Chapter Seventeen
When she woke, the being was still gone. It was just her, in that cup of strange branches and flowers. They shifted about
her and set her down on her bare feet, the moment she sat up. And to her surprise she found those bare feet weren’t the least
bit sore. None of her muscles were. Somehow her body seemed completely replenished.
The only real problem was her mind.
It’s too many things to take in at once, she thought, as every one of them rattled around inside her head. The ball, the dancing,
the whisper in her ear. The bell she’d rung, the run across the grass with her dress in her arms. And then everything that
being had said. About a shadow being on Lilibet and her beloved. About Lilibet seeming like she was in danger, in a way that
explained the warnings, the flashes of the past, the feeling of someone trying to guide her.
Though what Lilibet was trying to guide her to do was still unclear.
And it got even more so, when she made it to the door. She hesitated, thinking of that rabid thing beyond. But instead of
warning her away, that voice whispered something else.
Something more like safe. As if somehow she’d gotten things wrong or mixed up.
Imagined he played a role in all of this, when he didn’t.
Maybe he just knows what happened and fears whatever it was or fears doing the same thing, she thought.
He doesn’t have to have been something deranged, like the evil half of a set of vampire brothers or some monstrous double
waiting to slip into someone else’s skin. And if he was somehow, why make sure you gain more power than he can hope to equal?
How would that make any sense?
She just didn’t know. But it felt a little like the reveal of what was on the other side leaned weight to the latter theory.
He didn’t immediately try to burst through the barrier, or scrabble at it when he found he couldn’t.
He wasn’t even standing there.
He was sitting on the grass, arms around his knees. Hugging them, almost—like he was cold, somehow. He was even shaking like
he was. She thought she could hear his teeth chattering, behind his tightly pressed together lips. And his skin had an ever
so slightly bluish tinge, of a kind that confused her.
But then it clicked, in her head.
It had been in that book she’d read on vampire weaknesses. When one of these creatures goes without a hungered-for food source for an extended period of time, he will begin to starve.
Eventually, a kind of catatonic state will be entered, colloquially referred to as the long sleep, she remembered.
And of course if that happened . . .
“We need to get you inside,” she said, fast enough that her good sense simply couldn’t keep up. Though said good sense stared
at her incredulously, once the words were out. At least wait until you’ve dug in to whoever Bram and Lilibet were before you start putting your head in the lion’s mouth
again, it tried to tell her.
But the problem was: He seemed to think the same damn thing.
“No we,” he ground out from between gritted teeth. “You go.”
As if he didn’t like her being in immediate danger any more than she did.
Which definitely put another point in the not some past serial killer column.
“And what’s going to happen if someone finds you here?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does. They’ll behead you.”
“Your care for me is touching.”
She rolled her eyes. “Still smug even while you’re dying of vampirism,” she said, then sighed just for good measure. “This
isn’t me being kind. This is me thinking of our deal. You can’t teach me anything else while decapitated.”
“You don’t need anything else.”
“Because I rang a bell with the help of a ghost? And spent the night sleeping in a Calabaraian tree? It sounds like starvation
is making you dense, as well as ten seconds away from foaming at the mouth and going all rigid and all the other things I
now wish I hadn’t read about vampires,” she said.
Though she knew even as she did that it wasn’t the physical details of it that had gotten her. It was the reason the details
had been listed. Once in this state, the creature becomes a kind of living corpse, perfect for anatomical study, she remembered, and shuddered. But it strengthened her resolve, at least. “Now, I’m going to try to get you on your feet.
And you’re going to let me. And then we’re going to act like you’re still drunk, and I’m taking you back to yours.”
“They’ll think we’re fucking.”
“I’ve got bad news for you, pal. After you swooped me around the fancy ball and whispered sweet nothings in my ear and defended my honor against whoever swiped me, they already do. So come on, give me your hand.”
He groaned and turned his head away. “I’ll bite you.”
“I’d like to see you try, in this state.”
“You just told me you still need lessons to do a single magical thing.”
“Right. But I don’t need them to knock you over with a light tap of my foot.”
