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He sputtered. “It’s not like that?—”
“Yeah, sure. You totally don’t have him following you around like you’re some knight in shining armor, ready to defend him from whatever the hell fair folk decides to swoop in and spirit him away.” Cy’s eyes danced with amusement as he fumed.
“Yeah? And what does he talk to you about?” He jabbed a finger her direction, irritation flaring.
“Me?” She pointed to her own chest with shock before releasing a laugh that bordered on an unhinged cackle. “Clearly you haven’t been paying attention to the fact that we’ve been chatting about things to trade—specifically, places to work on the art piece he’s been telling me about. You really are a dumbass, aren’t you?”
“Then why the fuck haven’t you been talking to me about anything?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re immediately defensive and apparently got jealous because your crush patched me up and decided to befriend me? Wild guess, I know.” The sarcasm bled through every word, making him awkwardly shift his footing and bite down on the inside of his cheek. “Damn, you’re a lovesick idiot.”
“Fuck you,” he muttered, his back sliding down the wall until he sat on the floor.
She watched him for a few moments, her fingers playing with her bootlaces. “You going to tell him?”
He huffed. “No.”
“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re seriously going to pine after him for the rest of your life after we break this curse.”
Noel shook his head. “No, but…” He sighed. “He’s been really fucked up by macharomancers. He probably only trusts me right now because he’s scared, and we’re both facing that same, horrible fate. The second we’re free of it, he’ll leave, and I’ll never see him again.”
“So… you’re a coward.”
“I’m not a?—”
“You’re not even going to ask how he feels,” she said, motioning toward the door. “What if he likes you too?”
Noel grimaced. “There’s no place for us here, Cy. Even if he did somehow actually like me back, I can’t just take him back home and say he’s a hemomancer everyone in my town can trust. And if he lives in a place full of hemomancers, who’s to say they’re not just as weary of someone like me? What then? We live away from everything we know and try to make it work? There have been so many places that have already painted him as a monster that I…” His eyes closed as his head lulled back and thumped against the wall. “Fuck me, this is impossible. I don’t know what I’ve been thinking.”
“Sounds like you might’ve been thinking with your dic?—”
His head snapped up to shoot her a glare, and her mouth snapped shut, lips pursed as she rocked back and forth.
“Just saying…” she said in a sing-song tone that dissolved into a thoughtful hum. “Maybe the fair folk did this on purpose to torture you? Put you alongside someone you can’t help but fall for…”
Noel stared down at the blood-stained zipper track along his denim jacket. “Yeah. Maybe…”
“For what it’s worth, I think he’s smitten with you too,” Cy said quietly. “Just something about the way he looks at you—especially back there when we were being held up.”
Noel tried to suppress a snort and failed. “Yeah, I doubt that. I think he just sees me as his savior, not that I really mind that. But damn, it’ll hurt if I ever work up the courage to say anything.” He tugged down on the zipper pull, clicking it back into place.
That silence washed over them again for another beat until Cy shifted on the floor, scooting a little closer to him. “Hey. You want to get him out of here, right?”
He slid her a weary glance. “Yes…”
“Do you trust me?” Those dark eyes might as well have pierced his soul with the question, peeling back that layer of uncertainty to the core of his want to have Grey within reach again. When he hesitated, the question returned in a new form: “Do you trust me enough to get us out of here?”
“Yes.” That single word hitched barely above a breath before her hand reached his brow, and the world tumbled into black.
* * *
When Noel opened his eyes, Cy was whispering something to a guard hovering in the doorway, food trays already set on the small table in the corner. The man’s pupils were wide and dilated to the point a shiver worked through Noel, recognizing Cy’s influence being pressed onto him before the door pulled shut.
Footsteps followed, their echo trailing away from the cell with the distinct lack of a particular sound he’d anticipated that was jarringly absent: the sound of the lock. He grimaced and rubbed his head as Cy hurried over and crouched down next to him.
“Get up,” she whispered. “I bought us about fifteen minutes.” She helped haul him to his feet, the room swaying slightly until he shook the cobwebs from his mind.
“How long was I out?”
