Page 86 of Nightshade

I lifted it from the sill and opened the locket, to be sure the picture hadn’t fallen out. “Thank you.” With a slight smile, I looked up to find him staring back at me.

“Your father.” It wasn’t a question, which seemed to be a trait of Van Croix’s--quietly observant.

“Yes. Do you recognize him, at all?”

At that, he averted his gaze from mine, twisting back toward the view and pinging my suspicion. “Should I?”

While I’d hoped to be a bit more formal in our meeting, right then was as good a time as any. “He … mentioned you to me. I suspect he thought you might have insight into a group called the Pentacrux.” I caught the subtle shift of his jaw. The rubbing of his hands.

“Did he now?”

I brushed my thumb over the fabric of my sleeve which hid my birthmark. Not that I’d have shown him and risked looking as nutty as my father had always sounded talking about it. “Yes, he told me that--”

“Miss Ravenshaw, might I advise that, if you wish to remain here, you not waste my time with things that do not concern me. I do not care about the Pentacrux, nor whatever stories with which your father regaled you. I’m already wary of your intent, and it would benefit you greatly not to rouse more suspicion.”

“I can assure you, my intent is not malicious. I just thought you might be able to shed some light on this group.”

“I’ve no information for you.” Yet, in spite of his stoic expression, in a single glance, that one blue eye of his held a thousand secrets.

Something told me, in the way he skirted around my first question, that he did, in fact, know my father. I could’ve told him about the page in my father’s journal—the fear that he’d apparently unearthed something dangerous. The murders. Where I really came from, and how I arrived in Nightshade. But doing so might’ve only inflamed his suspicions of me. So long as I continued the charade of being his dogs’ caretaker, perhaps I could gain his trust. The element of time certainly wasn’t in my favor, unless I’d planned to forget my existing life on the other side, so I’d have to be savvy.

I’d have to appeal to him on a different level. Perhaps employ some feminine charm, assuming he wasn’t completely immune to it.

Ugh.

The very thought terrified me. I’d never been proficient in gaining a man’s attention that way. In fact, I was downright awkward about it. And how did a girl go about charming a man rumored to be Death, anyway?

Unsure of how to respond to him, I kept silent on that, and attempted to fasten the necklace that refused to latch as easily as before. I pulled it away to find the fastener slightly bent.

With a bored sigh, Van Croix leaned to the side. “Turn.”

I did as instructed, propping myself against the windowsill, so he wouldn’t have to reach in to lift the necklace from the nape of my neck.

“Lean back,” he commanded in a hushed voice.

A quick glance over my shoulder showed the steep slant of the roof and the drop to the cement below that would’ve surely left every bone broken if I slipped. Breathing through my nose, I closed my eyes and leaned back through the window, fingers clutching the sill so hard, my nails burned.

“You’re afraid of heights.” Again, not a question.

Swallowing hard, I only nodded, not entirely comfortable with sharing my deepest fear with the man.

Heated fingers brushed across my skin, distracting me from my anxiety, and only then was I reminded that it’d been a long time since a man had come in such close contact to me. Having kept myself guarded for so many years had left me absent of any human touch, really. My deprivation of it had turned into something of a phantom limb, with the memory of my last encounter still pulsing beneath my skin. Warmth blossomed inside of me, a strange and inexplicable calm.

I bit my lip to stifle a shiver, his touch stirring curious thoughts. Like what the glide of his roaming palm would feel like.

Before I could venture too deeply into those fantasies, he released the necklace that fell cold against the back of my neck.

“Thank you,” I said a second time.

With no further response, he turned back to face the moon, resting his elbows onto his knees, as before, and I caught the slight flex of his fingers.

From having touched me?

It was when he crinkled his nose that a creeping paranoia about my scent hit me all over again. Not the most charming man.

Though something about him, as aloof as he seemed, struck me as somber and forlorn, and I wanted to ask him what troubled a man like him. An introspective man of few words. So many questions beckoned me to stay and risk his irritation with my probing.

Instead, I kept on toward dinner, tucking my necklace into the front of my dress.