“Do you though, Cora?” Amelia teases, still standing in the open doorway. I realize she’s likely about to leave. Tohunt.
Cora doesn’t reply. I tear my eyes from Amelia and the sprawling hallways beyond her. There must be hundreds of vampires in this manor. Maybe a thousand. Every time I enter this place, it could very well be my last.
Despite the overwhelming number of predators living here, Cora walks with confidence and ease. As if this home is hers as much as it is theirs.
I quicken my steps to reach her and match her pace. She doesn’t look at me, but her face is pale. She stretches her fingers. Scrunches her nose. Purses her lips. Doeseverythingbut look at me, even as I stare at her.
“I went to?—”
“Not yet,” she interrupts.
And so, we walk. Past dreary paintings and ugly sculptures and endless unmarked doors. Until, finally, we reach the door to her quarters and slip inside. The moment the door closes, she turns on me, stepping close. I imagine it’s meant to be intimidating, but she’s too short to make the look effective.
Cute. She looks cute and vicious and precious, and Ihatethe wild range of emotions coursing through me. They don’t make sense. I can’t piece them together, and it’sherfault.
Why do I want to kiss you?
What does Margot know that I don’t?
Did I help you escape? Am I a monster and I don’t even know it?
“You are more foolish than I ever imagined possible,” Cora says. She’s pale and shaking—and holy Mother, I think she’s going to cry.
“What are you doing?” I demand. My hands itch to touch her. I have to clench the sides of my pants to keep myself from reaching. It’s taking all my self-control not to console my best friend’s killer.
What have you done to me, Secora Reed, and how do I make it stop?
“You can’t be here,” she says without answering me. She presses her fists to her eyes, but it only makes them redder when she pulls away. The tears are still there, and unlike with Margot, they actually start to fall. “You can’t just show up whenever youfeel like it. Master doesn’t like unexpected guests, and hecertainlydoesn’t like guests with your name.”
I grind my teeth. Much as I’d like to point out that hermasteris the bad guy here, not me, I don’t have the energy. After the past two days, I don’t have it in me to argue with Cora over whether I should have written before visiting.
“I found something,” I say, rather than arguing. “In my mama’s office. If it’s what I think, we should be able to create enough for all of them.”
“Enough of what? All of who?” Cora asks. The tears stain her face like translucent tattoos. I could wipe them away so easily.
“Sunwalker spells. The vampires,” I say. I swallow past the lump in my throat, the one that fears I’m doing thewrongthing.
Cora tilts her head, surveying me in silence. It’s hard to read her expression, but I think that’shopeI see in her eyes. Hesitant, disbelieving hope.
“Why.” A command, not a question.
“In exchange for the final memories,” I say. When her entire body clenches, I finish in a torrent of words. “The final memories, and I’ll get you what you need. I deserve to know, Cora. It’s…it’s killing me.”
“You want them that desperately?” she asks, cheeks flushed. “You’re ready to betray your entire species?”
“Our species,” I say. Then, “Yes.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says. She wipes at her eyes, frowning at the wetness she finds there. “If this is some sort of trap, Sebastian will?—”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Cora,” I say. “All I want are answers.”
Answers, and a chance to save Mama.The latter, I decide, is better kept to myself.
“I figured out an ingredient, important to the original curse,”I say. “I can’t guarantee it, but if I’m right, this will make all the difference in your sunwalker spell.”
She doesn’t reply right away, large eyes studying me. Pretty. Why is she so fucking pretty? Why does it physically hurt to look at her, as if she’s stolen far more than just memories?
“Where,” she says finally. It’s another non-question.
