Chapter 25
Casimir moved the bucket beneath me just in time for me to heave what little remained in my stomach. I was grateful that he’d also had the foresight to pull my hair back while I wretched.
“Jesus, Farrow,” he muttered. His face was pale, and a light sheen of sweat glistened on his brow. “I tried to wake you, but you were out cold.” His elegant features were drawn with tension. “Are you alright? I think you hit your head when you fell.”
I sipped the bottle of water he handed me and spat once more into the bucket. I felt sick, but triumphant. “I did it,” I rasped, weak but delirious with triumph. “I tasted the glamour. I fought it.”
I raised myself into a seated position on the filthy floor to face Casimir, who was still eyeing me with concern etched across his face.
Slowly, he relaxed enough to lean against the wall, his arms folded across his knees. “Fuck,” he swore. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Indeed, the color did not return to his face as the room swam into sharper focus.
I rested my head in my hands and gave a weak chuckle. “I wouldn’t think the Darkseer scared so easily,” I replied, a little shakily.
He swore again as he leaned forward and gingerly felt the back of my head.
His fingers came away slick with blood. “I managed to prevent the worst of the fall, but you were thrashing around so much,” he explained.
“You’re still bleeding, and I suspect you have a concussion. I should take you to the infirmary.”
I dismissed his concern with a wave of my hand, afraid that speaking just now might bring on another round of vomiting.
When the worst of the nausea passed, I shook my head. “No need for the infirmary. I’m fine,” I insisted. “And more importantly, it worked! I resisted your glamour.”
Casimir eyed me dubiously, watching as a trail of blood trickled from my head wound and onto my neck.
We were both still crouched on the grimy floor, Casimir kneeling over me, my elbow going numb from the weight of holding myself up. Cautiously, I sat up, taking it as a good sign that the room did not spin.
Wordlessly, he offered me a kerchief from his pocket, and I pressed it to the back of my head to stem the bleeding. After a moment, he asked, “How did you realize the vision was a glamour and not a memory?”
I stilled. It unnerved me that Casimir had watched as the scene unfolded inside my head.
“It was something Evren said,” I explained.
“That temper of yours is going to get you killed one day, Little Arrow.”
“I realized it was impossible he’d have heard it before. I knew it had to have come from my own mind, and therefore nothing I was seeing was real.”
When Casimir continued to look puzzled, I sighed.
“Sometimes after my father came home from one of his week-long benders, we’d fight,” I explained.
“Screaming at each other like banshees. One night, I just lost it. It wasn’t my best moment, but I—well, I destroyed his favorite typewriter.
” I could still hear his bellow of rage as the paperweight collided with the metal keys.
I cleared my throat. “That was the day my father told me my temper would be the death of me…”
Casimir’s expression turned stormy.
“After Evren repeated it in the vision, I reevaluated everything and realized the blood I was tasting was actually the remnants of a glamour,” I finished.
I waited for Casimir to ask me what exactly my father had said in retaliation that night. But he didn’t.
Slowly, he shook his head. “I’m not sure this is sustainable. Look at you.” He gestured to my bleeding head, the bucket of vomit off to one side. “Look how sick it made you.” His lips twitched at the edges. “I say this as your friend, Farrow, but you look terrible.”
I returned his teasing with a scowl. “Are you my friend, Casimir?”
To my surprise, he smiled. It even looked genuine.
“I am, if you’d like me to be,” he said.
And there it was again, the version of Casimir that was sweet. And yet, the sweet Casimir was inextricable from the violent, vengeful one. The one that had broken Monty Prescott’s finger for daring to touch me.
“I will get better at this,” I said stubbornly. “I just need to practice.”
My determination did nothing to appease the worry drawn in the tight line of Casimir’s lips.
“We’re nearly out of time. And—don’t take this the wrong way, but your combat skills aren’t as proficient as I’d hoped.”
I was prepared to hurl a scathing defense in reply, but almost as soon as it formed, it died on the edge of my tongue.
Our situation suddenly struck me as completely pointless and absurd.
What the fuck were we doing? A Daemon training a mortal girl in combat and glamour resistance?
I released a hysterical giggle that quickly escalated, and I laughed until my belly ached and tears streamed down my cheeks.
