Her scent profile contracts, a spike of bitter lemon that tells of her fear. She takes a step away from me. “How do you know?”
“I can smell it, Miss Snow. I can smell what it’s doing to you.” There’s a deeper truth that I don’t confess. That I’ve seen this happen once before.
She releases a trembling breath, and her hand closes tight around her vial. “Well, even if you are correct, I need it tonight.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. What if the person I face in the pit isn’t Tris? What if it’s a stranger? It could work in my favor to make a positive first impression.”
I pin her with a stern look. “You don’t need it for that.”
Her scent turns angry, the morning dew shifting to the salt of a stormy sea. “Yes, I—”
“Your eyes are gray,” I say it before I can stop myself. I still don’t know why I’m getting so involved in her personal problems. I shouldn’t care. Perhaps it’s that ever-present instinct to protect her that has me unable to stand by and watch as she slowly poisons herself to death.
She slowly backs away from me until her shoulders press against the wall behind her. “What did you say?”
“Your eyes are gray.” I say, punctuating each word as I shadow her retreat, closing in until only a foot of space remains between us. Since I’ve already gotten myself so stupidly involved, I might as well ensure she listens. “Your hair is black, tinged with the slightest bit of blue. It’s cropped short to the nape of your neck.”
She says nothing, only stands frozen before me, her hazy gaze locked on mine.
I lean closer until we’re almost eye to eye and plant my hand on the wall next to her head. Breathing in deeply, I take in the intricacies of her scent—the shock, the fear, the trepidation. Mingled among the darker qualities is something small and bright. Something like hope.
I smirk. “I’m right, aren’t I? Somewhere beyond this indistinct mask you wear are those gray irises.”
Her chest pulses with sharp, short breaths. “How do you know?”
I strain my eyes to see through the haze, to glimpse the features I saw this morning. But the longer I look, the less of her I can decipher. The cloudier my memory of said features becomes. It’s almost as if…she doesn’twantme to see her. And the closer I lean, the deeper I look, the less she wants me to see. The thicker her magic becomes. She releases a shaky exhale. We stand so close, her warm breath brushes my face, my lips—
With a jolt, I straighten, realizing I’d leaned far closer than I’d intended.
“You don’t need this damn poison, Astrid,” I say, swiping the vial from her now-limp fingers and tucking it back into her trouser pocket. Then I turn my back on her and stalk toward the gate.
Astrid follows hard on my heels and rounds me until we’re face to face again. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, nor do you have a right to comment on what’s happening inside my body. Furthermore, since when are we so familiar that you can call me Astrid? You won’t even tell me your real name. I’m left to call you Huntsman—”
“It’s Torben,” I bite out, if only to halt her tirade.
It works. She blinks at me a few times. Then her shoulders relax. “That’s your name?”
“Torben Davenport.”
“You have a surname even though you’re full fae?”
Why the hell are we still talking? And why the hell do I feel so compelled to answer her? “My father adopted a surname after we took seelie form and entered human society,” I say.
She cocks her head to the side, and her scent profile begins to mellow. The bitter lemon turns mild and sweet, and the stormy sea once again becomes morning dew. “I assume, since you called me Astrid, I can call you Torben? Or must I continue to call you Huntsman? Or shall I refer to you as Mr. Davenport?”
“Call me whatever. It matters not.”
“Oh, I think it matters,” she says, a note of teasing in her voice. Her sudden shift in mood makes me wonder if she took a dose of her tincture during the split second I had my back to her. Could she really be so pleased simply by knowing my name? She crosses her arms and pops a hip to the side. “If we’re on a first-name basis, does that mean we’re friends?”
“No.”
“But we’re more than cold acquaintances, and for the time being, we aren’t enemies. Are we allies then? Or partners!”
I find my heart skittering at the last word. I know she meant it in a business sense, butpartnerscan have a romantic connotation when used a certain way. Based on the sudden spike of embarrassment in her scent, she’s thinking the same thing.
I save her from stammering. “We’re about to possibly get our asses thoroughly handed to us, so I’d rather not dally in talking of friendship.”
