A muscle near his eye twitched, but somehow his emotions hardened even further. They now existed in some impenetrable sub-zero space she’d never reach. She sensed nothing inside him. With eyes closed, she wasn’t certain she’d even sense a living creature sitting in his chair.
He sat back and crossed his arms. “You know, you’re braver than I expected, meeting me here again. Especially if you think Galadaine Manae lives inside me.”
“I don’t think that,” she said at once. “I was wondering if youdid.”
“I’m not sure what to think,” David admitted, and she wondered whether he’d meant to.
At this hour, the library had mostly emptied. The two of them took up a small nook near the farthest window from the entrance, their table piled with books—mostly ones Anna had gathered, but a few he’d found himself.
“I have an incurable curiosity about you,” she murmured in a low voice, giving him an ounce of her own truth.And I’m dying to ask you about our magic, she didn’t say.
With a faint smile, he considered her. “Association with me won’t be good for your reputation.”
She’d actually considered that, but if this morning was anything to go by, Caden Sidera had an entire cohort of loved ones to help him through this ordeal.
David had no one.
David hid behind ice.
David, despite his coldness, seemed to want a friend.
She knew what that was like.
She forced out a casual shrug. “I’ve never cared what others say about me.”
“You ever think maybe that’s because the things they’re saying aren’t bad?”
Ugh. If they learned the truth, their words were the least of her worries. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yet.”
He held her gaze until a flush crept up her cheeks, and she broke eye contact. Hetsked. “Where’s that bravery now, pixie girl?”
Without looking at him, she pulled another book from the pile and ignored the heat in her skin. “They say that Morgan gifted her magic to Galadaine. I tried to find out how that’s done but couldn’t.”
A sour spike of disgust lodged into the tangible part of his emotions, then disappeared behind the ice. “Cruel little trick, isn’t it? Cursing someone with this kind of magic.”
“Galadaine seemed to like it, given he used it to mindfuck Meléan into loving him.”
A moment passed.
Then another.
She braved the unthinkable and met his eyes.
“That’s what people think,” David said. “But that’s not actually what happened.”
Anna was startled to sense a sun-bright strand of hope twisting behind his thick ice, making it glow from within. He leaned his elbows onto the table, spearing her with a candid gaze. “I can compel people’s actions, but I can’t change the way they feel about them.”
“You can’t?”
He shook his head.
“Have you wanted to?” she asked, voice soft.
David stared, weaving a spell of eye contact, drawing her in. “So many times. More than I can even remember. And if my magic is like his, then he couldn’t either. Galadaine was a monster, but Meléan loved him of her own free will.”
Caught in the web of his intensity, Anna could do nothing but breathe, and even that seemed a difficult endeavor. “Did he love her, too?”
He blinked, and the spell broke, allowing her a chance to catch her breath. David dragged another book his way, lazily flipping it open. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t capable of love. ”
