“Nothing can make me better. I’m too sick for you to ever be.”
“So what you’re saying is that nothing but my blood will do.”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
“Well, why not?”
Another sigh then.
But this one was gentler. Almost wistful. And so was his voice when he finally spoke. “Because you are too kindhearted, little bookworm. Even toward me, a man you have every reason to loathe—I see the way you’re starting to soften. To talk yourself into thinking maybe I’m not so bad, and that even if I am, is it really all right to watch me suffer and starve? And so when I say, yes, you will think that perhaps, just perhaps, it might be okay to offer me a taste. Just one little taste, you’ll say, because one little taste isn’t really so bad, is it? And I’ll want to tell you, yes, it’s very bad indeed—it’s the worst anything could possibly be. But instead, I will say, no, no, it will be all right. And it won’t be. It won’t be, because I won’t be able to stop,” he said, each mad word building one on top of the other, until she was practically bursting to tell him he was wrong. About her kind heart, about her softening, about what she would want to offer him.
But somehow, none of that was what came out.
She thought instead of how strange it would be for a monstrous double to confess something like that. To persuade you not to put yourself in danger, even if it was only fear of being caught that made him. And she answered, before she could stop herself “So then we take away your choice to,” she said.
As if this was all just some puzzle to be solved by a scrap of logic.
Instead of something so strange and terrifying even he looked aghast. “You mean you want to tie me down,” he whispered, voice hushed and hoarse. Gaze full of a kind of fraught light. Waiting, she thought, for her to step back from the precipice.
Even though he was the one who’d accidentally led her there.
“I didn’t mean anything at all. But yes, I imagine that would work.”
“It won’t. There isn’t anything in this room that could hold me.”
“Then make something. Make something out of magic.”
He gave her a withering look. “You know full well I’m too weak.”
“I also know that you’re just saying that in an effort to put me off.”
“I don’t even understandwhyI have to. You should be put off anyway.”
Maybe I would be if you stopped saying things like that, she thought.
But that didn’t cover it, and she knew it. She had to scramble for other excuses.
“Yeah, and I’ve already told you the reason I’m not: I still need you to help me do this. Quite clearly, because if I didn’t, I would be making some goddamn manacles myself right now. But I’m not, because I just know when I try that it won’t be there. I can feel that it isn’t there,” she said, unsure as she did who she was really trying to convince. But surprised when it worked.
The words built to a crescendo of actual stress.
Actual fear of all the things she couldn’t do.
And she could see that idea sinking into him, too.
He stared after they were out, long and assessing. As if he was weighing something up. Then finally, he seemed to decide. Shealmost saw him nod, as in,well, that’s settled, then. Before he took a slow breath and spoke in the most suddenly casual and kindly way she could imagine, coming from him.
“You’re just exhausted.”
“Yes, I know I am.”
“Not to mention stressed out and frustrated.”
“Well, of course. Wouldn’t anyone be, in my place?”
He nodded sagely. “You’re right. Things like this happen to a lot of people.”
“Right,” she said. “Exactly. Exactly. This is absolutely understandable.”
