"It didn't need to." He looks at me steadily. "Blood is the oldest form of willing participation. It predates every formal bonding ritual by centuries. What you just did, what your absorption just took from me and used, that registers in the bond mechanics the appendix describes."
My chest does something I'm not going to describe.
"That's why you arranged this," I say.
"That's part of why." He doesn't dress it up. "The other part is that I needed to know if your absorption would pull from me without resistance. Without the bond mechanics forcing it. On your own terms." He pauses. "It did."
"You could have asked me."
"I did ask you," he says. "In the library. You told me you didn't trust explanations from me."
"I didn't say that in the library."
"You didn't have to." He uncrosses his arms and straightens from the wall. He's close enough now that I have to look up slightly to hold his gaze, and his eyes are back to that green-going-dark color, the low-light version of them. "Are you angry?"
"Yes," I say. "Sage was terrified."
"I know. I'm sorry for that part."
The apology is so direct and unqualified that it takes me a second to process it. Caspian Thorne does not apologize. He deflects and he redirects and he gives information in carefully rationed portions, but he doesn't sayI'm sorrywith that particular absence of performance.
"That's the first time you've apologized for anything," I say.
"It's the first time I've done something that warranted it." He holds my gaze. "The rest I'd do the same way again."
"Including the blood."
"Especially the blood." His voice drops slightly. "You needed to know what it does. Now you do. And you know I won't push you past your limits, because I didn't tonight, and you were paying attention."
From across the room, Sage says, "I can hear everything you're saying, you know."
"I know," Caspian says, without looking away from me.
"Just confirming," Sage says.
Malik says nothing, but I hear him shift, and I suspect he's pulled his chair closer to her couch.
I take a step back from Caspian. The distance between us returns and he lets it, and I turn back to Sage because I need to look at something other than him for thirty consecutive seconds. She's sitting up now, Malik's hand still on her forearm, her color fully restored, her eyes sharp and tracking and currently doing something complicated in Caspian's direction.
"How do you feel?" I ask her.
"Like I was poisoned and then cured by a vampire's blood filtered through my best friend's hands," she says. "So, you know. Tuesdays."
"It's Thursday."
"It feels like a Tuesday."
Malik makes a sound that might be the beginning of a laugh, quickly suppressed.
"She needs to rest," he says. "Here or back at the dorm. Either works, but she shouldn't walk the corridors alone for a few hours."
"She won't be alone," I say. I look at him when I say it, and he nods once, and I know he'll stay. He's been staying since before I arrived, and he'll keep staying after I leave, and I don't know the full story of why Malik Stone keeps watch over Sage Winters, but the outcome is reliable and right now reliable is enough.
I turn back to Caspian. He's watching me with his hands loose at his sides, his sleeve back in place, nothing in his posture indicating that anything unusual happened in the last half hour.
"The next time you decide to teach me something," I say, "use your words first."
"And if you don't trust my words?"
