Grace flinches, and the uneasiness in my gut flares through my entire body. Her expression says everything she doesn’t voice out loud.
You’ve already hurt me.
Everything you do hurts me.
I hate you.
“I want to try something,” I tell her. “I think it might help. I’ll stay with you. I’ll tell you exactly what we’re doing, and if you want to stop, we will.”
She stares at me, until I feel those bottomless blue eyes threaten to swallow me whole.
“I want to stop,” she says. She’s trembling from her body to her voice. “God, Sebastian. I want tostop.”
I stare at her, waiting for my insides to settle. They don’t. It only feels like they’re growing, twisting out of control. I swallow, careful to keep my expression blank.
“We can’t,” I say. My voice is hoarse, unrecognizable. I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so…unsure. “If we don’t find a way?—”
“Then don’t lie,” she says, cutting me off. I wish she’d yell, but her words are nothing more than a whisper. Tears streak down her face. She wipes them away, almost aggressively, and smears makeup down her cheeks. “If you’re going to force me, then do it. But don’t you dare act like I have a choice.”
I am being flayed alive. My nerves are being cut, rearranged, twisted into something I don’t recognize.
For the first time since we’ve arrived here, I lower my hand from Grace’s back. Something within me demands I touch her again, and it takes active concentration to defy it.
“Come,” I say finally.
Grace watches as I turn, not for the ballroom, but back in the way of her quarters. She remains frozen, only for a moment, before trailing after me. We don’t speak for the rest of our walk, and when she goes into her room, she shuts the door without looking at me.
The next morning,I lay alone on the stone table in the courtyard. The sun is a gentle touch of heat against my bare chest, nowhere near warm enough to keep me from shivering. My sweater and coat lie discarded in the grass, but I make no move to pull on either. Instead, I lie against the cold stone, embracing its unpleasant chill.
It’s late winter or early spring, depending who you ask. Cora would say winter. Grace would undoubtedly say spring.
I close my eyes.
Over the years, I’ve tried to embrace this: the indescribable sensation of being both vampire and not. Cora’s spell allows me to lie here in the sun without catching fire, but it changes me, too. Right now, my skin feels as soft, as vulnerable as Grace’s always is. It’s hard to imagine. Walking around with this paper-thin skin, breakable bones, demanding lungs.
How strange to need air all the time.
I open my eyes. From here, I can see a row of windows. Though I can’t see through them, thanks to the sun’s glare, I know I’m being watched. Within each sun-protected window, there is a room full of vampires. Hundreds of my followers, trapped and desperate to feel what I am now.
I only had to live four years without sunlight. Some from my inner circle went six, eight, or more. And all those fuckers locked in their rooms haven’t felt it since the witches cursed us. Cora cast spells over the windows, protecting us from the sun’s rays while allowing a bit of light. But still, many of my followers have lived their entire vampiric existences in darkness.
Grace doesn’t understand.
If she did, I have to believe she’d be less difficult. She wouldn’t be crying, pouting, complaining. She’d be fighting right alongside me to break this damned curse, once and for all.
I look away from the windows, choosing instead to glare at the sun. This violent light steals everything from my kind, and she’s my only shot at stealing it back. Our power. Our invincibility. Our freedom.
Hundreds, thousands of vampires’ fates, all held in the palms of one woman. One stubborn half-human, half-witch who can’t be bothered to figure out her own magic.
“Master.”
I jolt upright. The air catches in my throat, and I choke out a cough until I can breathe again. Oskar stands in the courtyard, leaned against my statue. I have no idea how long he’s been standing there, watching me.
“Hells,” I say. I press a palm to my chest, feeling the erratic beats of my pathetic, mortal heart.
“Apologies,” Oskar says. His lips twitch though, in a way that suggests he isn’t sorry at all.
“Did she go?” I ask. I study the stone building’s architecture rather than meeting the watchful gaze of my oldest friend.
