If you knew him.
“I mean it, Erik,” she persisted.“Who?Me or yourself?Or maybe Jake.You knew him a lot longer.”
“Jake’s probably dead.”
“Great.”They kept bugging her to eat, but with conversations like this, no wonder she couldn’t even choke down dry toast for breakfast.“Another corpse I’m responsible for.”
“Not you, Liv.”A quiet, patient correction.“Him.”
“I used to think it was funny.The way you sayhimand it’s immediately… I know you’re not talking about the mailman.So to speak.”She was doing the nervous-babbling thing; it didn’t help that she… did she?
Yes, shelikedErik.It might have just been trauma bonding, but so long as Liv was telling some home truths tonight, she might as well admit a few to herself.“Jake said it the same way.So did Ignatius.”
“Looks likehe’s very interested in you, beautiful.”Erik went still again.Yet the fury returned, teasing at her skin with prickly wirebrush strokes.“I don’t have to tell you that’s a bad sign.”
“And I’m supposed to fall into bed with one of you strapping young lads to get it all sorted out?”Theoneirosflashed; Liv squeezed herself even more tightly.Mika would have heard the sarcasm in her bestie’s tone and known to duck for cover.
Was Mika all right?Were her friends going about their lives, blissfully unaware of mad gods and monsters in the dark?
Christ, I hope so.
“I told you, not until you want to.”Erik made a single restless movement, more sensed than seen.“But they’re right.Lady Sara is taking care of trainees and examinations; that’s work you’d like even less than city sweeps.”
Lady Sara.“Great.”She knew it was possible that either of theliraihad ever been this scared, this uncertain; still, her overworked imagination just couldn’t serve up a mental image, for once.“Just tossing me out the window is sounding better all the time.”
“Please don’t joke about that.”
Who’s joking?“Humor helps me get a handle on things, you know.”
“I know.”The tiny blue glimmers in his eyes had vanished, and now he was just a big male-shaped patch of deep shadow.“But please, Liv,don’t.”
The way he said it threatened to make her hands shake even more, so Liv hugged herself tighter, like a penitent schoolgirl in the principal’s office.“Okay.I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“What do I have to do, then, Erik?”She was a half-step away from unloading on him, Liv realized, simply because she was scared.“Because I’ve gotta tell you, I’m fresh out of ideas.Not that I had too many to begin with ever since I got kidnapped.”
No, she had to issue yet another correction.This feeling wasn’t simplyscared.It was a feeling somewhere past terrified, all the more frightening because of its inexpressible depth.
“I don’t have ideas either, Liv.My job’s to keep you alive.Or die in your place, if need be.That’s all.”
“Well, that’s a shitty job description.”Her voice rose; she couldn’t help herself.
There was a faint creak of leather.Maybe he’d shrugged, spreading his hands, maybe it was just an uneasy shifting of his weight.“It’s all I’ve got.”
“So what do we do?I mean me-and-you, Erik, because I have to say I don’t trust anyone here.”
“You should trust them more than me.”
“Don’t say shit like that, all right?Just… oh, forGod’ssake.”She groped for patience, found none.She was either petrified out of her head or boiling with irritation for weeks now, with no middle ground.The whipsawing back and forth could give anyone ulcers—or give an otherwise reasonable person a complete goddamn nervous breakdown.
There was no telling what she might have said next if a sudden chill hadn’t slid down her back, icy claws trailing over shrinking, goose-pimpled skin.
Erik’s chin rose.He cocked his head, listening.
“You feel that too?”she whispered, stupidly.
“Of course.”And he nodded, as if he’d expected it.Maybe he even had.“Do you really trust me, Liv?”
