I get to my feet, ready to call the guards. There’s sorcery at work.
Instead, I freeze in shock.
Vlari is standing right in front of me. She isn’t wearing that dreadful dress at all; she’s in green pants, with her leather boots and a loose linen shirt tucked at the waist.
And she’s grinning at me, as if everything in the world is fine. As if this makes sense.
“About time you came to see me.”
Promises
Drusk
The sound of my heartbeat resonates in my ears. I can’t speak. I can’t think. I can only stare and gape.
“I’m still asleep,” she says next.
I give up trying to make sense of any of it. I take a seat on her bed and close my eyes in an attempt to banish the migraine brewing after all this confusion.
“You’re in my mind right now.”
I sigh and give up, opening my eyes again. I have to look at her, illusion or no.
“So, I’m dreaming?”
She shakes her head, and waves around the room. I notice it isn’t quite the one I walked into. It looks like it had when I last saw her here ten years ago—with the professors’ chairs scattered around the walls and fireplace, bookshelves, a desk. “Not at all. If anyone walks in, they’ll see you next to me, your hand in mine. I suppose you’d look peculiar. Like a statue.” She grimaces. “Sorry. It makes you rather vulnerable, you know.”
I want to tell her I don’t care.
I keep my mouth shut, letting her go on. Letting her talk.
Letting her be alive.
I missed her voice. I missed seeing her, and she was right there. For an instant, I pretend nothing else mattered.
“Pulling you into my mind doesn’t cost me much energy when I’m touching you,” she explains. “I was so very bored until I worked out how to do this. I could feel Mother brushing my hair, and I wished I could speak to her. Then, suddenly, I was doing just that!”
I can’t begin to untangle my emotions, or make sense of them. There’s some anger, directed at myself, at her mother, at the world. And at Vlari herself.
No one told me anything. No one told me she couldtalk, that she was awake—that she was fine. And no one had told me what she’d planned before she cursed herself. I didn’t get to say goodbye because I hadn’t mattered to anyone in charge. I hadn’t mattered toher.
If Vlari had asked her mother to get me here, I know the queen would have done so. She hadn’t. She hadn’t cared to see me.
All the rage and sorrow muffled under the pile of ice that has surrounded my heart surfaced.
Ihateher.
I hate her and all I can think about is touching her. Marking her. Pressing on her skin hard enough to leave bruises, so that she can feel me and remember me.
She tilts her head. “Pixie got your tongue?”
The pixie got my balls and crushed them in her grasp.
When I fail to respond, the teasing grin fades. She sighs. “How are you doing, Drusk?”
I’m a wreck. I’m undone, and moments away from exploding.
Gritting my teeth, I reply, “Fine.”
