“How could I?”
“Well,Icertainly wouldn’t, but I’m not a tender little flower like you,” Alden said, drawing away. The robe he’d worn to bed stuck to his body in sweaty folds. He wrinkled his nose. “I must make myself respectable before the business day begins.”
“It’s too early.” Nate squirmed toward the warmth of the slotted sunbeams from the window. He closed his eyes as Alden fussed through his morning routine.
Nate had spent months waking like this, listening to Alden gossip about people he didn’t know or hum bits of songs he didn’t like. Watching Alden comb his hair and fasten on glittery bits of jewelry before opening a bottle and shaking out whatever cocktail of capsules and powders would get him through the day.
This morning was different, though. Alden dressed and played with his hair and shook a few capsules out of bottles as if playing with a rattle, but he said nothing.
“Why don’t you keep someone else around here?” Nate hated where his thoughts took him.Has Alden been alone since I left?
“This isn’t a house of charity, Nate. Despite what you appear to think.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Alden spun in the ancient dressing chair he kept in front of his bureau. “Do you mean to insinuate that you are so very, very special that I couldn’t bear to replace you with some pale substitute?”
“No, I—”
“Do you think I have no friends? That I can’t find someone to warm my bed? That I haven’t?”
“Alden—”
“Spare me, Nate. I have a headache—and a new houseguest, it seems. Next thing we know, I’ll be running a sick-den.”
“I’m not that sick.” Nate rose to the bait, despite knowing exactly what it was.
Alden pointed a hairbrush at him. “You are. And that should beyourproblem. But you’ve made it my problem too.”
“Then I’ll leave.”
“Gods know what you think of me, Nate, but one thing I won’t do is send you out to the streets to die. You can die here,” he said cheerfully, “in the comfort of my home.”
Nate gasped, the wind knocked out of him. “You’rethe one who’s sick.”
“Honesty is no affliction.” Alden’s hands dropped to his lap. He glanced up at Nate, gaze unsteady for a moment too long before he hardened his expression.
Anger swelled in Nate, and he latched on to the comforting flash-burn. If they were going to be honest now, he had plenty to say. “I would have died here last year if I hadn’t left.”
The pain flashing through Alden’s eyes failed to satisfy Nate the way he’d hoped.
“I realize that,” Alden said dully.
“How long do I have?” Nate asked, the words sounding like they came from someone else’s throat. His hands went cold, and the room lurched as if the whole building was sliding into a sinkhole.
“Not as long as you would have had if you’d listened to me. You wasted your time, yourlife. Saving a thief who threw you out anyway.”
Nate’s fingers curled into fists. He’d do it again if he had to. “Tell me!”
Alden gestured vaguely with his hairbrush. “I only know what I’ve heard, and secondhand accounts aren’t exactly—”
“How long?” Nate asked, hoarse and loud. Alden made it his business to knoweverything. He had to know.
“I have one dose left, Nate. I’ve been rationing it.” Alden ignored Nate’s noisy sound of disbelief. “But I’m going to have to cut it more, and I don’t think we’re going to like what happens after that.”
If Alden was evading this much, the answer couldn’t be good.
“Tell me. Please,” Nate said, forcing the shaky words past the panic in his throat.
