“Don’t,” he warns me, stalking closer.
I glance at the blade, no longer catching the moonlight from the hall. It doesn’t seem so dangerous in the darkness.
And what is Cosmo going to do?
Kill me?
I roll my eyes and start to slide from the bed, but he moves faster, dropping both apple and knife to the floor. I have a glimpse of the former rolling unevenly toward the door before Cosmo plants his fists on either side of me in the mattress, looming in my face, his nose inches from my own.
His presence feels warm, his cologne familiar, but his appearance in this bizarre night is like the prelude to another murder.
But did I dream that? Sullen, with the knife? Sullen, his gaze latched onto mine as he gutted a man who nearly gutted me?
“Cosmo.” I curl my fingers over the edge of the bed, holding on. “What is going on?” I try to keep my voice even, but even I hear the tremor.
Cosmo lifts his brows. “Why don’t you tell me, Princess?”
“Where is?—”
“Who cut your throat?”
“It wasn’t him if that’s what you?—”
“And your shoulder? Let me guess. He didn’t do that either?”
I frown, confused, but when I tighten my hold on the firm mattress beneath me, I feel the bruises light up, the ones from trying to tear down the door separating Sullen and I. It feels like a lifetime ago. Time is wavy, bending, and so is place. I don’t know where I am. Why Cosmo is here. Is Maude, too? The others from the Emporium? What the fuck is happening?
“He won’t stop until you’re dead,” Cosmo says carefully, as if continuing a conversation I cannot follow along with. “And now Mads Bentzen wantshima corpse, too. Let’s pretend he didn’t hurt you. Let’s pretend you aren’t brainwashed. Your father won’t let him live and he certainly would never let you be with him. In fact, he told me explicitly if I convinced you to let this all go, you could marry me.”
I want to scream. This can’t be real. But all I say is, “That’s hilarious.”
Cosmo’s green eyes narrow. “I’m not laughing.”
“I don’t want to marry you.”
“And I don’t want you at all.”
It feels like he punched me in the gut with that, but it’s good we’re on the same page at least. “Then why are you here?”
“Because you were my friend. Because you were a girl I fucked. Because I give a shit whether you live or die, and that little freak isn’t going to put you in the ground.”
I swallow hard, trying to hide my anger. “Where is he?”
Cosmo doesn’t answer. He just smiles coldly at me.
“Where is Sanford?” I try. Was ithisblood I saw first in the hallway?
“The old man? Did you know he is fucking insane?”
I blink slowly, pulling back a little.
Cosmo stays leaning over me, trapping me to the bed.
“What?”
His smile widens cruelly. “Did you know it washimwho taught little FrankenSteinthat he should carve up his son to become a god?”
I shake my head once. The story Sanford told us, about Juliet, and the window, and how hedidn’t bite the apple…“No, that’s not?—”
