THIRTY-SEVEN
Unspoken Rule of the Fringes #71:
There’s no communication without reciprocation.
CELINE
“I’ll go see about dinner,” Ciprian says, heading toward the door that Malach disappeared through. He glances at Luca and Alistair and widens his eyes until they’re bulging out of his head.Subtle.
Alistair sighs. “Do you need help with that, Ciprian?”
I almost groan. They sound like a community performance of Shakespeare in the Park. I’m about to call them out for it, but Ciprian’s too caught up in his act to be interrupted.
“Yes,” he exclaims. “Thanks for offering. I might get lost, and then the food might get cold, and gods know how I’d manage to carry six meals by myself. I’m bound to spill something, and someone might slip and fall, and I dread to think how we would access medical care while under siege. I’ve seen a lot of period pieces, and things are always hard enough without?—”
“Holy shit,”Luca says. “I’ll come too if you stop whatever this is.” He drops a kiss on my cheek and lowers his voice to say, “You’ve got this, baby.”
They’re gone before I can give them directions to the kitchen.
Oh well, they’re resourceful. I’m sure they’ll figure something out.
“We don’t have to discuss this,” I say to Riven. “Or if you want to leave, you’re more than welcome to use the portal in myfather’s... I mean,thestudy.” The house isn’t his. He’s not entitled to space in this estate or my brain. I’ll evict him from both and send him to the eternal beyond where he can’t hurt anyone else.
Riven’s silence is loud. Unmoving, he stares at me blankly, like he’s waiting for me to show emotion before he’s willing to do the same. Which reminds meof what I saw earlier.
“While Sheena was healing Malach, your face changed again,” I tell him.
He frowns. “I didn’t shift. I was losing magic too fast to even attempt it. It must have been a glitch.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t a glitch, Riven. I’ve seen enough of those to know the difference.”
“You’re mistaken then,” he snaps. “You were freaking out at the time, anyway.”
“No, I wasn’t.” I cross my arms. “I was upset, not blindfolded. I know what I saw.”
A band rolls from the top of his head to the tip of his chin. “I didn’t shift.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “What if it wasn’t a shift?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“What if you weren’t shifting into someone new? What if you were reverting to something real?”
“Impossible.” He stiffens. “That’s impossible, Celine. I have no face.”
I cross the room, only stopping whenwe’re inches apart. The heat of his body is irresistible, and I have to stop myself from curling up against him like I did in the hotel room.
Gently, I trace his cheekbone. “You have a face, Riven, it’s just locked away. If you died tomorrow—which I won’t allow, in case you were wondering—the binding would break and your true face would return, right? The base level.”
“It’s impossible,” he repeats, his eyelids fluttering closed. More bands roll down his cheeks until the amber is consumed by black-and-white crackling lines. Even through the static, I sense his longing. His desperation to believe me, and his fear of disappointment if I’m wrong.
Determination settles in my chest. I know what I saw; it was the face from our road trip. It’s popped up too many times for me not to believe my eyes.
“You had strong features, almost angular, and your eyes were deep brown. Darker than mine. Richer, too.” I smile at him and wink, ignoring my complicated emotions. “You were hot.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
He spins away from me, and his shoulders hunch.
