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When Sitri shakes me awake my eyes are nearly crusted shut. “Sorry, pet but you have to get ready. It’s almost time to go.”

I blink, rubbing at my eyes, until his face comes into view where he’s squatting in front of me. I’m almost blissful to see him until the memories swish over me like a gusting wind, and I abruptly turn away. Go? Right, we have somewhere else we have to be tonight…after the disaster that was last night. The orange light of the sunset flickers through the curtains. I’d slept the entire day away with the amount of valeriana I drank. Thankfully the dāemon has calmed into its usual pulse.

I find him lingering near the table, presumably to make sure I wake up, but he doesn’t meet my gaze. Shame curls in my gut, flaring over me so intensely my breath catches. For every part of it. How he found me with another man, begging him so desperately, getting off, and throwing it all back in his face.

I’ve made a complete fool of myself.

It’s better this way, I try to convince myself. He’s getting too close, meddling in things he can’t meddle in. My heart still pangs painfully at the loss.

The mirror dresses me in a long black dress, my cloak, and boots and wraps my hair into two braids, making me appear younger and more innocent than I currently feel.

His eyes sweep over me fleetingly. “Ready?”

I tug my braids forward over my shoulders and nod. We don’t speak as we navigate the hallways and down the spiral staircase, lights blinking on and off behind us. My hands twist in front of me as we cross the grounds. He leads me toward the same Wood we’d traveled to last night.

Magi grouped in clusters fill the field. Spits have been rigged over the many fires, large slabs of meat skewered over the rods. There’s a variety of ages—from elders to small children, who scurry around the many large fires showering sparks to the sky. Drawn by a neighing sound, I turn my head just as a Magi slices the air with his hand, in turn, slitting open the neck of a lamb. He lifts it, drains the blood over the flames, and large red-colored plumes of smoke rise up, followed by shouts of glee from the surrounding Magi. The smell of charred meat wafts through the air.

I shrink in close to Sitri as we weave our way through the crowd. There’s more Magi here tonight and I whip my head back and forth warily at first like I had last night. But my anxiety soon dwindles with the cheery atmosphere. As much as I want to despise them for the witches they are, there’s nothing particularly ominous about tonight.

Children launch sticks and rocks at each other with their magic. How strange it is to see magic coming out of such tiny people. They have none of the grace that Sitri has. Their movements are jerky or suddenly swift. They giggle and shout and create a ruckus. One of them launches a stick and hits an old woman in the back of her head. She turns around to scold them, and I can’t help but laugh.

As much as I want to see them as nefarious, the crowd is much too frolic for me to see them as anything other than people, just like Sitri. Families enjoying a night out together.

What would it be like to be one of them? Living—leading a normal life? I hear people murmuring about us, catching a ‘Nightshade and his Nought’ out of the mix.

Logs have been arranged around the area as seating. Sitri finds us one on the outskirts of the party. He seats himself and gestures for me to take a seat beside him.

I follow his gaze out to Morin. Her and Sitri share a look before she turns to Valik at her side. He leans in close to her ear, and she trails a finger against his neck in a slow slide. My gaze expands over the men around her. Not equipped in their armor but I recognize them all as her Masks nonetheless.

“Are her and Valik together?”

Sitri snorts softly. “One of her many pets.” He shoots me a look of dismay, eyes widening once he’s realized what he’s said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s fine.”

The tension between us is thick. It fills the air, making my lungs feel heavy and stiff. Things feel…awkward. I sort through the tangle of thoughts, trying to find a way to fix this.

“We don’t have to stay long,” he says, facing straight ahead.

My eyes trail over the many Magi in the field, drinking and laughing. Many of them are our age, out here mingling and having a good time. Would Sitri be out there with them, having a good time if he didn’t have me here? This thorn in his side. “What would you be doing if I wasn’t here?”

He shrugs. “This, probably.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Didn’t you used to have friends?”

He spares me a strained glance. Like he wants to say things but can’t. My brows shoot up, and then I slump down my chin to my palm as I realize. “You’re not going to talk to me, are you?”

I used to have— He starts saying the words in my ear but then says, “Oh, fuck this,” out loud as he draws a series of symbols with his hands.

