Shaw finally took notice of her silence. He stared at her now, bemused.
Why did he look at her like that? Could he see the flush against her skin?Death take me.“What of it?” she demanded, nose in the air.
“I assumed you’d have come by this morning.”
“I slept through it.”
Shaw yawned and she frowned at the implication, the heat fizzling. “Well, come in.” He stepped back, ushering her through. She obliged, skirting wide of his bare skin.
She found its inside to be brighter than the time before. She’d not realized in being shoved against the door, and subsequently held at knife point, that he’d an entryway table perfectly sized for a lamp. One burned atop it now, and it lit the brick wall behind it, drawing her attention.
Lux felt the ground tilt.
She tripped forward, stretching out shaking fingers.
“They’re—” But she couldn’t finish.
They hung from nails bent and scuffed due to the force required to drive them into the mortar. She ran her forefinger along the first frame, the dark wood sleek and polished. She did the same to the second, and finally, the third. By then, she could sense what threatened, her throat thickening and begging for an escape, but she’d die before she allowed Shaw Roser to see her tears.
Majestic mountains. A crashing ocean. A vast, red forest.
The outside world.
Lux wiped at her eyes just to be sure.
“Necromancer…”
“Who did this?”
“Lux…”
“Whosawthis?” Lux spun back toward him only to stumble. Her eyes were blurred and his were so…
Hands grabbed hold of her elbows. Heat poured from him—into her. She’d never been stabbed but she imagined it must feel something like this. She jerked from his grasp.
“I did.”
“You—”
“In dreams.”
Vulnerable. That’s what his eyes were. Damn itall.“You painted them. I canhearthem. I think I can even feel them.”
Neither breathed for entirely different reasons. Lux didn’t want it to end: the rhythmic fall of waves, the crisp mountain air, the rustle of green leaves. She looked back toward the scenes, and when she wiped her eyes next, her fingers came away wet.
Horrified, she spun away bodily.
What a gift he had. Common knowledge said every soul possessed their own. Gifts of arts, manipulations, healings—necromancy. But for many, at least in Ghadra, they seemed to remain undiscovered. Or, even if discovered, then uncultivated. To deny a part of yourself so completely? Lux had tried. Once, she had sworn to never openThe Risenagain, her spirit crushed and splintered by the festering hand the fates had dealt her. But the gaping hole it’d left behind…
“It’s certainly no bringing back the dead,” he murmured.
“How can you compare?” Forgetting her reddened eyes, she glared up at him. “The only thing you might say is that you’ve discovered your brilliance same as I’ve discovered mine. If it weren’t for a book, I’d just be a girl uniquely obsessed with bodies, dressing them for a trip to the trees. Look at what you’ve made!”
At some point during her tirade, Shaw’s lips had parted, his eyes grown wide. And it wasn’t until its end that Lux realized how close she’d moved. A half step more and she’d be flush against his warmth.
Would it feel as good as she imagined?
A hoarse clearing of his throat brought her careening back to her cold reality. She was chained to Ghadra. She was a necromancer who preferred the dead for company. He was a murderer who despised her for her past.
