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I couldn’t help myself: I visibly shivered.

Blake laughed. “You see? You like it. You like me when I’m bad.”

“You’re not bad,” I said automatically. “Just … misunderstood.” Blake hooted. “Sure.”

“Do you really think you’re bad?” I asked curiously. “Last year, when I followed you into Veilmar, I saw you with Rodriguez. What were you really doing there?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “You saw me. I was feeding.”

My face grew hot as I remembered watching him with the sell-blood girl. “No, before that. That wasn’t the only reason you’d gone into the city, was it?”

Slowly he shook his head.

“Just tell me this. Were you doing something good or bad in Veilmar, Blake?” I took a deep breath. “Because I have this theory.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “A theory?”

I nodded. “Yes. A crazy little theory that you were there doing something good.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “You know I’m as bad as they come, Pendragon.”

I threw up my hands. “All right. Don’t tell me.”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “You’re right—kind of. Rodriguez and I …” He paused, looking sheepish. “We were passing out food and medicine in the slums. To blightborn families, children especially. Ones who had … lost someone.”

“Lost someone to highbloods, that is?” I said bluntly.

He nodded. “Look, before my father made some sweeping changes, things were worse than they are now. You need to understand that.”

“I’m shocked he was able to make any changes at all, honestly,” I said.

Blake sighed. “So am I. He was … a very smart, very persuasive person. As was—is—my mother.”

“They must have been an impressive pair,” I said, studying him. “Though, I don’t know how two people like that managed to produce someone like Marcus.”

Blake grimaced. “He’s the worst of our family. Viktor’s true protégé.”

“Your father saw something in highbloods. He was able to get them to make concessions, to treat blightborn more as people and less as prey,” I said slowly. “But now look at things. Viktor’s put Regan in charge of this entire school. She has highbloods roaming the halls, treating blightborn students like shit.”

“Or worse,” Blake said quietly. “There have been deaths already.”

I paled. “Of course there have.” I thought of Naveen. “Why kill us? Why not just make us thralls? What’s it like to be a thrall, anyways?” With a chill I thought of something—something I’d never stopped to consider. “You feed from me, so why aren’t I a thrall? Or am I?”

I sat all the way up and shoved myself across the bed.

“Pendragon, no. Stop. Wait.” Blake’s hands were up, but he wasn’t trying to touch me. He looked tired again. “You’re not a thrall.”

“How am I not?” I demanded.

“Because I’m not fucking using thrallweave on you, am I?” he shot back. “Do you think I’m in your head, controlling you, telling you what to think? Telling you to—” He stopped.

That word again. We kept coming too close to that word.

Blake was breathing hard. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I’m an asshole, sure. I’m evil, sure—”

“You’re not evil,” I interrupted. “Stop saying that. You went to pass out charity baskets to the poor, for fuck’s sake. That doesn’t exactly sound like the actions of a coldhearted person. I don’t see many highbloods doing it.”

“Some do,” he said, stubbornly. “And it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. You don’t know me, Pendragon. Not all of me. Viktor’s shaped me, more than even I want to admit. If you knew …” He stopped.