“It looks ghoulish,” I finally said.
He chuckled. Those black eyes shifted toward me. “It’ll improve with time.”
I rolled the blanket between my fingers. “You overused your magic.”
One eyebrow rose. “How do you know that?”
“Thalassa.” I pressed the duvet flat, then rolled it again. “She said your affinities are to earth and air.”
He blew out a breath. “Crazy old fae.”
“She saved us.”
He shifted toward me. “Wesaved us. But you, Eury…”
Nearly got us killed.I was too slow, too weak, toohuman.I couldn’t hear it from him right now. “Can we just pretend we don’t hate each other for ten minutes?”
“You didn’t let me finish.” He paused. “Look at me.”
I raised my eyes. It was almost painful to stare into his black eyes, like touching a bruise.
“I don’t know how you did it,” he said. “We were running, and then I fell… We should be dead.”
I didn’t speak. The answer was obvious.
“How did you…”
“I dragged you out,” I said. “How else?”
His lips pressed together. His eyebrows pulled tight. “Youdraggedme.”
“Not quickly, but yes.”
His hand emerged from under the cover. I had to bite back a sharp inhale; it was threaded with black veins.Just like Mama’s memory.He noticed, and left it palm-up on the blanket. “You dragged me out of the Eldermaze.”
That was awe in his voice. Pure, untainted awe. I saw it in his eyes, too, in the softness around them. He wasn’t taunting me. He was acknowledging me.
Contempt I could handle. Disdain was my language. Acknowledgment from anyone, but fromhim? I had no armor for this.
I straightened. “I need to know something. And I think I’ve earned the truth.”
A low chuckle sounded from his throat. “All right,” he said. “Ask.”
The veins under his skin were black as ink. “What happens if you use too much magic?”
He let out a slow breath, then said, “The creatures who attacked your kingdom that night—the ones you saw in the southern district…”
The creatures. The wraiths. The killers.
“What about them?”
Dorian only stared at me, his brow lowering.
Then I understood.
My fingers released the blanket. I stood, putting distance between us. Those black eyes suddenly looked terrifying. “You’re lying.”
Around me, I heard them. Metal on metal. Shadows shifting across the walls, faster than light. The curve of the scythe glinted, longer than me. And the screams—I heard them again. My friends, my family, everyone I’d ever known?—
