“I’m not interested,” says Shea.
“Are you sure?” Crooking an arm around the thin trunk of a tree, she swings herself out of sight. She appears on the other side, eyes glittering. “He’s heard a rumor that your poor, sweet mother isn’t feeling her best. That you’ve come all this way in search of a cure.”
Shea stills. “There is no cure.”
“Is that what Oliver told you?”
“Well, no,” admits Shea. “But it was heavily implied.”
The womantsks. “Oliver can be very tricky when it suits him. He tells all sorts of lies to get his way.”
“And Paris doesn’t?”
“Paris Keeling is a businessman. He makes decisions with his head. Oliver makes decisions with his heart. It’s his fatal flaw. Surely, you see it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be out here all alone, crying in your socks.”
“I wasn’t crying,” says Shea.
“But you’re alone,” notes the woman. “It isn’t good to be friendless in a place like this. The dark might gobble you up.”
Shea stands her ground, her toes numb with cold. “You can tell Paris I’m not interested.”
The woman peers down at her, untroubled. “That’s a shame. He’sveryinterested in you. And he has connections. All sorts of them. He’s not like Oliver, scraping and scavenging for every scrap. He’s a kingmaker. A dealbroker. Aman, not a boy. He can get you what you need with the snap of his fingers. But if you’re sure …” She turns to go, slipping out from the circular beam of the light.
“Wait,” calls Shea.
The woman reappears, her mouth curving into a bloodred smile. “Yes?”
“Is there really a cure?”
“There is,” says the woman. “And they don’t want us to have it. There’s not enough food. Not enough supplies. It’s better, if some of us die. Easier, if some of us survive on blood. Simpler, if we devour one another. But Paris—Paris can get anything. For you, he would.”
“Why me?”
“You’re everything to him. The linchpin in all he holds dear.”
Shea’s blood pumps a little faster. “What do I have to do?”
“Come to the revel,” says the woman. “Alone. You and Paris can—”
There’s a sickening squelch and the woman coughs—a short, shallow hack that paints her chin with blood. Stunned, Shea follows her gaze down to her abdomen. Five onyx tips protrude from her torso in arcuated points. They disappear with a sound that turns Shea’s stomach. The woman drops to her knees with a wet burble.
Behind her stands Lys. Bruises burgeon across his skin in shades of violet, fracturing along his jaw. His veins are thunderhead dark, thin lines of desiccation deepening to a swollen pitch. He is as inhuman as he was the night on the bridge, his body corded beyond recognition.
Between them, the struggle runs out of the woman. Her eyes go hazy, pupils ashen.
Feebly, she whispers, “From the fount of the forest comes the—comes the—”
She topples to the ground with a thud. She doesn’t move again. For several seconds afterward, there is only this—Shea and Lys standing face-to-face, the wind clicking through the branches. The forest gleams with starlight, diamond fractals dripping from the pines.
Even Lys is glazed in it, the fluted ridges of his horns gone onyx with rainwater. He holds her in the black bullion of his stare, severe and unblinking. He has never looked more beautiful to her than in this singular moment. And she loves him. Sheloves him.
She doesn’t know how to make herself stop.
Even now, when she knows it’s poisoning them both.
Scenting the air, he takes a single step toward her. There is no recognition in his face—no sharp smile, no knowing leer. She’s cornered, nowhere to run.
“Lys,” she whispers. “Lys, it’s me.”
