“Right. Right. Sent to broker deals and accept marriage proposals on his behalf. How could I forget?”
His brows narrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
Thalia turned, her anger rising just as quickly as her dread. Cassius stared at her, his eyes sweeping over her face, seeming to expose every facet of her person. As if he could see right to her heart. She was supposed to kill the Vampyr prince. Supposed to destroy them from the inside out. She was supposed to killhim.
And now she was … she washelpingthem. Her sworn enemy. The creatures responsible for killing her family.
But it wasn’t the creatures who’d killed her sister that she was aiding.
Her mind flashed to Keegan’s soft laugh, Camilla raising her brow in approval, Larellia’s hard determination as she tried to find the cure for their people.
Her mother would never understand that.
Because while Thalia might hesitate, Helena Cesiaran of Agripa would not.
She didn’t realize she’d pressed the palms of her heels into her eyes until Cassius gently peeled them away.
“Talk to me,” he said softly, brows furrowed.
Thalia stared at him, her throat constricting like vines around her neck.
She couldn’t.
Because he’d never forgive her if she told him her plan. If she revealed the mission her mother had assigned her—the fact that she’d been smuggling intel through her letters so Agripa might better prepare for when she took down the courts and they could sweep in. She didn’t think he trusted her, not fully. But a part of her ached for it. For that trust that used to bind them tighter than vows.
But trust had died. It died the moment she’d stabbed him in the back and taken a vow to end him. And it wasn’t as if Cassius weren’t keeping his own secrets. Secrets about his world, about the prince. She couldn’t trust him either, as much as she wished to.
“My mother will ask questions. We should prepare for those answers.” Thalia pulled out of his grip, taking a swig of sour ale, only so she’d have something to do.
Cassius watched her with a guarded expression. “The best lies are the ones with truth weaved into them.”
Thalia glanced at him over the rim of her mug. “So what should I tell her?”
“If she asks you about Vaccarium, what will you say?”
Thalia set her mug down. “That it’s rather like Agripa.”
“And if she asks you about the prince?”
“Well, at least I can be honest in saying I don’t know much about him and he’s hardly around,” Thalia said with enough bite that Cassius straightened.
His brows narrowed, but she downed her ale, ignoring the sour taste on her tongue. Each moment she spent dwelling on what was happening in Vaccarium, Thalia felt her composure cracking. Each interaction with the monsters she’d sworn to hate, each bit of light teasing from Camilla or soft word from Keegan, each look of longing from Cassius, created a crack in her meager façade.
“Thalia?”
She ignored him, setting her mug down, heart pounding. Cassius tilted his head, dark hair glinting. His eyes went to her pulse, and she wondered if he could hear it. Hear the conflict spreading through her veins, burning greater than any Vampyr bite.
She looked away, standing up suddenly. She gripped the blanket around her chest, grabbing the tray. “We should go to bed. The carriage should arrive by nightfall.”
Thalia managed to awkwardly put the tray on the dresser. Thunder cracked and she jumped, her bicep scraping against the sharp corner of the dresser. She hissed, glaring at the line of red now gleaming on her arm.
“Are you all right?” Cassius rumbled out.
Thalia scowled, making her way back to the bed, ignoring the concern on his face. “Fine.”
