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“Are you quoting Aristotle at me?” I give him an incredulous look. “At a party among bonfires while talking about why you’re in a strange relationship with me and Sindri instead of in a strange relationship with my cousin, Jason, and Emrys?”
A ghost of a smile passes over his lips. “Would you have preferred a more modern quote?”
“Perhaps.”
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Too drunk to remember anything contemporary.”
“When drunk, your memory only works backward?”
He shrugs. “Everything works backward when I’m drunk.”
“That’s not very practical,” I murmur, smiling, too.
“None of this is.”
He’s right. “Is that your answer, then? That you stayed because you believe in me?”
“Belief is part of a more complex emotion,” he says quietly. “Something like love.”
“Youloveme?” The question slips out before I can stop it, his words shocking me.
The knot in his throat works as he swallows. “I shouldn’t. I probably can’t.”
I frown. “Can’t?”
“Can’t love,” he whispers, looking at the fires below us. “Can’t love anyone, not anymore. Can’t feel.”
“What are you talking about? Why not?”
“These violent delights have violent ends,” he whispers.
“More quotes,” I mutter. A drunk Ashton is a literature-quoting Ashton, apparently. “Are you talking about love or death?”
“Doesn’t it feel the same? I don’t deserve love. Happiness. And I’m pretty sure my heart’s dead.” He snorts without mirth. “I thought being called undead was funny until I realized what it takes to be part of the undead elite, the High Houses, the Marais D’Aube family… How it kills you inside.”
“Is this about Jason?” I glance toward the hillock where Sindri was headed but I don’t see him anymore. “Do you remember Jason from when you were children?”
“I remember too much. I wish I could forget.” A muscle leaps in his jaw. “Forget it all, burn it, end it.”
Something wrenches in my chest. I put my hand on his face, stroke his cheek. “Ash—”
The sound of unsteady footsteps crushing the grass startles me and I drop my hand. Turning, I see Sindri stumbling upslope toward us. He seems to burn in the near dark, silver shimmering in the air around him, a ghostly reflection of him trailing behind him.
“Mia,” he breathes as he reaches us and I jump to my feet to catch him before he falls.
Ashton is also on his feet and strangely he seems steadier than Sindri, despite all the booze he’s ingested. “What happened? What the hell did she do to you?”
“Fed my magic.” He sags between us, his weight dragging on us until we all sit heavily on the ground. “She spills magic all over the place. It’s impressive.”
“She’s a witch,” I whisper. “I never knew. All my life, and I never knew.”
“So are you,” he says and I shake my head. “A witch. Mia…”
I’m still coming to grips with what I sense, what I seem to be able to do. “Maybe I don’t have real magic, maybe—”
“Maybe, what? It’s a trick? I felt it,Almaya.” Sindri squeezes my hand hard enough to hurt. “I feel it every day. Don’t doubt yourself.”
“How can I not doubt myself?” I turn his hand over, gaze at his long fingers, the scars on his knuckles that speak of many fights. “This is all new to me.”