She lifted her skirts, on the last word, and nudged him a little on the shoulder with her toes. And sure enough, he went over
like a house of cards in a stiff breeze. For a second, he couldn’t even seem to get back up again. He just laid there, sprawled
on the grass, more exhausted looking than anyone she’d ever seen in her life.
He barely even turned his head for the hand she held out again.
But this time, he took it. He let her haul him to his feet.
And once he had managed, he didn’t let go. He clung to it, like a lifeline.
So now they just stood on the grass, holding hands. Like we really did fuck, she thought—and after that it was her turn to wobble over the whole thing. She came close to pulling away, and even closer
when she realized where his arm was going to have to go in order to get him somewhere safe.
He needed help staying upright.
And that meant laying that big thing right over her shoulders.
Even though the hand alone was bad enough. It felt as if it was swallowing hers whole. She could make out the tension in it, like he was trying to touch her without touching her at all. Or avoid crushing her with his impossible strength, before he could think about it.
Another tick in the not a serial killer column, she thought.
But it didn’t help. Now he was being all nice seeming and trustworthy, just as she gingerly attempted to lever him closer.
And it made it difficult in all kinds of other ways. She tried to stay on guard but had to do so while he trembled at the
feel of her hip, her side, her arm around him. She put a hand on his back, and he let out a sound of fear and desperation.
It was a miracle she managed to stop herself doing anything more.
She had never had a stronger urge to reassure someone in her life.
So she forced herself forward, instead. Staggering and stumbling, but she managed to keep him on his feet. And when it seemed
like he was faltering, she did what she had to in order to keep him conscious. “This would be a lot easier if you were shorter,” she said in between panting breaths.
Then got the kind of sass she’d come to know and hate.
“It’s not my fault you’re only two apples tall.”
“Please. Five foot three is hardly two apples. You’re just gargantuan.”
“I wish I was. Then my face would be too far away from your body to catch your scent. God, do you have any idea how glorious
that scent is? I dream of it. I live for it—every day I feel an inch away from losing myself right into it. And if I did,
if I do, oh, Jesus, just drop me here, just let me die,” he gasped.
While she did her absolute damnedest not to listen.
It was just the ravings of a starved vampire.
Once she got him sorted, she would never have to hear him talking ever again.
Or at least, not in a way that made her feel all weird and shaky and like she was about to burst with magic.
She just had to focus. “Don’t be so dramatic.
Just tell me where your dorm is,” she managed to get out.
But god, he was no help on that score at all.
“I don’t live in a dorm.”
“Of course you don’t. Okay, your majesty, point me to your palace.”
“It’s down in the basement. North wing, seventh staircase from the left.”
What the heck? she thought.
She couldn’t linger on this fact, however.
She had to just keep up the veneer of sardonic calm she had slapped on.
“Christ. Well, at least you’ve come to your senses enough to let me take you.”
“It’s not my senses talking to me now. It’s the part of me that knows you’ll be trapped down there,” he said, in a way that
made her want to update her serial killer tally again. But when she tried, she found she couldn’t.
Because even an overt threat afforded her a strange sort of safety.
“Good of you to be honest and warn me, I guess.”
“There’s enough of me still left to, darling.”
“Don’t call me darling. In fact, don’t say anything else at all,” she ground out, from between teeth that were now gritted.
Though she was surprised when he fell mercifully quiet.
They made their way through a warren of increasingly dim hallways in silence—or near enough to silence anyway.
There was still the rattle of her increasingly harsh breathing, echoing in the emptiness.
And the click of his expensive shoes on the polished floor.
She didn’t even know how he was still wearing them.
He’d lost his fancy coat somewhere in the middle of the night. His shirt was missing a sleeve and most of its buttons. Like
he’d tried to tear it off and only half succeeded. Though he went for the rest, the second they were at his door. “This one,”
he said, once they’d passed several of the same, all featureless wood.
Like storerooms, she thought.
But didn’t have time to think more.
He was half naked now. Through the door but on his hands and knees. “Oh god, I’m burning up,” he moaned, as he crawled into
the room. “I feel like I could tear off my own skin.” And she simply couldn’t let him do that. She followed him and shut the
door behind her, fully expecting him to spring up and get her.
You fool, she imagined him saying.