It could be a different needle, I suppose, but deep down, I suspect it’s not.
He holds up his hands, palming the needle instead. “I get it. You don’t trust me. And it would be hard to believe the enemy. But I’m less likely to stab you in the back than the queen, who is sitting on your throne.”
He disappears into the shadows with those parting words, and, frustrated, I charge at him. He’s already gone before I reach him, my icicles dissolving before I slam my hands intothe wall. Of course he would disappear when I’m desperate for answers.
Dropping my head against the wall, I force myself to calm down yet again, and let myself think. When Ban is around, reason abandons me. After many moments of silence, I speak, and without his chilly presence near my back, I think he’s finally given me some privacy. “What do you want from me, ice mage?” I whisper to the empty room.
Chapter 12 Ban
The following day, with little time left before this ball is supposed to happen, Neve looks on the verge of collapsing. When I can, I’ve been collecting souls around the land, but most of my time is spent hiding in the shadows, watching Neve. She’s avoided sleep like the plague.
Which I get. Giving into what she fears is unsettling, and for two solid days she’s worried herself to the bone. She takes papers into her rooms and works until the candles are nearly burned out; she continues to schedule meetings with the Captain of the Guard and a cartographer, meetings that her mother is not invited to.
Tonight, as she ignores her bed once more, I decide I’m finished waiting for her. She can bury herself in the problems of the kingdom, but she cannot ignore me.
I land on her bed—an amazing, fluffy bed—yet she doesn’t bother to look up from her papers. There’s a map stretched across one table, notes and paper and a bunch of quills strewn over the other. It makes me think of the spellbook from Dima that I’ve scanned but not really processed. I don’t need spells to make either of my magics work, so there’s little use for the book, aside from figuring out if it affects the needle.
“If you don’t sleep soon, someone could sneak up on you.”
Neve is used to my appearances, it seems, because she spins and shoots one long icicle my way. That seems to be herfavorite defensive move, and instead of dodging this time and watching her ruin this gigantic bed, I catch it in my hand and dissolve the ice into snowflakes.
Cold, arctic eyes watch me. She’s still partially bent over the table. Candlelight dances off her face. There are small torches scattered through the room, and I know I saw a container with pixie dust. She doesn’t seem to like to use it. “Get out.”
“Will you go to sleep then?” I ask seriously.
Neve straightens, brushing back her dark hair. There’s a bandage over her finger where she ripped off a nail this morning when the guardsman, Bromley, walked up and attempted to talk to her. She’s getting jumpier the longer she goes without sleeping, and the short naps she takes between working are doing nothing for her.
“I have things to take care of,” she hisses. “Tomorrow, I will address the people of the Frostlands. Mother is against it, but it’s going to happen. I don’t have time for sleep.”
I fight back a smirk. She didn’t even attempt to avoid telling me that this time. In a twisted way, we’ve become uneasy friends. She still hates me, and I can’t let myself get too close to her, but she has no allies here in the palace. Everyone is tucked beneath her mother’s wing or is one of the Icebound who I haven’t yet been able to reap.
Nyra and Kael are tied to the Snow Queen, their spirits unwilling or unable to pass on. I’ve tried to speak to them to no avail. Their focus is on Ronnie, and nothing more.
“You’ve been reading that page for twenty minutes,” I tell her, getting off the sheets. Her eyes follow me, locking on my staff. I haven’t had a need to bring it out with me recently, but watching her stare at it, I’m glad I did. Despite all the hate she harbors, she is still full of curiosity, too. “The staff is an extension of my magic two-fold. First, it only helped with theice and frost, but since becoming a Reaper, it’s an extension of the shadows, too. When I was burdened with shadow magic, we used parts of a great stone to build our weapons. My staff partially snapped during the event. To fix the damage, I fused part of the rock with it using ice. See how it’s tinted purple? That’s the magic holding it together. Sometimes, I actually use it.”
She tears her gaze away, narrowing her eyes. She’s wearing a dressing gown, a lighter affair than the tight, corseted dresses I’ve seen her in during the days. This is soft and silky, not doing a thing to hide her perky nipples. It’s relatively long, cropping at the knee, and if the cold was a factor for her, she would be absolutely freezing. She doesn’t attempt to cover herself, and I like that she’s so very unafraid of me.
That’s not how people usually feel.
“Admiring the scenery?” she hisses, and I smirk when I meet her stare again. “What do you want now, mage?”
“For you to sleep.”
She scoffs. “You killed my father, yet you worry about whether or not I’m getting my rest? I bet you wish that I would fall asleep and go right back to the dreamscape. Or is it a guise to kill me?”
“You sound paranoid,” I tell her, and her eyes flash in anger. Even the dimming light can’t hide how tightly wound she is. “Putting you back into that frozen sleep doesn’t aid me, Your Majesty. The same goes for killing you. I have better use for you here.”
Neve lifts her chin, stepping a little closer. For once, instead of holding out her hands to keep me away, she crosses her arms and meets my gaze. “And what use is that? You can’t manipulate me to do anything about the kingdom, and stealing my magic won’t help you if our magic is all but the same.”
“I’m not interested in your magic,” I reply, confused. “I want you to know the truth. But it will only matter when you’re ready and willing to listen.”
“I don’t need lies,” she bites out, taking another step. Neve reaches out, pushing away my staff, and I let it fall before banishing it into the shadows. She doesn’t even look, keeping her eyes trained on me. “Ineedthe truth.”
Her breath dances over my lips, and I don’t think, other than when we were in the dungeon together, that we’ve ever been this close. I didn’t even approach her this closely when I found the cabin, half convinced she would suddenly wake and attack me during all those years. Which, technically, is what happened. “The truth is there, Neve. You need only be open to believing it. You might be more accepting if you take my advice and sleep.”
She’s close enough that I can feel her body sag, then her arms bump into my torso when she shifts. The controlled queen is slipping, exhaustion making her a touch careless. And that’s what I’m worried about.
“Sleep isn’t something I can do, Ban,” she whispers to me, her voice laced with exhaustion. “I won’t disappear into the dreamscape again.”
