"Because you're blocking the exit and you have fangs."
He smiles. It's the kind of smile that knows exactly what it looks like. He pushes off the shelf and takes two slow steps forward instead of back, and now he's close enough that I'd have to stand to be on even footing with him. I stay on the floor because standing is what he wants.
"What did you find?" he asks.
"A history of systematic murder. Great light reading, highly recommend."
"I meant the appendix."
"I know what you meant." I keep my hand on the book. "Why are you here, Caspian?"
"Same reason you are." He crouches down, the way Ryder did in the library yesterday, except where Ryder did it with the controlled deliberation of someone making a tactical choice, Caspian does it with the easy grace of someone who doesn't need to think about how he moves. He's close now. Much too close. I can see the faint line of his jaw in the sconce light, the way his red hair falls forward slightly. "You wanted to know what you are. So did I."
"Past tense?" I ask. "You already know?"
He doesn't answer that directly. His gaze drops to the book, and his face shifts, turns unreadable in a way that suggests effort. He reaches out and taps the cover with one finger. "The Conduit Prophecy."
"You've read it."
"I've read everything in this section." His eyes come back to mine. "Several times."
My pulse does uncooperative things. I keep my voice steady. "And?"
"And some knowledge is fatal," he says. "I told you that."
"You told me that in the corridor three weeks ago while you were being deeply unpleasant about my housing assignment. I didn't take it as a research advisory."
His mouth curves. Not a full smile, just the edge of one. "Maybe you should have."
He stands abruptly, unfolding to his full height, and I take the opportunity to get to my feet as well. We're standing in the narrow row now with maybe eighteen inches between us, and the shelves on both sides don't leave anywhere to step that isn't toward him or away, and I'm not moving away.
"Are you going to tell me what's in the appendix that's worth underlining twice?" I ask. "Or are we doing the cryptic vampire routine for the full evening?"
"I don't do routines." He takes one step forward. One. And now there's less than a foot between us and his eyes have gone darker, the green deepened to black in the low light, and I feel the particular stillness that precedes violence or its opposite. "The prophecy says the Veil is fracturing. It says the fracture started when the last null was eliminated during the Purge. It says the only thing that can seal it is a Conduit." He pauses. "One who absorbs and amplifies. One who bonds."
My throat is dry. "Bonds with what?"
"Not what." Another step. His hand comes up and flattens against the shelf beside my head, not touching me, just there, closing off one direction. "Three specific power lines. Three specific males. One from each of the old Houses."
The sconce light flickers. I don't move.
"That's why they killed all the nulls," I say slowly. "Not because they were dangerous. Because someone didn't want the prophecy to happen."
His face changes. Fast, gone before I can name it. "Someone didn't want the bonds to happen," he says. "The prophecy requires a Conduit who bonds voluntarily. Involuntary bonds don't seal anything. They just distribute the fracture." He's watching me with that cataloguing attention, the patient kind that feels like being read. "You understand what that means."
"It means whoever killed all the nulls wasn't trying to stop the Veil from fracturing." I hold his gaze. "They were trying to make sure it would."
"There she is," he says quietly. Not warmly. Like he's confirming a theory.
He's close enough now that I can feel the slight drop in temperature that precedes a vampire's proximity, the body-heat differential that Caspian specifically seems to run colder than the others. His other hand comes up, slowly, and I feel his fingers brush my jaw, light as a test, and when I don't move his thumb traces the line of my cheekbone with a pressure that is not gentle and is not rough and is doing very specific things to my ability to think clearly.
"You should be afraid of me," he says.
"I know."
"I'm not one of the good options in this prophecy, Angelic."
"I didn't say you were."
