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I’ll ensure he enjoys himself before he burns out. I’ll save him and ruin him, both.
“You,” he says in a flat tone. “I thought I had to be asleep to dream. I can even see your breath plume in the cold air. My imagination has thought of everything.”
I stand beside him and lean my arms on the rail. “You dream of me?”
“I think so. It’s been hard to tell the difference, lately. You’ve been following me, haven’t you?” He smiles faintly. “You follow me into my sleep.”
His choice of words does unpleasant, fluttery things to my stomach. “I’m flattered. And what do I do in these dreams of yours?”
Cole ignores the question, frowning with a sudden thought. “You sound the same as you do in my dreams. Same voice. Same…everything. How is that possible if we’ve never spoken until now?”
“It’s a mystery for the ages,” I say. Cole will have to know the truth if I’m to get what I want but standing on the bridge in the dead of night doesn’t feel like the appropriate time to reveal myself. “Perhaps we can discuss it over tea?”
He tears his gaze away from me and back to the black water. “No, thanks.”
“Clearly, I’ve caught you at a bad time.”
“Clearly.” He hunches into his too-thin coat. “My friend Vaughn says artists should pour their pain into their work. Do you think he’s right?”
“I’m not qualified to speak on the subject. However, as it pertains to art, I have a proposal—”
“What about diving into your pain instead?” Cole says without hearing me. “How about that? It would be so easy to just…give up.”
In an instant, I recall Ashtaroth in that burning distillery, promising to make my pain vanish. Did I appear this wretched to him? This painfully hopeless as Cole appears to me now?
Once again, I’m forced to brush away dusty emotions that haven’t plagued me in centuries. I don’t feel sorry for humans. I don’tworry aboutthem orcarefor their well-being. I use them, drain them, then discard them when I’ve taken my fill. No, Cole’s pain is to be used against him when the time comes.
In the meantime, I want my bloody portrait.
“About that tea,” I say. “Shall we?”
“Are you trying to pick me up?”
“No, though wouldn’t that be preferable to…whatever this is?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t want to jump but I don’t want tonotjump.” He hunches his shoulders and looks at me. “Have you ever felt like that? Like things would be so much easier if maybe you just didn’t wake up one morning?”
I start to lie—I owe this human nothing. But my ruined childhood, my parents’ indifference, Armand breaking my heart… They answer for me.
“Once or twice, maybe,” I say in a low voice. “A long time ago.”
Cole nods.“Sometimes I just get so…”
An icy draft of wind whistles over us, seeming to snap him out of his stupor. More likely, it’s that I’ve scared off Deber and Keeb. He stumbles back from the bridge, as if shocked and horrified at his own desperation.
“No. No, this isn’t me. I’m not like this. I’m just…in a bad place.” He looks at me now with wide, desperate eyes. “And you… You’re real but not real. What is happening? What is wrong with me? I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Before I can reply, Cole’s legs give out and he slumps onto the cold stony bridge. His head bows as he sobs quietly in the crook of his arm.
I stare, immobile for a moment, then awkwardly pat his shoulder. “There, there.”
To my utter shock, he reaches for my hand and holds on. More shocking, I squeeze back. He pulls at me—or maybe it’s my own doing—but I kneel behind him. He draws my arms around his shoulders…or maybe I wrap him in my embrace. I cannot, for the life of me, know where his need ends and mine begins.
For a few moments, I hold Cole as he rocks in his pain, telling myself this is all part of the plan. To build him up before letting him crash. To hold him together before smashing him apart.
These are dangerous waters and you know it…
My jaw clenches and I start to release him, but Cole is heaving deep, steadying breaths. He lets me go and hauls himself to standing, hurriedly wiping his eyes.
