The fire between us crackled in the air, unresolved, scorching, waiting to be consumed.
“Alright,” I relented, my breath uneven, the proximity searing through my senses like an open flame.
Slowly, I surrendered the book, my fingers lingering a fraction too long against hers.
A hesitation.
A silent confession in touch alone.
I helped her up, though my hands were reluctant to let go.
She straightened, adjusting herself, but my gaze had already fallen elsewhere.
The Noctyss flower.
An opportunity.A risk.A prize.
With a sleight of hand honed by years of deception, I plucked the delicate, deadly bloom and slipped it into the folds of my cloak.
She wouldn’t notice.
Not yet.
“I won’t bother you anymore, love,” I murmured, stepping back toward the door, my voice smooth, easy—a lie dressed as reassurance.
Each step was heavy with the weight of untruths.
This was not our last encounter.
It could never be.
Our fates were bound too tightly, our desires too dangerously entwined.
With the poison secured, I stepped into the night, leaving behind a storm of emotions that raged as fierce as any tempest.
But the truth was torturous.
I couldn’t get Elizabeth Alexander out of my mind.
ChapterThirteen
ELIZABETH
The flickering candlelight stretched my shadow across the wooden floorboards, a distorted mockery of the solitude pressing in on me like a suffocating shroud.
I sat hunched over the weathered alchemy book, my mind in turmoil, my thoughts entangled in Amir.
His piercing gaze haunted me.
A riddle wrapped in an enigma, unreadable and infuriating.
And yet—something about him stirred the embers within my chest.
A dangerous, smoldering curiosity.
The more I tried to untangle my feelings, the tighter their grip became.
At night, a different story emerged.
