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Slightly. Especially after what little information he had revealed about himself during the drive. He had a younger brother—someone he cared for. What else was he hiding?
“Who said I want anyone to know me?” Roman drawled.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she sighed. “Go ahead and be a brick wall for all I care.” Tugging the scratchy blanket over her shoulders, she began to turn her back on him—
“I’ve never done well with people, pup,” Roman said.
Shay stilled. After deliberating, she faced him again and settled back down, tucking the blankets around her to keep out the chill. She wondered if that was all he would offer her, but to her surprise he kept speaking.
“My mom called me her lone wolf. Even as a kid, I was more likely to be found playing by myself than with others my age. I was the shadow that stuck to the corners at social gatherings.” He took another drag and blew out a mouthful of smoke. Shay watched as his magic molded the cloud into a small, rippling wolf. “The oddball,” Roman went on. “The freak.” He stretched an arm out above his head in illustration, fingers splaying, eyes feverish and wide with intensity. His magic animated the wolf; it trotted forward and threw its head back with a howl.
Shay tore her eyes from the mesmerizing image to study Roman again in the dark. “That sounds kind of sad.”
The red light of the clock glinted on his teeth like fresh blood as he smiled, looking very much like the wolf of smoke evaporating above their heads. “Sad?” He pursed his lips, still watching the smoke. “Nah. I never wanted friends. Don’t even want them now. I decided, if people were going to call me a freak and an outcast, I would own whatever labels they gave me. And when they started calling me a homicidal maniac, I became exactly that: a homicidal maniac.” Shay wasn’t sure homicidal maniac was the same thing as being a Darkslayer, but there were people who would argue that statement.
“And how do you fare, now that you’re older? Being a Shadowmaster and all. Aren’t any of them your friends?” She couldn’t imagine getting through life without anyone. If Shay hadn’t had Anna to lean on, she never would’ve lasted this long.
“If you’re smart, you don’t make friends in this business, you form alliances. That’s all we Shadowmasters are: allies. If you have friends, you have weaknesses. And weakness never got anybody anywhere.”
Shay pondered his words, and then tasted her own before speaking, choosing them carefully. “I don’t believe you live entirely by your own rules. There’s no way you made it this far without caring about anyone.” Without thinking, she blurted, “Haven’t you ever been in love?”
Roman rolled onto his side to face her and propped himself up on an elbow. Looking directly at her, he opened his mouth and put the cigarette out on the flat surface of his tongue, the sight of his piercing making her gulp.
Shay’s insides clenched with unease, as if she was the one feeling the pain of that fire scorching her flesh. Roman, on the other hand, didn’t so much as flinch, as if he put cigarettes out on his tongue every single day.
He tsked, discarding the cigarette butt in the ashtray on the nightstand with long, tattooed fingers. Where he’d found that ashtray in a non-smoking room, she had no idea. “Love, Miss Thief,” Roman said, “is the biggest weakness of all.”
31
Elsewhere
The girl and her dog plummeted into the water inside the Wishing Fountain with a noisy splash. Gravity sucked her into the dark depths, yanking her down, down, down…
She resurfaced with a gasp, her opalescent dress ballooning around her like flower petals peeling open to drink from the sun.
She pushed the wet hair out of her face and tipped her head back, peering up at the starry sky way, way above. The mouth of the fountain was barely a pinprick from here.
It was far deeper than she’d thought.
Beside her, Singer grunted and paddled, the dark and grungy water lapping against his nose.
“We have to dive,” she told him. She had no idea how she knew that—she could just…feel it.
Singer whined, his ears flattening back.
“I know, buddy,” she whispered, her teeth chattering with phantom cold. “I’m scared too. But we have to.” She pulled him close, wrapping her arms around his glowing white neck, wishing she could feel the comfort of his warm, soft fur. His glow spilled across the water like milk, highlighting stray leaves and slimy algae.
Singer kept paddling, paws churning the water, each ripple glowing white.
“On the count of three.” Her words echoed, reminding her of what it felt like to have someone speak to her, instead of just speaking to herself or an animal. “One…two…three.” With a deep breath she didn’t need, she dove under the water, pulling Singer down with her.
She swam—deep, deep, deeper. The fountain swallowed her up like a ravenous serpent, and soon she could no longer tell where the surface was. As she kicked her feet, she trusted that she was going the right way, her left arm reaching out blindly before her while the other hand hung onto Singer’s scruff with a tight fist.
Gravity tilted, and suddenly she swimming up instead of down. She spotted a bluish glow up ahead—a new surface.
She burst out of the depths with a gasp—and found that she was treading water in the opposite end of the Wishing Fountain—one that sat in the middle of a gloomy room with curved, windowless walls.
If her heart had been capable of beating, it would have skipped as she took in the skulls and bones piled around the room, sticky with dirt and sheets of web. And if she had been able to smell, it would have reeked in here—of death and foul, rotting things.