“What are you doing?”

He’s silent until he finishes weaving the spell, and then he turns to me. “Putting up a sound ward so I can fucking talk to you.”

“Oh. Because you don’t want people…to overhear?”

“I don’t want Morin or her fucking gooneys to overhear.”

“Right.”

“I used to have friends,” he says with a sigh.

I wait for him to go on but he leaves it at that, staring straight ahead again. “Did you put up a sound ward to tell me you used to have friends?”

He lets out the slightest breath of a laugh. “No.”

I continue to wait and he continues to say nothing. He turns and looks at me, mouth curling into a grin I feel twist my chest. “I guess I was hoping you would keep pestering me with questions.”

“You want me to?”

“Yes,” the word is muffled as he bites at the side of his lip.

I wrack my brain, trying to find a safe territory. “Would you be out there swindling a woman back to your bed if I wasn’t here?” My regret is swift. That’s not safe territory, and the way the words pop out so bitterly is completely contradictory to my current stance. Things cannot be between us.

His shoulders tense slightly. “No.”

“No?”

“No, pet.”

I’m not sure I believe him, but I’m not about to press him further, especially when…I have no reason to even ask. “Okay, well, what happened to your friends?”

He shrugs. “I got rid of them.”

“Why?”

He shoots me a nervous glance, looks away and meets my gaze with trepidation. “It would…. endanger them.”

My lips part. “Because of Morin?” I whisper.

“Yes. People around me are weapons to be used against me.”

Suddenly, without the fog of magic and jealousy clouding my mind… I understand. “Do you think I would be used against you? If she knew I wasn’t a punishment to you?” Still whispering despite the sound ward.

His shoulders slump but it’s a relieved gesture, like I landed on the real reason he put the sound ward up. “Yes. Being my punishment gives you purpose to her and if you don’t have purpose to her--” He breaks off, blowing out a breath, nodding his head in Morin’s direction. “In front of others, that’s what you must remain. I don’t really even like involving Vera in all of this, but it seems cruel for you to have… no one.”

I feel even more foolish than when I’d woken this morning, and I claw, searching for something… I can still be angry with him about. “And what about the women you bring to your bed?”

“Woman,” he corrects. “And she knew she didn’t mean anything,” he says with a shrug.

Singular? “Woman?” I repeat, the disbelief in my voice blatant.

He shrugs again. “Yeah.”

“Did you sleep with her on multiple occasions?” What am I doing? I really can’t help myself.

“No.”

“Just the… once ?”

“Just that one time.”

“Why then?” I ask angrily. Why wait until I got here to suddenly bring someone back to his bed?

He pushes out a slow breath. “Because it had been a very long time and—-.”

I snort, doubtful our ideas of what constituted a long time were in alignment.

“Since before…almost two years,” he says finally.

Two years.

“And I was angry,” he says heavily.

“Because you had been forced to marry me.”

“Yes, I was angry because I was forced to marry a nought.”

A nought. There it is. Finally, I have the thing I’d been searching for. A justification to be angry with him again. But surprise ripples through me when he flashes me a grin, a hesitant, almost timid grin, but a grin nonetheless. “Who was also a very infuriating girl.”

“You were the infuriating one,” I mumble.

“And also…. very….” He lifts a palm, eyes skirting over the field. “ Beautiful and interesting .”

Warmth washes over me, flaming at my cheeks, and my chest is lifting, sinking, and tumbling all at once.

“And, I was worried…I think I was just trying to quell my desire to…get close to you. To care about you.”

“No, you hated me then.”

“I never hated you, Pandora. It’s just…look at the life you’ve been given. I hardly wanted that for anyone. Let alone feel responsible for it. But before you got here, I was…” He pushes out a ragged exhale. “I have enjoyed having you maybe more than I should, and for that, I’m sorry. Because you’re right. You didn’t get the choice.”

My heart hammers in my chest, whooshing in my ears.

“But I want you to know—I put up the sound ward because I want to tell you if our circumstances were different. If I wasn’t in this situation and we just happened upon each other, I would choose—“

“Don’t,” I say hoarsely. “Don’t say that.”

