Chapter 19 – — Professor Nestor, Architecture of Flesh #2
“I know blood mages are rare,” I say quickly, “and I know you are busy and can’t personally help everyone, but I thought maybe you’d consider—”
“Stop,” he says abruptly, startling me. “Miss Rose, let me be very clear with you. There is a reason I have survived as long as I have. It has nothing to do with saving vampire wings.”
“But you have the ability. You could—”
“I could do many things.” His lip curls slightly.
“I could level this courtyard with a thought. I could stop your heart before you took your next breath. I could do things that would make you weep with terror and beg for death. The question is not what I can do. The question is what I choose to do. And I choose not to waste my blood on a fourteen-year-old girl with a damaged wing.”
I gape, shocked.
“Nella is—”
“A patient, one of hundreds who pass through these wards every year. Some live. Some die. Some lose limbs. The corruption hasn’t reached her core yet, has it?”
I shake my head, unable to speak.
“Then the solution is simple. Cut off the wing before it does. She won’t die and can live a perfectly normal life without it.”
“A perfectly normal—” I choke on the words. “She’s a vampire. Flying is everything to her. You can’t—”
“I can’t?” One eyebrow rises. “I’m not the one who can’t do anything, Miss Rose. You came to me begging for a miracle. I’m giving you the practical solution. The wing is infected, so remove it. The girl survives. This is not complicated.”
“It’s not just about surviving. It’s about—”
“What? Quality of life?” he laughs, completely devoid of warmth. “How touching. How idealistic. How utterly naive.”
My hands are shaking.
“Do you know how many people have stood where you’re standing and begged me to use my blood to save someone they loved?
” His dark eyes bore into mine. “Hundreds. Thousands perhaps. Students, professors, nobles, peasants, they all have the same look in their eyes. The same desperate hope and pathetic belief that their person is special, that their tragedy deserves my attention.”
He leans closer, and his voice drops to barely a whisper.
“None of them are special. None of their tragedies matter to me. And neither does yours. I’ve watched students like you come through these halls for longer than you can comprehend, bright-eyed little healers who think caring is enough.
Some patients cannot be saved. Some wounds cannot be healed.
The sooner you learn that, the less time you’ll waste. ”
“She’s a child.” My voice breaks. “She wants to fly again.”
“And I want to be left alone.” His smile is thin. “We don’t always get what we want, Miss Rose. That’s the first lesson of being a healer. I suggest you learn it.”
He starts to turn away.
“Why?” I cry out. “Why won’t you help her? It would cost you nothing. A little blood. A few minutes of your time. You have the power to save her and you just...won’t?”
He looks back over his shoulder.
“You’re right. I have the power.” His voice is soft again, almost gentle. “And I choose not to use it. That is my right. My blood, my choice.”
“That’s cruel.”
“That’s survival.” His dark eyes hold mine, and there’s something ancient in them, cold. It makes me want to scream. “The world is full of dying children. I stopped trying to save all of them a very long time ago. The ones who survive are the ones who learn to save themselves.”
He walks away, and I stand frozen in the courtyard, the winter wind cutting through my cloak as I watch him disappear around the corner.
He could save her but won’t.
The question that haunts me as I walk back to find Jace isn’t how I’m going to tell Nella. It’s what kind of person has the power to save a child and chooses not to? And what made him that way?
I almost brought up his deal with Draven. If only I knew more, I could have used it as leverage to get him to help me. Even then, I don’t know if that would have worked.
I find Jace’s room on the third floor of the men’s dormitory.
“Hey.” He’s sprawled across his bed, boots off, a book open on his chest that he clearly wasn’t reading. His face lights up when he sees me, but the smile falters almost immediately. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I close the door and lean against it. “Long day.”
He doesn’t believe me. I can see it in the furrow of his brow, the way he sets his book aside and sits up slowly, blue eyes tracking my every movement.
“Mae.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I push off the door and cross the homey room with the worn quilt his mother made, the anatomy sketches pinned to the wall with his chicken scratch notes in the margins, the small wooden shelf cluttered with medical texts and a framed drawing of his family’s farm.
I want to crawl inside that warmth and disappear.
My cloak hits the floor. I don’t bother hanging it up. My boots follow, kicked off carelessly, and then I’m climbing onto the bed, climbing onto him, straddling his lap before he can ask any more questions.
