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“You didn’t read it?”
“No. I…can’t.”
He looked from the letter to her. “It’s for you to read. You’ll learn to soon enough.”
As if learning were an easy thing to do. She felt at once silly for having admitted her inability, and sillier still for standing there, letter in hand. She tucked it back into her pocket.
“I should go.”
He did not move to intercept her path to the balcony doors, didn’t try to physically block her exit in any way. But when she drew parallel to him, he stopped her with nothing more than softly spoken words. “Why did you come here, tonight?”
She warred with the safe answer, but safe was far behind her. “Because I think you need a friend. And I think I need one, too.” She waited, her hands tightened into fists, for him to laugh at her. However much she kept forgetting the fact, he was a prince. He had better options for friends than the likes of her. Except for that part where she was pretty sure he didn’t.
“Clare…I can’t change for you. Whatever you know of me, whatever you think you see, I can’t change what I am.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
He studied her, his eyes searching, as if he could tell whether she meant it by whatever he found. “Then I think I’d be a poor friend if I let you walk two miles home when you don’t even have a coat.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’re exhausted. You should sleep.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Are you offering me your bed?”
“As long as you don’t try to drag me into it with you, yes.” He sounded dead serious, and she realized she might not be the only person in the room who didn’t like being touched.
She should go back to the Arrendons. If she didn’t get home before Marquin and Verol woke up, she’d have a fun time explaining where she’d been. But Numair was right about something—she was exhausted, and if she went back, she wasn’t going to sleep. The silence in the room there was too loud, the bed too foreign, the room too big. She was used to sleeping in small spaces, and though they filled her with a sense of trapped terror, it was yet a feeling she was accustomed to falling asleep to. She could mark every surface of such a space with her fingers and know from which angle danger might approach.
Her room at the Arrendons could not be thus contained. And though Numair’s room was even bigger than hers, it felt smaller. Or perhaps not smaller but more…guarded. With Numair in the room and the plants keeping watch…perhaps she would actually sleep.
“I have nightmares,” she told him.
“So do I.”
“If you need to wake me up, I don’t recommend touching me.”
He crossed his arms. “Same.”
“Perfect.” She couldn’t tell if he was serious or only agreeing with her to make her feel better. But the fact he would even bother to do the latter was…something. “Where are you sleeping?”
In answer, he dropped down on the chaise that rested against the wall next to a large dresser. She kicked off her shoes, climbed into the bed and pulled the sheets and comforter up to her neck.
“Goodnight,” Numair said. The room’s magelights winked out, but the darkness wasn’t complete. Moonlight shone in through the window, and all around the room, soft blue flowers gave off a faint glow. “I can close the flowers, if you want.”
“I like them,” she said, and shut her eyes, fully intending to fake sleep in the hopes it would eventually catch up to her. But somewhere between the peaceful glow of the flowers, the steady in and out of Numair’s breathing, and the feeling of so much life in the room, like she was sleeping outside under the stars, true exhaustion hit her.
She was almost asleep when she remembered the other thing she’d come here to say. “Happy Nameday, Numair.”
Numair was glad the lights were low, glad her eyes were closed so she couldn’t see the shock he felt stamped on his face.
Three stupid, pointless words.
Happy Nameday, Numair.
Words no one had bothered to say to him in almost a decade. Because he wasn’t a person to these people, and his nameday wasn’t for him. It was a spectacle for them to come be entertained by and laugh about after.
I think you need a friend.
