about these things. If you’re going to be jealous and not trust me—or us—then I don’t think there’s anything I can tell you to make you feel better.”

His eyes widen, his face pales. “Is that really what you think? That I’mjealous?”

“Aren’t you?” Heat burns in my chest.

“Of that pompous, stuck-up, dung licker? Hardly.”

“Lys is only trying to help.”

“Lys.” He says it like a disease. “How quickly you adopted his nickname.”

“He told me to!”

“Didn’t mean you had to go along with it.” Harek crosses his arms.

I sigh deeply, not that it helps release any of my tension. “Are you working with or against me?”

He gives me a double take. “You’re really asking me that?”

“Yes.” I stand taller and cross my arms too. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I am not.”

“You sound like a toddler, not someone in his twenties.”

Harek’s eyebrows furrow. “Take that back.”

“Say you’ll work with Lys.”

“Lysandros is a snake, and you’ll come to see it. Then you’ll be begging for my forgiveness.”