Arthie watched Laith leave. She was never one to mourn, but here she was, mourning Spindrift, mourning the oath she’d made to herself. Some part of her mourned him too. He had used her, disrespected her, nearly robbed her, and yet.
And yet.
He was a knot of emotion she didn’t yet know how to unravel. She was grateful to be rid of him and sad to have chased him away, and she was not looking forward to telling Jin that he had been right. Their high captain of the Horned Guard truly couldn’t be trusted, and it wasn’t for the reason either of them had expected.
Arthie stepped out of the room and turned down the hall, coming face-to-face with Matteo. He looked different now that her hunger had abated, blood rushing through her veins, bubbly and fresh. Everything looked more alive, vibrant, less tunneled in darkness. He saw her and froze.
“No, Arthie,” he whispered. “Tell me you didn’t.”
He rarely called her by her name.
“You did,” Matteo said, stepping closer. His hand twitched as if he wanted to reach for her. “You fed. On him.”
“You knew about me,” Arthie said.
Penn truly had told him everything. There was pain in Matteo’s eyes, something almost like defeat, betrayal. What she did surely couldn’t affect him that much.
“I’ve known for years,” he said, but he didn’t know what she’d done. He didn’t know what she was capable of. “Even if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be hard to assume as much about the owner of Spindrift.”
“What I am has nothing to do with Spindrift,” she said. The sconces flickered in the hall, drenching him in shadow.
“No? Is it coincidence, then, that the moment you lose Spindrift, you lose the restraint you had cultivated for years?”
Arthie couldn’t summon more than a whisper. “How do you know that?”
“Call us kindred spirits,” Matteo said softly. His shoulders loosened with his sigh. “I like to observe, Arthie. I knew you were a half vampire, but I noticed anytime the conversation of blood came up, you didn’t act as most vampires do. You looked disgusted. Anytime I offered a drink, you looked repulsed.”
Kindred spirit. From Laith, the words had sounded empty. From Matteo, something struck her differently, setting her at ease. Like a part of her was settling into place.
Was it true? Had she tied her restraint to Spindrift? Or had the timing of her coconut water’s depletion simply coincided with the tragedy? No—she’d downed the last of it before they’d left for the Athereum, and she had handled that entire job well enough.
Matteo was right.
“Why do you care?” she asked, hating that her voice sounded like a plea. Hating that someone could care for a wound she was allowing to fester. “You’re a vampire. Would you not want me to embrace it?”
“Embracing and giving in are not the same thing,” he said.
The words struck like a blow. Arthie’s chest heaved. She slumped back against the wall, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I can’t.”
It broke out of her in a strangled whisper, hollow and dejected. It was defeat in a teacup, as tiny as a sugar cube, as weighty as a mountain.
“Stop punishing yourself by refusing to accept what you’ve become. Imagine your chaos, darling. Stop playing their games, and you can do so much worse.”
Her laugh was bitter.
“You think I can just let go,” she scoffed.
“No. A wound must be tended to before it can heal, but oh my sweet, what you will unleash when you’re freed from that tether.”
He spoke as if he understood. He’d lived a life sheltered between canvases, immersed in a brushstroke meadow of his own making. But when he turned his face to the lamp, she thought she saw something ruined and monstrous. She blinked, and the light painted him anew in the same beauty as his work. Was there more to Matteo than she saw?
He touched her cheek with a tenderness that made her vision falter. Arthie hadn’t cried in years. She wasn’t going to start now. Her eyes fluttered closed, and she felt herself lean into his touch, little pinpricks of heat leaping to attention, pooling to simmer low in her belly.
Because of Laith, her brain told her, but it was a lie. This felt different. Heightened. Amplified. Not spurred by hunger.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, opening her eyes. She didn’t know what she was apologizing for, just that she felt the overwhelming need to.
“The great Arthie Casimir, apologizing to the even greater Matteo Andoni?” Matteo called out to no one in particular. “Someone fetch the presses.”
The presses. That was it. That was how they’d take down the Ram, and they’d do it tonight. As much as Arthie loathed the fact that she’d broken her promise to herself and drunk from Laith, she couldn’t ignore the clarity feeding had given her.
She met Matteo’s eyes. “I know what to do. Get everyone to Penn’s office.”
He didn’t even look surprised, only proud of himself. There was that damned dimple again. “As the empress commands.”