Heavy footsteps echo up my tower, mixing with the tune of my hammering heart.
I close my eyes and count his steps, picturing him scaling the spiral staircase that winds up the inside of my stairwell, getting all the way to one hundred and forty-eight before his footfalls finally slow; as they always do right before he crests upon the upper landing.
I imagine him standing by my door, digging through his pocket, fitting the key into the lock—his lips a hard line cut across his face. I imagine a flicker of pleasure igniting those galvanized eyes when he reveals the crystal goblet laden with my boastful offering.
It’s a pretty lie I like to paint; a fabled reality where he needs me just as much as I need him. Something that helps tame this unwantedfeelingsprouting in my chest.
The door closes with a hollow thud, and I dart forward, pressing my ear against the wood, listening to the rhythmic beat of his descent.
When I check The Safe in the morning, the goblet will be sitting there, empty of liquid but brimming with questions that slosh onto me every time I remove it.
Why does he need it? What does he use it for? Does he like this ... thing between us?
Because I do.
I look forward to it; deflate when the moment passes. Lose myself to fantasies about it far too often—ones where I watch him drink me from that crystal goblet, holding his stare the entire time.
Ones where it’s not shuttered away as if we have something to be ashamed of.
I pluck my brush off the bed and make for the twin balcony doors beside my bedside table, stepping out into the brisk, twilight air before I begin the tedious task of combing a day’s worth of knots from my long, tawny hair.
I like to pretend I come out here to watch the evening mature, even as I tilt onto tippy toes and peer over the balustrade, searching the grounds for any hint of movement—my brush merely a prop to keep my hands busy.
Though I’m tucked in a tower that sometimes nests amongst the clouds, I still choke on my heart when Rhordyn emerges from the grand castle doors, stalking in long, determined strides across the field toward the forest that fringes the estate.
He never looks up. Never seeks me out.
He simply walks the border, then disappears into the smudge of sage, moss, and seaweed green that stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction but south.
Always the same monotonous routine I can’t tear away from.
The sun drops below the horizon, cauterizing its spill of light, and a blow of cold, briny air plays with the hem of my shirt, prickling my flesh and making my teeth chatter.
I part my hair into three long sections and work it into a braid. By the time I’ve plaited the entire length, any remaining light has bled off the land and my fingers are numb from the chill.
He hasn’t returned.
My footfalls back inside always feel heavier.
Stifling a yawn, I reach my bedside table and rifle through the many corked bottles stashed on a tray. I lift one and tip it from side to side, frowning at the tide of thin, indigo liquid sloshing around ...
I swear there was more.
With a huff, I jam the thing back on the tray, blow out the candle, and crawl into bed.
My bottom lip cops a beating from the nervous chew of my teeth, and I curse, tugging the dense quilt around my neck and turning toward the northern windows.
The sky is a velvet blanket littered with stars that wink at me for the first time in a week. Light is spilling off the moon, pouring through the windows, highlighting the many glass bottles kept within arm’s reach.
Highlighting the fact that all butoneare empty.
I bite down on a shiver—one not born of the early spring chill but of the storm lashing my insides with pulse-scattering bolts ...
For the first time inmonths,I’m sleeping sober.
* * *
Their eyes are wide and unblinking, mouths hanging open as if their bodies fell apart halfway through the breath still caught between their lips. They all lost bits of themselves, and the pieces that remain are too still.
