Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1.5)(8)

“Tell me what this is,” he said.

I shook my head, and that was answer enough for him.

“It’s one of them, isn’t it? Alive and dead at once. I thought it at first but then I thought—you couldn’t have—” He swallowed, his fingers tightening. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I couldn’t. I had always been such a bad liar.

His expression sank with realization. He went pale. “What are you doing, Lilith?”

I pulled away, his judgment burying deep in my gut. “I’m doing what I have to.”

But with Farrow, once questions started, they never stopped. “How did you get this? How—” Another wave of realization. “Him? You went to visit him? By yourself?”

“I did what I had to do,” I hissed, again. I struggled to hide my annoyance.

Did he think I didn’t know that it was stupid? That it was dangerous?

He whispered, “You want to inject people with vampire blood?”

I spun around. “Sh.”

His mouth snapped closed. Our eyes both flicked to the ceiling—to the sky beyond. The gods, after all, were always listening.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“It won’t be that anymore by the time I’m done with it,” I said quietly. “I’ll make it into something different. Into medicine.”

He shook his head sadly.

“This is dangerous.”

“I will make sure it doesn’t hurt them.”

“Them? What about you?”

I couldn’t dampen my frustration. “So what?” I snapped. “We’ve prayed. We’ve used the arts of the White Pantheon. We’ve given Vitarus every offering for ten gods-damned years. We have listened to the scholars and the priests and the acolytes and the sorcerers. We have tried the magic of every god, including the one that damned us. What the hell else can we do?”

“I’m worried about you, Lilith,” he said, softly, and I wanted to laugh at him at first, because what good was worrying about me and my pitiful remaining months of life compared to the fate of an entire city?

He drew a little closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his skin, our faces now just a couple of inches apart.

“I’m worried about you,” he said again, more softly—more tenderly. “Stay. We’ll figure something else out together.”

Stay. It wasn’t the first time he had asked me that, the first time he’d offered me that word with his breath close enough to warm my mouth. Stay.

And just like the last time he’d said it, I was tempted. There was a certain comfort in Farrow. I liked him. I trusted him. I knew how he kissed, how he touched, how he felt within me. I spent so much time thinking about every muscle in my body, my face, figuring out how to present them appropriately to the world. Despite all that effort, most people still didn’t like me much, but Farrow always had. And when he told me, We can figure it out together, I didn’t believe him, but he made me want to. And that counted for something, didn’t it?

But it was unfair to Farrow to let him love me the way he wanted to, or to let myself love him with the fractured pieces I could offer him. He always wanted more than I could or wanted to give him. It is, after all, a waste to love a thing that will soon be gone.

I pulled away from him and picked up my bag. Farrow looked at it, and I knew he saw how well packed it was—packed enough for a much longer journey than the one back home.

“Are you going there now?” he asked, alarmed.

“Yes.”

“Lilith.” He sounded hopeless, broken. I didn’t want to turn back, but I did anyway.

“Stay,” he said again. “Please.”

“What are you afraid of?” I said. “That I’ll fall into the darkness? We’re already there. We’ve been there for years, and we’re only falling deeper.”

I did not add: And I’ve been there since the day I was born.

I shook my head. “It’s too late, Farrow. It’s too late.”





CHAPTER SIX





It was long past midnight by the time I reached Vale’s mansion. It was drizzly and cold, as it often was this time of year. I knocked on the door and received no answer.

I was tired and damp, uncomfortable and oddly on-edge after my encounter with Farrow. I was in no mood for games.

I pounded hard on the door, five six seven eight nine times, and when there was still no answer, I opened the door myself. Vale still didn’t lock his door. Why would he?

“Lord Vale?” I called out into the cavernous darkness as I closed the door behind me. I heard nothing, saw no movement. Perhaps Vale had decided he was tired of me, and he’d ignore me until I went away. Or maybe he’d lure me in and wait until he could grab me and devour me.

I wandered through the master hallway, and when I found nothing, decided, after a moment of hesitation, to climb the stairs.

I told myself that I was simply accomplishing a task—but if I was honest with myself, I’d acknowledge the little trill of delight that ran up my spine.

My mother used to say that I enjoyed the sciences because I was a naturally nosy person. She was probably right. She had always known me better than anyone.

I collected facts the way other people collected jewels, and Vale’s home was overflowing with them—both facts and jewels. The stairs led to a long hallway, just as cluttered and architecturally dissonant as every other part of the house that I’d seen so far. The walls were lined with artwork, most of it depicting vampires with feathered wings gutting, stabbing, burning, and otherwise brutally killing their victims—most often vampires with bat-like wings. But these halls also held other artifacts, too. One stretch displayed a set of grand wing bones, which unfolded along the peeling gilded wallpaper. I had to pause to stare at them in awe.