Page 127 of Blood Curse

I watched every movement of his hands. A hundred and twelve years of confinement had taught me how to wait without showing fear. It hadn’t taught me how to stand beside a bed while someone else decided how much life Bryony had left.

My first instinct was to give orders and tear Harrowmere apart until the Crown gave me an answer. That wouldn’t repair Bryony’s heart. It would only make my fear everyone else’s problem.

So I stayed where she had asked me to stay and let Elias speak.

Mara stood near the foot of the bed. “That was longer than the first time.”

“Five seconds,” I said.

“It felt longer,” Bryony said.

“It will next time,” Elias replied.

My fangs dropped. “Explain.”

He met my gaze without flinching. “I thought we might have more time. I was wrong.”

Bryony tightened her fingers around my wrist. “How wrong?”

“You have days. Maybe fewer if the Crown stops your heart again.”

The bedframe cracked under my other hand.

Fuck. The Crown had waited all that time for another chance. It expected me to answer a handful of days with the same panic that had ruined my first attempt to stop it.

Bryony had already warned me what fear would make me do. Decide for her. Keep her inside. Call control protection and expect her to be grateful.

I looked at her instead of the Crown.

Bryony looked at the splintered wood. “We needed another problem with the rooms.”

I released it. “Why days?”

Elias rested his forearms on his knees. “The Crown isn’t healing her heart. It’s keeping its vessel alive long enough to finish what it started. Each time it stops her heart and forces it back into rhythm, the next failure comes sooner.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I can keep her comfortable. I may be able to restart her heart if I’m close when it happens. I can’t make the damage disappear while that thing is inside her.”

Bryony looked at Mara, then at me. “You could turn me.”

“No.”

She didn’t argue. “I want to know why.”

“The Crown is in your blood. Changing you is more likely to stabilise its hold than break it. Your heart might not survive the attempt.”

Elias nodded. “Everything we’ve seen points the same way. I won’t gamble on a cure we have no reason to expect.”

“Even if I knew it would work, I wouldn’t choose your eternity because we’re frightened. Turning isn’t a cure. It stops your heart and relies on my blood to restart it. I’ve seen strong humans fail to wake and frightened ones wake furious because somebody else made the choice. You deserve to decide after the Crown is gone. If you ever want to be a vampire, you ask when the Crown isn’t counting down your life.”

“And if it survives turning?”

“You could live forever with it.”

“That’s not much of a rescue.”

“It isn’t.”