“Why are you wearing gloves with your pajamas?” I ask dubiously.
Don’t touch me.He’d spat the words in the Crocodile with such vitriol. And when Sam and Marina found us, neither of them had touched him. Not even to help him walk up the beach, though they’d both looked as if they wanted nothing more than to wrap him in a hug. And after, when Marina and I climbed into the carriage, both her and Sam had squeezed onto one bench with me, giving the king a wide berth of space.
I’d written it off as some weird, royal habit, but maybe there’s more to it. Maybe it isn’t only me Niko doesn’t want to touch him—maybe he doesn’t like to be touched atall.
As usual, Niko doesn’t bother to explain. Instead, he turns and breezes into the darkly appointed suite as if he were born to it. Which I now know, he wasn’t.
Had the Lunaedon first belonged to the Aeternalis? Had he been the one to choose the plush carpets and textured sofas?Had he designed the gilded oil lamps burning softly along the walls? The shelves of books lined behind a beautiful mahogany desk?
Or had it been Niko that made the Lunaedon his home? That chose the lush paintings and the beautiful stained glass? Niko, that uses the shining grand piano in the atrium off the side of the study, that decorated it with black stone trees like the ones in the courtyard floors below? In all the details of his story, he’d conveniently left outhowhe’d succeeded Pan as the monarch of Letum.
Despite my exhaustion, curiosity prods at my chest as I follow him into a lusciously appointed bedroom. Though everything is black, the room doesn’t feel cold or impersonal. The walls are elegantly paneled, the planks arranged in a geometric pattern, with clean, dissecting lines. Large, gilded windows stretch from floor to ceiling, revealing the swirling sky outside and the crashing sea beyond the cliffs.
A giant bed sits against one wall, piled with silky sheets and luxurious blankets. The carved headboard climbs and curves to the top of the vaulted ceiling, its towering presence decadently opulent. Drawn by its dark beauty, I instinctively step toward it, dropping my blanket to run my fingers over the smooth wood.
Stars. And swirls and swirls of planets. Beautiful patterns of the universe—of hunters and sirens and magic—and at the very top, where the wood meets the vaulted ceiling, is the star that called me here the night I tumbled off the building. That has been calling to me my entire life.
“They’re the constellations of Letum?” I ask, the tips of my fingers bumping over a particularly dense cluster of stars.
Niko hums in acknowledgment as I count the stars that line the utmost edge of the headboard. Seven of them, bigger than any of the others. But the biggest of them all is mine. The second star from the right.
I feel Niko’s gaze following the trail of my hands, and a blush rises to my cheeks as I realize how close I am to his bed. When he’d suggested I sleep with him, he’d probably meant on the couch in the outer rooms. Or knowing the king, he’d probably meant for me to curl up on the floor next to him like a sad puppy.
But rather than a rebuke or a cutting remark, Niko answers my question. “They used to mean something to me. In another life.”
His words feel like a confession; like a secret.
“What?”
“Freedom. Absolute freedom.” There’s a hollow tinge to his voice—one filled with sadness and regret and something else I don’t understand. I want to ask what he means. Niko is the most powerful man in Letum, and to those of us without it, power means freedom.Doesn’t it?
He’s already turned away, his face hidden in the shadows as he strips off his gloves and lays them neatly on a small table set beside an overstuffed chair.
His fingers are pale, the designs inked over his knuckles stark in the dim light. He drags them through his already wild hair, his shoulders rising slowly in a deep breath. He’s still exhausted by his show of power on the beach, and I wonder again at what the Carrion King tithes to keep Letum safe—the price of his protection.
“Sleep, Willa,” he says softly, as if he can sense my questions on his skin. He settles into the chair, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall with a strangled groan.
Annoyance and worry prickles at the back of my neck. Niko was already so drained when he came into my room. Another use of his magic will have sapped what little energy he regained in the Crocodile. I think of the way his eyes rolled back into his head, the painful hitch of his breath as his body rebelled against him.
“Are you insane?” The words are out of my mouth before I can temper them.
“Ironic that you’dbe the one questioningmysanity, you absolute lunatic,” he replies without bothering to open his eyes. “Poor Sam will never be able to look at a nail file the same way again.”
“It was one time,” I grit out, before shaking my head and measuring my words. “I meant…you’re insane if you think I’ll take the bed when you’re in so much pain. You can’t sleep in that chair.”
Niko flicks one eye open with a look implying that’s exactly what he intends to do.
I pad over to the chair, standing over him with a hand on my hip. “Come on, Corpsey.”
Both of his eyes fly open, narrowing so furiously at the nickname, a laugh bubbles from me.
“You’re a million years old and have been practically dead for three days. And practically dead, geriatric, kings need rest. You aren’t going to get any in that chair.”
“Three hundred and thirty-four,” he replies without missing a beat. “And I assure you, the chair is fine.”
I scoff. “Is this some outdated, old man show of chivalry? Are you going to offer to sleep on the floor to protect my feminine virtue?”
He levels me with a wry look. “The skill with which you wield a dinner fork would suggest it’smyvirtue that needs protecting.”
