“Is this what you saw?” He met her eyes, his brow creasing the way it did when he was serious.
“Yes, but the clicking noise… Do they all make this sound?”
He nodded, crossing his arms. “Though I don’t think this detail is common knowledge. Those who hear it end up as meat in their teeth. Why?”
The Daemon lightly nudged her arm with the slick of its antler as it crouched, the holes of its skull staring up at her as if to beg for more affection.
Her heart tugged at its strange cuteness, and she gave it another pat. “The one I saw didn’t make the clicking sound.”
“Then I can assure you that whatever you saw was not sent from me.”
The Daemon turned and sauntered off to Marina’s side, drawing shapes in the sand with its claws.
She ran her fingers through her hair, squeezing at the roots. “But if the creature I stood before was not a Daemon, then what the fuck was it?”
He shrugged. “Gods possess all sorts of monsters.”
Whatever she saw on the rooftop was nearly a perfect replica of a Daemon, but the easing in her gut told her that Acacius was not a liar. He had no reason to be, and she’d never known the High God to be anything but annoyingly transparent with his masochistic motives and impulsive feelings.
Which meant the creature in Hollow City still lurked the streets, and now it was without the reins of her lover, massacring the innocent.
“Do you believe me now?”
Acacius’s words snapped her out of her thoughts, and she inclined her head, gazing up at him. “I showed up here because I didn’t believe you’d sent the Daemon to Hollow City in the first place.”
She expected a playful remark out of him, but his expression remained somber, his eyes flitting back and forth across her face.
After a moment, he said, “You were right.”
“About?”
Acacius unfolded his arms, shifting his body to her. “About my grievances with Ruelle. Blaming you was easier than reflecting on how ignorant I’d been, all for a goddess who did not want me. I was simply tired of walking through life alone, as is the curse of my title.”
She made no move toward him. Though, with each small step he took, her heartbeat fluttered with anticipation.
Marina looked down at the wisps of sand that bloomed around Acacius’s feet. “Ruelle seemed to only like bright, shiny things.”
His fiery eyes dimmed in melancholy. “And I am the most lusterless of all.”
She caressed his pain, looking up and staring deeply into his gaze. “I suppose it’s good that I cherish the darkness, then.”
Acacius stopped at her side. A cloud of pine and black pepper graced her nose, and her senses tingled with elation, not realizing how much she’d missed his smell when she’d hardly given it much attention before.
He grabbed her hand. “I took my frustrations out on you, Marina, and for that, I apologize.”
She watched him draw slow circles over her knuckles with his thumb and gave a half-smile back. “I knew it was never really about me.”
Acacius slowed the movement of his hand. “I’ve spent my entire life listening to the gospel of Death and Life from Cassian and Iliana.” He moved in closer until his chest rested against her arm. “They both believe the origin of happiness lies in peace, a thing I have detested all my life. But I was desperate to experience what they spoke of.”
Marina looked up at him, incredibly aware of his body’s heat curling around her. “Did you ever find it?”
“In Ruelle.”
Marina squared her jaw and looked away, despising the bitter sting in her chest. “What is the point of you telling me this?”
“It was suffocating, Rina.” He took her chin in between his thumb and index finger and brought his lips closer to hers. “Ruelle was my peace, but you?” He smirked, shaking his head. “Youare my chaos.” His hand stretched over her jaw and ran down the front of her neck, securing a light grasp.
From their last encounter to now, he’d invaded her mind and haunted her skin. Small things reminded her of him—the berries between the cake that Naia devoured, an array of moths circling the streetlights of the city, the snowfall that made her wonder if Acacius preferred winter over autumn the way she did.
