I visited Julian once more. The day before I hoped he would open the Door went like any other, the morning a dash to ensure everything was prepared for the appearance of the Vile. The royal palace had a large church that had fallen into disuse after the gods left, and Carlow and Basil had claimed the attic with the bells, moving our things into it yesterday. We were utterly alone up there, and it was comforting to see Mori splayed out beneath us in its entirety. The new constructions around Formet loomed, taller than we’d planned but strong. Mori’s population had barely questioned it.
Basil still worried about getting them all into Formet in time after the Door opened, but Carlow took my assurances that they would be safe with a side-eyed glare and a scoff. No matter what Basil said, she was shrewd.
“Julian?” I called into his cell.
Carlow had been the only one to ask why we didn’t just throw the councilors in the cells to the Door now and buy a few more days. I’d not answered her.
“Julian,” I said again and stepped closer. The penknife was gone.
Julian was curled up against the far wall of the cell, his shirt pulled over his head, and he didn’t answer. Above him were twelve gouges in the stone.
Good.
Footsteps shuffled behind me. “Leave him be.”
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, retreating from the cells and joining Alistair.
“Working.” Alistair, hair tangled in a knot at the nape of his neck and glasses drifting down his nose, shook his head at me. His heart fluttered in the curves of his pale neck. “I’ve been known to do it on occasion.”
He would have been such a good noblewrought with how often he sacrificed himself for his work.
“I’ve never heard such a vicious rumor,” I said, following him to the cave with the Door. “Come here.”
He let me tug him down to my level and shivered when I pressed my lips to his forehead.
“You need to sleep or you’ll work yourself sick.” My fingers kept hold of his sleeve. “Let’s go to your room.”
“Lorena, it’s barely dusk.” He straightened up, and his spine creaked so loud I jumped.
The Door, still appearing like the door to my mother’s sickroom, opened with a gust and slammed shut. Alistair tilted his head, studying it. I sat on the table he’d dragged in here.
“I think it’s playing me,” he said. “Look.”
His lips moved with a contract, and a single splinter fell from the Door. A small pain needled my hand, ripening with each breath. I hissed. The nails vanished from my left hand. Blood dripped across the table.
“You could have warned me,” I mumbled, inspecting the bumpy skin where my nails used to be. “I don’t have enough nails for how big the Door is.”
Alistair hummed and wrote in his journal. “It’s still there.”
The splinter was still sitting atop the red dirt.
“It didn’t last that long with anyone else,” he said. “What’s different about you?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps the surprise mattered.”
“No, I didn’t warn Carlow either.”
It was hard to reconcile this boy with the one who’d stroked my jaw with a swan-feather quill.
Finally, the splinter sunk into the dirt, and the crack in the Door was healed. Alistair closed his book and leaned against me.
“I considered it, opening the Door,” he whispered. “I could be the villain if it freed us from this uncertainty.”
“I’m not here to be your conscience,” I said softly, “but you’re not opening the Door.”
“I know. I simply want us to always understand each other.” He took the lapels of my coat in his hands. “You rarely wear this these days. Did you wear it for me?”
I felt too close to Death these days to bother with the formality.
“You rarely wear yours.” I laughed and touched his bare collar. “What does it matter?”
“Why did you stop?” he asked, one hand sliding across my ribs and up to the brooch pinned to my chest. “I want to understand.”
“I was the undertaker in Felhollow because it was needed and respected,” I whispered. “I feared they wouldn’t want me if I weren’t needed. I feared that if I didn’t take a job they found distasteful, they’d expect more of me than I was willing to give. So long as they needed me, they didn’t push my boundaries.”
He licked his lips, gaze on the path of his fingers along my shoulder. He curled a strand of hair around his finger. “My mother wouldn’t have saved me if I weren’t vilewrought. She would’ve let my father kill me.”
He said it with such certainty—he knew she would have, and he knew I would understand that pain of being half-loved and misunderstood by a parent—that my breath caught in my throat. I wanted to live in the quiet comfort of sitting next to someone who knew exactly what I was thinking and why, slip between the sheets of my bed and settle in with someone who understood why I put my work before myself. I wanted familiarity and understanding, talks so long my throat grew sore and my heart grew full. I wanted a life without complication.
And in less than a day, I would ruin this.
“We should rest.” I slipped from the table. “Your room?”
He let me lead and didn’t let go of my hand. No shadows followed us, and we met no one but Wyrslaine soldiers in the halls. Alistair’s room was warm and stuffy, the air still, and despite the servants who must have kept it neat, he raced through ahead of me to open one of the slits in the ceiling. There were no windows in his rooms.
