Perhaps my presence alone is enough.
“Good. Lead the way.”
We walk until we reach a presentation tent. There he is. Unmissable. A man with a snake draped across his chest.
He’s watching a show. I barely glance at the performers, dancing with sheer fabrics. They don’t hold my interest whatsoever.
“He seems preoccupied. How are we—”
That’s when the idea forms.
Will she admit she doesn’t have powers? Will she go through with this?
I glance at the dancers, then back at her. She seems to get my meaning immediately. I barely resist the urge to laugh as her expression turns from surprised to horrified.
“Absolutelynot, you cursed demon—”
I shrug. “Then we’ll find another way. I just thought, you being a temptress and all, you could useyourpowers, since I’m unable to use mine.”
I’m baiting her.
Tell me the truth, I want to say.Trust me.
Another part of me battles against it.Never trust me.
Here, I think desperately. Admit it.Admit you don’t have powers, or prove me wrong, pleaseprove me wrong. Tell me this thing I feel in my chest, this understanding that I actually have a heart and I want togive it to you,is a lie.
I watch panic shift her features for just a moment, until she relaxes them into indifference. Her chin lifts in defiance.
She won’t admit it. Of course she won’t.
It makes me like her more. My hearteater is as stubborn and proud as I am.
She doesn’t want to get on that stage. “Can’t you just torture the information out of him?”
Now she wants me to resort to my blades? Interesting. “Of course I can, Hearteater. But one of the most infamous thieves, one of the only people who know about the sword, turning up dead in such aviolent fashion? It would be suspicious ...” I shrug. “I suppose, if you are unable to actuallyuseyour powers—”
Her voice is outraged. “Of course I can.”
“It’s fine. We’ll find another—”
That gets her furious.
“No.” I see the determination on her face to prove me wrong. Her anger making her bold. She shoves her starstick at me. “Take this from me, and you’ll see myotherWildling curses in action,” she says.
She means eating my heart.
Doesn’t she know she already has it?
Still, I accept her starstick and watch as she makes her way through the dense crowd to the platform ahead, surprised she’s actually doing it. She disappears behind a curtain.
The moment she steps on the stage, in a skirt and hardly anything else, I am well and truly gone. Because she has no powers.
Yet she has bewitched me entirely.
She is not cursed to take the hearts of men, but I have given her mine willingly.
I’ve never held anything dearly, yet she holds my full attention.