“Mae—”
I kiss him.
He goes still for half a second, surprised, and then his hands find my waist, and he’s kissing me back. Tentative at first. Careful. Always so careful with me.
I don’t want careful.
I fist my hands in his shirt and pull him closer, licking into his mouth until he groans low in his throat. The sound vibrates through me, hot in my belly. This is better than the cold dread that’s been lodged in my chest all day.
His hands slide up my back, fingers spread wide, palms warm through the thin fabric of my shirt. I roll my hips against him and feel him harden beneath me. His grip tightens on my waist, fingers digging in enough to make me gasp.
“Mae.” He pulls back, breathing hard, his pupils blown wide. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” I kiss along his jaw, feel the scratch of stubble against my lips, find the spot below his ear that always makes him shiver. “I want you.”
“You have me.” His voice is strained. “You always have me. But—”
I push him back against the pillows, and he watches with those blue eyes gone dark as I undo the buttons of his shirt. His chest is lean and firm. I press my mouth to his collarbone, taste salt, and feel his stomach clench when my fingers trail lower.
“Mae.” It comes out rough. I love that I can do that to him.
I reach for the laces of his pants.
His hand catches my wrist.
“Wait.” He’s breathing like he’s run a mile, his chest heaving, but his grip on my wrist is firm. “Stop.”
“What?” I look up at him, something sharp and ugly twisting in my chest. “Why?”
“Because something’s wrong.” He sits up, shifting me off his lap, and the sudden distance between us feels wrong. “You’re upset about something. You won’t tell me what. And I’m not going to—” He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I’m not going to do this while you’re somewhere else.”
“I’m right here.”
“No, you’re not.” His eyes search my face, and I hate how well he knows me. “You haven’t been here since you walked through that door.”
I want to shove him back down, make him stop talking and let me feel something other than this gnawing emptiness.
Instead I sit there, half undressed, and say nothing.
“I’ve waited years for this, Mae.” His gentle voice doesn’t help. “And I don’t want our first time to be because you’re running from something you won’t even tell me about.”
“I’m not running.”
“Then talk to me.”
I can’t. The words are stuck somewhere behind my ribs, tangled up with the headmaster’s cold smile and Nella’s desperate eyes and the horrible certainty that nothing I do is ever going to be enough.
“I want our first time to be perfect.” He reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch achingly gentle. “I want you to be here, really here with me, and not trying to escape something.”
Perfect. He wants perfect.
I don’t even know what that means anymore.
“You’re right.” I force my mouth into something like a smile. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“Don’t apologize.” He pulls me into his arms, my cheek pressed against his bare chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear. “Talk to me. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together.”
Like it’s that simple. Like talking about it would change anything.
I close my eyes and breathe him in and try to let his warmth seep into the cold places.
“I’m tired,” I lie. “Can we stay like this for a while?”
“Of course.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Whatever you need, Mae. I’m here.”
Whatever I need.
I needed to disappear. I needed to stop feeling like I’m failing everyone I try to help. I needed him to stop being so godsdamn patient and let me make a terrible decision for once in my life.
But I can’t say that, so I lie there in his arms and let him think this is enough.
He falls asleep eventually, his breathing going slow and even, his arms still wrapped around me like I’m something so precious.
I stare at the ceiling and feel nothing.
No, that’s not true. I feel fucking angry and frustrated at myself for wanting more than he can give. At him for being so good it makes me feel worse. At the headmaster for being right about everything. At Nella for needing a miracle I can’t perform.
At whoever decided that being held by a boy who loves me, safe and warm and wanted, should feel like a cage I need to claw my way out of.
Nella made me promise to bring her a book from the library tomorrow, some romance novel about a vampire falling in love with a human. She said she wanted to see if it was realistic. I told her I’d be the judge of that.
Cael is in a better mood today. He wasn’t throwing anything or yelling at anyone when I walked in. We’re making good progress. Exchanging stories is softening this old demon up after all.
Or maybe it’s Poppy.
“You brought my little friend.” He nods toward Poppy, who’s already scrambling up onto his bed like it’s her own. “Good. Only decent company I get around here.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“I know.” He half smiles at me, and I scoff.
I settle into the chair beside his bed while Poppy curls up against his side and he tucks his blanket around her.