“Why?”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying, Pandora. Is it that hard to believe? That I--”

“Whatever it is you think I am, I’m not that.” The words are strained, heavy, and too close. Too fucking close.

“Pandora--”

“I want you to remove the Marks,” I interject.

His face twists. I don’t think he could look any more pained if I’d stabbed him, and my stomach rolls. “At least the one that detects my fear.”

“Why?” he asks hoarsely.

“Because…I didn’t realize. This is going to happen a lot, and I can’t be waking you up every time…”

“Pet, if your nightmares give you that level of fear, I have no issue waking you up from them.”

“I’m asking you to take it off,” I demand.

“It doesn’t work like that. They don’t come off. Short of cutting your skin off, they’re permanent.”

My eyes widen. “Then cut them off.”

“I’m not cutting your fucking skin off, Pan. Gods. How can you even ask that of me?”

“Then I’ll get rid of them myself,” I snap.

“I’d seriously like to see you cut the skin off your back.”

“Won’t be the first time you’ve underestimated me.”

He lets out another one of those ragged sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand. Are you… embarrassed?”

“Was that like a nightmare the other day when you woke up?” He immediately turns away, and I snort. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You don’t have anything to be ashamed of, Pandora, I do.”

“You’re wrong.” The words are barely more than a whisper.

For several seconds, there’s only the surrounding chatter, and then he heaves another breath. “Not a nightmare. It’s more like a hallucination that manifests in my magic.”

The words jog a fuzzy memory in my mind. Magical hallucinations. People in the street. The man in the Undercity fighting rats. “Ichor, that’s what’s in those vials you take. Same as those Magi in the Undercity.” I look at his face for confirmation, and he concedes a single nod without meeting my eye.

I’m so shocked he’s admitting it to me I don’t even know what to say. But he’s telling me this because he hopes I’ll share in return. I shift nervously on the log. It’s Syra’s voice I hear in my mind. Don’t you ever tell anyone the truth.

But if he’s going to be alerted every fucking time I have a nightmare, its discovery is an inevitability at this point, isn’t it? Despite my threat, I have no idea how to cut the Mark from my back. Panic tunnels my vision. The dāemon ratchets with my circling emotions. Sweat collects against my forehead. I cross my arm against my chest, digging my nails into my other arm.

“Hey.”

I don’t realize I’m rocking back and forth with my growing anxiety until he reaches out, a gentle nudge to the back of my neck, hidden from everyone else. I flinch and he hastily removes his hand. When I look over to meet his gaze his eyes are soft and crinkling with concern.

“Whatever demons you have, Pan, I assure you they can be no worse than mine.”

A manic laugh spills out of me. Except my demons are quite literal.

He deserves to know.

Maybe it would be different with him.

Do you think I would hurt you? I wouldn’t. I won’t. Not you, Pandora. Never you. Maybe he could help me.

But fear plummets my heart forward so quickly shadows quiver at the edges of my vision, and the dāemon scours one sharp shock after another. I grit my teeth. It might ruin everything.

I swallow down the knot in my throat. “Something is wrong with me,” I blurt out. My face grows hot. I sneak a glimpse to find his brows scrunching together. “People in Eden tend to stay away from me, actually. For good reason.”

“Pan…” His eyes narrow as he searches my face. “I don’t know what happened to you in Eden, but I get the feeling you weren’t treated very well, and it’s caused you to not see yourself clearly. I know you.”

“You don’t,” I bite out. “And you’re not listening, Sitri.”

He stands swiftly, searching the surrounding area before his face contorts into something brutal. He yanks me up by my arm. A single pulse of fear lances through me before it registers. This is only for show. To keep the facade up of me as the nought he despises, his punishment. It all seems so obvious to me now.

He drags me toward the nearby Wood. As soon as we’re eclipsed by the curtain of trees, he steers my back into one, and his face softens. “I’m listening. Please, talk to me.”

I open my mouth. Close it again. I want to. But I don’t know how. My breathing quickens.

I don’t know how.

I search his face. “You won’t….?”

“Pandora.” He looks around once to make certain we’re alone, reaches forward, and takes my face in his hands. I flinch slightly with the dāemon toiling so close to the surface, but I don’t pull away. “There is nothing you could say to me that would make me feel differently about you.”