Topp tucked one hand behind his head, the movement defining the strong curve of his arm. A lazy grin slid across his face. “Come back to bed, Parker.”
Elysia acted as though she hadn’t heard him, sticking her feet into her boots.
“Seriously? Lys, you can’t go walking around Relaclave right now. The only people awake are the kind who would wear your skin as a coat.”
She stopped in the doorway, twisting so she could see him. “You’re a sick man, Topp Blatz.”
She heard the soft thud of his bare feet on the floor. A breath later, warm hands captured her face and green eyes drilled down into hers.
“I don’t like it.”
“Then quit snoring like a cressin.”
“A cressin?”
She tipped her head at the stack of books behind him. “I was reading your book on the creatures that used to live here. Before the Fall.”
His cheeks lifted and he shook his head, burying his lips into her hair. “That book was supposed to be burned with all the rest.”
She pulled away, moving out into the hall. “I can keep a secret.”
Topp followed her into the open doorway and caught her wrist, stopping her. His face indicated just how much he didn’t care for her gallivanting through the streets during the darkest hours of the night.
“Send word when you get home.” He dropped her wrist gently. “Please.”
Fond exasperation colored her response. “None of the messenger kids are going to be out at this hour.”
He gestured at his bed. “One of two options, Parker. Take your pick.”
Rolling her eyes, she wiggled her fingers in a wave and disappeared.
Hours later,Elysia was safe in her flat and the dawn still had not crested. The sky remained dark with only the shadows of clouds breaking up the blackened expanse of night. Her oil lampwas near its end, the light flickering instead of steady. She sat at her desk, thumping her forehead against the pages of a book. A singular page stuck to her face and she groaned.
The stubborn desire to stay alive and out of the gallows kept her searching through the forbidden text in front of her for answers to questions she couldn’t speak aloud. Her eyes itched and blinked with red, and despite the hours searching through the book, she had come no closer to discovering the truth behind the nightly invasion of her psyche.
She wished she could leave her questions behind. Pretend her curse wasn’t changing and that her life was exactly how it had been six months ago. Her life hadn’t been perfect—not with a curse from the undead gods and a blackmailing, manipulative father, but she’d been managing. She had a plan, and it’d been working just fine. But now, everything she’d ever hoped for was about to slip through her fingers. All because her curse seemed to be growing, and she had no idea how to stop it.
Every night now, she fell into some otherworld. The dark beauty of this realm haunted her past sleep and well into the waking hours. Much like the ivy in the Lovestone Woods, the essence of the dream wound itself around her mind. It clung ferociously to her thoughts, leaving a beautiful, ominous trail that left her no choice but to follow.
And so she did. Because she couldn’t seem to not.
Elysia rubbed her eyes and stared at the ceiling. A headache was on the horizon. The muscles at the base of her skull throbbed, tired and angry. Stress and no sleep tended to have that effect. She pushed away from her desk, stepping over a pile of clothes with her thoughts still spiraling.
She had business to attend to—both Crown and personal. A miscreant of a sister who she couldn’t quite tolerate lately. And a family that expected things.
But never more than she did of herself.
Then again, maybe that wasn’t true. Her expectations sliced through her mind like a blade while theirs silently pinned her down, stealing all her breath. She rubbed her chest. At least a blade could keep you alive. You were just dead without your breath.
She was Elysia Parker, and like the long line of Parkers before her, she could shove this unnatural dream with all its dangerous questions down so far within her it might just turn into a diamond. She could, she really could... So why wasn’t she?
Because she was curious. She had always been curious.
Her virtue and her vice.
Beyond curiosity, the threat of death loomed, refusing to be ignored.
Elysia walked into the kitchen and looked inside her metal tea tin, setting it down a little too hard on the counter when she found it empty. She only had tea when she stole it from the castle, and she’d been avoiding her family like a plague.Great, no tea.Her fingers smeared her face, stretching her skin taut.
