“You’re no fun like this,” Shea tells him.
“Fed?”
“All moral and overthink-y.”
“Overthink-y.”
“Yes, see?” She reaches for him with her free hand, blood still trickling red and wet down her wrist. Gently, she presses a thumb between his brow. “You’ve got thunderclouds, right here.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
She lets her hand drop. “It’s something my mom used to tell my dad.”
She looks sad, suddenly, and he doesn’t know how to undo it. Gently—like he’s catching a butterfly—he crooks a finger under her chin. Her breath hitches as he draws her face up to his. Not for the first time, he thinks about kissing her.
He’s not given the chance.
“Would you do something for me,” she whispers, “if I asked you a favor?”
It’s a dangerous question. Not because she’s asking—not because it’s a violation of their agreement—but because of the answer, already on his tongue.Anything.
“Lysander!” Cyrus appears in the doorway, looking harassed. His eyes flick disapprovingly over Shea. “Well, that’s one mystery solved. No one knew where you went.”
“You’re a regular detective,” Lysander snaps. “Leave.”
“Wish I could. Choi and I took care of your envoy issue, but we caught a watchdog snooping around the property on our way back in.”
Lysander is still looking at Shea as Cyrus says it, which is the only reason he sees the flicker of guilt on her face. It’s gone as soon as it appeared.
The problem isn’t thathesees it—the problem is Cyrus does, too.
“It’s her,” he says. “She brought a soldier to Mercy Ridge.”
Growing up, Shea’s mother used to tell her to always leave a light burning, even in the dead of night. It was one of her many rituals, same as most other families in Little Hill. Tiny, meaningless sacraments to give children the illusion of safety. A wreath of hawthorn on the door. A shallow bowl of purified water on the front steps. A silver cross around the neck.
A light, to kept the dark things at bay.
Sometimes, keeping a light on was easier said than done. So far north, it never took much to knock the power out. Ice on the wires. Wind from the mountain. A thick fall of snow. During a blackout, it usually took days for a lineman to reach them. Weeks, in deep winter.
Before Shea’s father left, they’d make an event of the power outages. Her mother would start a fire in the hearth. She’d light a candle in every window. She sang the old hymns as she went—humming canticles she’d learned back when the Everly family still filled a pew at church. Before she became a Parker, and the congregation shut their doors.
Shea’s father would sit awake all night and tend to the flames, feeding kindling to the fire whenever it burned low. Unable to sleep with the wind rattling her windows, Shea would creep downstairs and coax her father into telling her a story.
Her memory of these nights is such a visceral thing, it’s difficult to remember if it’s one blackout in particular or an amalgamation of many. She remembers her father in his chair, the lit embers setting him aglow. A shotgun across his lap, the dark pressing its face against the frosted panes as he wove her a story with his hands.
When dawn crept in and the candles were extinguished, Shea would creep sleepily to the sill and stick her fingers into the melted wax. This memory is visceral, too. First came the sear of heat, then the feel of it congealing against her skin.
That’s what a bite feels like—a blinding locus of pain, followed by a hot-honey warmth. Wax in her veins. A hard, smooth clot that chases out all other sensation. Fear. Worry. Hurt. Each time she comes to Mercy Ridge, she’s left perfectly, pleasantly numb. No thoughts at all of Little Hill to haunt her. Not even the good ones.
Tonight is no different. Tonight, the bliss sinks so deep into her bones that she can’t even recall why she came. Can’t remember what it was that made her race all the way here, rushing along the narrow switchbacks with her heart in her throat and a stitch in her side.
All she can think about is Lys. The way his eyes after a feed are cool and gray, the color of the sky in winter. Tonight, he looked—for a moment, at least—like he might lean in and kiss her. He’d been inches away, his breath shallow, when something at the door caught his attention. His head snapped up. His grip on her turned vulturine. Slowly, she became aware of a conversation taking place, snatches of it floating past her like flotsam.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Lys says coldly.
“You didn’t have to.” Cyrus Talbot stands in the open door, steely-eyed. “It’s my job to be your eyes and ears.”
“I have eyes and ears of my own. Leave her out of it.”