I toed off my shoes. Alistair sat on his bed, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. His eyes followed my hands as they undid the buttons of my coat and let it fall to the floor. He beckoned, and I went to him. His hands grasped my hips, turned me around, and tugged me until my back was flush against his chest. I pulled the blankets over our legs.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said softly and twisted a strand of hair at my temple around one finger. “Why?”
The pressure in my head faded, but I couldn’t think fast enough of what to say, since I couldn’t lie.
“Oh, Lorena Adler,” he whispered, the words rumbling in his chest and into me, “what are you up to?”
He dragged one finger down the center line of my scalp and split my hair into two even sections. I shuddered again.
“No answer?” he asked.
I leaned my head against his right shoulder and stared up at him. “Why are you curious?”
“Curiosity’s sake,” he said and wrapped his arms around me. He brought my hair over my shoulder, retangling his fingers in the ends, and rested his right cheek against my left. “You’ve been busy. Is it too much to assume I want to discuss whatever project is keeping you busy?”
“Yes,” I said and gasped when he pulled hard on my hair again. “I believe you miss me. I don’t believe that’s why you’re asking.”
I tilted my head slightly and watched his long fingers deftly braid my hair. The gentle movement prickled across my scalp.
“Do you trust me?” I whispered. “Do you trust me enough for me not to answer?”
“Of course.” One of his hands dropped to my waist. “It’s nothing that will kill you, is it?”
I arched and kissed him, praying he couldn’t taste the lie I couldn’t say. His nose bumped my chin, and I pulled away to face him. He gripped my waist, his other hand sliding up my neck to the side of my face. I kissed him again.
Alistair stilled. His lashes fluttered shut against my face, a soft breath escaping his nose. His lips moved against mine, opening slightly, and I pressed against him. He kissed me back far harder. His nails dug into my skin. His teeth nipped my bottom lip.
The shock shivered down my spine and twisted in the pit of my stomach. Alistair spun us and shoved, pinning me to the bed.
“I wonder,” he whispered against my throat, “what I would gain from devouring you.”
“It would be a loss.” I slotted my knee into the curve of his hip and flipped us. “You don’t understand power like I do.”
“Lore.” He gasped, not fighting my hold at all. “Do you actually want to do this, or are you being nice?”
The waver in his voice drew away all the worries and thoughts trapped in my head. This was now, not tomorrow, and I understood him perfectly. He knew the little pieces of me that ached to be spoken but couldn’t be. We wouldn’t be all right, and it raged in me. Terrible. Monstrous.
Finally, I had a home, and I was tearing it down.
“I am not being nice,” I said and let go of his wrists. “Though I can’t say I want more than this.”
“Fair enough.” He chuckled and threaded his fingers through my hair again. “What do you want?”
“I want you to enjoy tonight. I want to enjoy tonight.”
He rolled us onto our sides and tucked his face into my neck, lips trailing from collar to ear. I sighed, and he traced the curves of my ear with the tip of his nose. His tongue tasted my neck.
“You never struck me as someone who likes to be touched,” he said and kissed my cheek.
“I love being touched. I don’t like the expectations that come with it.” I curled up closer to him, hands slipping beneath his shirt. “What does both of us enjoying tonight look like?”
“Sleep here,” he said and fell onto his back, “and answer one question for me.”
I walked my fingers along his ribs and nodded.
“Do you love me?” he asked, voice devoid of feeling.
“No,” I said and flattened my hand against his side. “You’re uncaring and singular, and as much as I love how you have always respected and understood me, I know you wouldn’t extend the same respect to someone you didn’t find useful. I can’t love you as you are. To love you would be to hate most of Cynlira.”
He reached out one hand, a warm breeze like a breath rolled over me, and the lanterns in his room flickered out. I yawned against his chest.
“I’m not upset,” he said and kissed me gently. “Stop looking at me like I’ll break and rest. It’s not as if I can hate you for not loving me when you barely love yourself.”
“You sacrificed my wakefulness,” I muttered.
“Never what I’ve called it but yes.” He sat up, dragging the blankets out from under us, and tucked me in. His bare feet brushed mine. “I just wanted to make sure you still couldn’t lie.”
I didn’t want to love Alistair. I wanted to devour him and stifle this odd hunger knowing him had awoken within me. No one else would ever understand.
“I could have,” I said, and the act of his toes curling against mine was suddenly softer and sweeter than everything that had come before. “I never lied. I do understand why you do the things you do. I get it perfectly, but I still think it’s terrible. You’re the only one who’s noticed me. The real me. I am making terrible choices, and you’re the only one who understands them.”
He would be the only one who understood when tomorrow came. I was sure of it.