“Sure. And threatening to have me for dinner is a vampiric greeting.”
She looks like she’s about to argue, her jaw tight, but finally nods.
Once I step out into the October chill, a light drizzle speckling my jacket, I feel myself cooling down. But dread continues to twist inside me. No. It’s not dread. I know what it is, but I can’t admitit.
The ghost of her touch still lingers on my skin. Wanting her was so much easier when I only looked at her from afar.
I climb upthe nine floors of Tynarrich Hall, hoping the exertion will somehow calm me, return me to my previously sensible self. I stare at the paintings on the wall and realise that I still don’t know how old she is. For all I know, Aliz could be over a hundred years old. Over a thousand. I wait for her features to appear upon one of the canvases, but they don’t.
Fortunately, when I get to our room, Aliz seems completely normal again.
“Can you pass me my phone?” She’s sitting by her desk, five books in front of her, one of them open already. Her legs are crossed, and the top of her shirt is unbuttoned. I try my hardest not to look at her bare skin, her sharp clavicles and delicate neck. “It’s on the coffin,” she adds. “Is it still light outside?”
“It’s not even lunchtime,” I say. “You got up at a veryhumantime, Astra.”
“Well, I had no intention of waking you while you were sleeping,” she says, and I could swear her cheeks gain colour. “I can’t wait for winter.”
“Maybe you should move to the North Pole,” I say, tossing her phone towards her. She catches it with one hand, barely looking back. “You’d get six months of pure night up there.”
“I like Tynahine,” she says. “Even though I have to spend summer stuck indoors.”
“You stay here during summer?” I ask, not hiding my shock. Aliz’s cheeks redden. I imagined that at the very least she would travel back to Hungary, where the Astras are based.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be a vampire,” she says, looking back down at a book. Despite her words, there’s no sharpness in her voice. And she’s right. I don’t.
“Have you found anything yet?” I ask, sitting next to her.
“A load of nonsense,” Aliz replies, flicking through pages. “There’s nothing on blood contracts for Familiars, and thecuresare not great.”
“Maybe they’re worth a try,” I say.
“I’m not enamored by the idea of chopping off two fingers and killing a cat. Especially when it might not work.” She turns the page. “Plus, these are for witches’ Familiars.”
“Witches?” I say, my eyes widening. “Are witches a thing?” Considering I almost got killed while looking for grimoires, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Palau must think so. She’s the one who wrote this nonsense.” She scratches her cheek, a small smile tugging her lips. “I really hope they do exist. And werewolves. I wouldn’t mind finding myself a werewolf girlfriend; we’d be like Romeo and Juliet. Or Juliet and Juliet, in this case,” she adds, nodding to herself as some bizarre fantasy fills her head. “Very sexy.”
I gawk at her, trying to wrap my head around the heir of the Astra empire saying something so…stupid.
The afternoon flies by, and after lunch, the tension that had built up between us in the library fades, as though that strange proximity never happened in the first place. My neck, in turn, becomes itchier, but I focus on reading, flipping through moth-eaten pages, hoping that the cure for the mark will suddenly appear beforeme.
The sun’s almost setting when I pick up another book, a drawing of a violet on the cover. There are some illustrations in the first half, naked women sinking their teeth into victims, some trying to escape, others accepting the bite. Heat rushes through me, and I continue to turn the pages, until I stop, eyes widening. “ ‘Nullifying blood contracts between vampires and humans,’ ” I read out.
“That must be it!” she says, and she pushes her chair towards me, wheels squeaking.
I nod, before I start reading. “ ‘Once both parties are in agreementthat the contract ought to be nullified, a kiss must be placed upon the spot where the contract was first sealed.’ ” I stop reading, staring at the words to make sure I didn’t imagine them. “Seems a little too easy, doesn’t it?”
“Uh…” Aliz is staring at me, face frozen with panic. “Yeah. It doesn’t really make sense.” She laughs nervously. “Half of what Palau writes is utter nonsense, so maybe we should just—”
“It’s still worth a try,” I say, swiveling my chair until I’m facing her.
“What?”
“It’s just a kiss,” I say, trying my hardest to not think about what I’m asking her todo.
“Cassie, there’sno waythat a kiss is going to fix it.”
“If there’s a small chance it might work, we should at leasttry.” I pull off my scarf, and Aliz’s eyes widen. “What?” I ask.
