Right then.
“Me,” I say, in what I think is quite a calm voice, all things considered.
“You’re the source,” says Night. “You’re what’s keeping Hex alive and what’s been making him stronger. If Dis wants to stop Hex, the most efficient way is to remove the source.”
I think about that for a moment. Remove the source. Cheerful phrasing.
“Right,” I say.
“We’re not going to let that happen,” says Dark, with a certainty that is absolutely genuine and also somewhat terrifying in its implications, because the kind of certainty that sounds like that, usually means the alternative is genuinely being considered by someone.
I look at Hex. He is looking at me with an expression I cannot entirely read, something layered and complicated and too much for this living room on a Tuesday evening.
“You knew,” I say. Not accusing. Just saying it.
“I suspected,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
“There’s a difference.”
“Yes.”
“We can discuss that later,” I say, which is probably the most mature thing I have ever said in my life, and also a very effective way of making clear that we absolutely will be discussing it later.
Hex holds my gaze for a moment. Then he nods, once.
Night and Dark stay for another hour. I learn that they are brothers. The conversation shifts, becomes more tactical, moves into territory I don’t entirely follow but try to keep up with. There is talk of allegiances and timing and the state of the Shadow Realm, and Night and Dark speak about it with the weariness of people who have been watching something they love be mismanaged for a long time and are very ready for it to stop.
Dark makes a joke at some point. I don’t catch all of it but Hex almost smiles, and Night shakes his head with the expression of someone who has been making excuses for his brother for centuries and has made peace with it.
They are, despite everything, good company.
When they leave, stepping back into the shadows the same way they came, Night pauses at the threshold and looks back at me.
“He talked about you,” he says quietly. “Before all of this. Before the exile. He talked about the human boy he used to feed on.” A pause. “We’re glad he has you.”
And then he’s gone.
Chapter 17
I’m Not Ready
Ican’tfallasleep.
Hex isn’t sleeping either. I know because I can feel him beside me in the dark, awake and still in the particular way of something that is thinking very hard and very quietly and has no intention of sharing any of it.
I don’t even know if he does sleep. I know alarmingly little about my situationship’s anatomy and physiology, other than he is very capable of rocking my world. But that’s an issue to lie awake angsting over another night.
Right now I’m not sleeping because every time I get close to sleep I think about a threat called Wraith, andremove the source,and the look on Hex’s face when Night said that Dis knew he was alive, and then I am very much awake again.
It’s four in the morning, and I think it’s time to give up entirely and make tea instead.
Hex follows me to the kitchen without a word, his silence is unusual enough that I don’t comment on it. We sit at the table in the dark with our respective silences and the Bristol night doing its quiet thing outside the window.
Eventually, I say, “You knew before Night and Dark told you.”
Hex wraps both hands around his mug. He doesn’t deny it. “I suspected. The shape in the doorway on Monday. I wasn’t certain.”
“But you suspected.”