Casimir stared at me like I’d lost my mind. Probably wondering if I really had sustained a head injury.
“Gods, Casimir,” I said, wiping my tears after my laughter had died out. “If I’m so doomed, why are you even trying to help me? You say I can’t fight, and we both know I can hardly fight off glamours without puking myself to death or getting a concussion.”
“How can you even ask me that?” He looked affronted. “Do you really believe I’d break my word so easily?”
I hesitated, wondering how far I dared push him. “Break our bargain, you mean,” I corrected. Because this thing between us wasn’t a mere promise, it was a magically binding contract. “You don’t want to incur the consequences of breaking a bargain bound by magic.”
He stood abruptly, his jaw clenched and his eyes blazing with barely restrained fury.
I stared up at him from the floor, surprised by the fervor of his response.
He glared down at me as if I’d just accused him of the worst kind of betrayal.
I tried to apologize, but my tongue was a slab of melted wax, fumbling over the words I could not take back. When he spoke, it was with a lethal calm that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“You think I’m only helping you because of our bargain,” he repeated, his expression darkening.
He allowed the statement to hang in the air for far too long, and I felt the tension between us balancing on a razor’s edge, teetering toward disaster. I bit the inside of my cheek, gazing back at him determinedly.
“Yes,” I admitted.
I’d heard enough about Isolde to wager that she was his primary motive in stopping Devereaux. She was the reason he’d made the veilbound bargain with me in the first place. Was he truly going to deny it?
“I know you’re only doing this for Isolde,” I said, ignoring the way his eyes flashed in anger. “This is all about revenge for you, isn’t it? You want to get back at Devereaux for whatever part he played in her imprisonment.”
He was so shocked by the accusation that the rage, which had so brutally contorted his features, momentarily slipped from his face.
“Is that what you think? That I’m doing all of this for…
her?” His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, like he wanted to break something.
He was breathing heavily, his eyes simmering with something dark and unstable.
I gave a slow, intentional nod and watched his anger increase twofold.
However long he’d managed to tamper down his outrage, it was now rising swiftly to the surface, a volcano on the brink of eruption.
Darkness seemed to ripple from him in waves, as though the very air was clouded with his fury.
His searing gaze scorched through me, branding me, and I knew that this time, I’d pushed him too far.
The warning from the Book of Erebos circled through my mind.
I’d run from him if I were you, and again, my father’s hateful, prophetic promise: that temper of yours is going to get you killed one day, Little Arrow.
The walls of the Grotto narrowed in my vision as dark shadows crept in, blotting out the grimy, dilapidated details until just the two of us remained.
Casimir closed his eyes, reining himself in just before his self-control slipped irrevocably.
Maybe to keep from smashing something more breakable, he seized the nearest iron candelabra and bent the rusted metal into a twisted husk.
I stared at the hunk of iron as it crashed to the floor.
“Don’t,” he breathed, and my gaze snapped to his dark eyes, “presume to know my motives, Farrow.”
I tore my eyes away, refusing to look at him.
“I am not only helping you to save Isolde. That is not my only purpose here, in spite of what you may believe.”
His eyes were twin flames, burning with indignation. “And in spite of your… weaknesses—” I shot him a resentful look “—you are not doomed. I will not allow you to be doomed. Rest assured, I will do everything in my power to ensure that you survive this.”
It almost sounded like a threat.
My heart thundered erratically in my chest.
A muscle twitched in his jaw as he forced his eyes away from the window and turned to face me. I allowed his umber gaze to scorch through me, probing for signs of deceit and eviscerating every inch of me in the process.
My gaze fell to the hunk of twisted metal lying a few feet away. August was right. Casimir was dangerous, and yet, I was unable to leash my tongue.
“Look, I didn’t mean to imply you were doing this for the wrong reasons,” I began.
If he’d just tell me about Isolde, we could do away with all of this uncertainty.
“It’s just—you’re constantly reminding me of my temper and telling me how difficult I am. So I thought I’d do you a favor by giving you the option to end your obvious misery—”
“Enough, Farrow,” he growled, but the tension in his shoulders relaxed slightly.
I fell silent, but his gaze lingered on my face, searching.