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Nox returnsto his room that night. It’s lonely and cold in my cell, and as much as I find I rather dislike being parted from him, it’s not worth the queen finding us down here together in the middle of the night.
We both feel it’s for the best if we avoid provoking Abra’s jealousy.
My dreams takea sharp turn that night, settling into nightmares of flashing teeth and a cruel, sultry voice.
I rise, abandoning hope of getting any rest tonight, and light a candle.
I know Nox already has a plan to rid me of my magic, but there are still factors we can’t fully account for, and as the night of the full moon draws near, I can’t help but feel antsy about the procedure.
The grimoire I’m working through has taken me even longer to read than the rest. Part of it’s a motivation problem. It’s not that I’m less than motivated to be cured. It’s that I haven’t been persuaded this particular grimoire will be of much help. Many of them are written more like history books than grimoires, but this one is the worst about it. And though Nox has told me from the beginning that magic and history are inseparable, I’m fairly sure he found his solution to my problem in anactualgrimoire.
But there’s nothing like a potentially catastrophic procedure drawing near and a slew of nightmares that have me squinting my eyes and swarming to decode the lopsided letters in a book by candlelight.
Most of what’s contained in this particular book is hearsay—legends, at best. I have to rifle through repeat information about blood being used as a binding agent, physicians using marebone to anesthetize their patients, despite knowing the potential that they might never wake, and the several methods humans have employed over the centuries to force love into another’s heart.
But then I find the passage I’m looking for.
The history of what exactly occurred when the fae entered this realm has been lost to time—rather conveniently for the fae, I might add—so I’m not sure whether there’s any truth to be gleaned from the stories.
But I suppose the stories had to come from somewhere, even if they have been twisted and cropped and oiled and shined like a pair of leather boots over the centuries.
But then I read one story in particular, and every bit of doubt in the validity of these stories fades away and is swallowed up by dread.
Because within the pages of this book is the story of the Old Magic, how a fae prince of old hunted down the humans who freely hosted its siblings.
It tells of how the fae prince and his companions made a deal with the ancient beings. How they duped them into forsaking their human hosts in favor of joining a host more powerful. Bodies that would never die.
It ends with a pile of human bodies on a creaky wooden floor, their minds ripped to shreds after being forsaken by the magic that had once inhabited them.
I’m wide awake,frantically flipping through the pages, searching for something, anything, to prove there’s an exception to what happens when a magical parasite is removed from a human body, when a key rattles in the lock.
“Nox, we can’t. We can’t perform the ritual tomorrow. If we do, it will—” I say, but I instantly regret it because it’s not Nox at my cell door.
It’s the queen.
CHAPTER36
BLAISE
Isit straight up upon the dais, leaping to my feet in case I need to make a run for it.
Not that I have any chance of outrunning a fae queen, anyway.
“Did I startle you?” The queen’s lips twist into what I suppose is supposed to be a comforting smile, but given how pale she is and the way the light dances off her face, resulting in her looking like she’s a dismembered head, I’d say the attempt is unsuccessful.
“Were you expecting me to have my hair combed and my feet washed for your unannounced arrival in the middle of the night?” I ask, resting my elbow on the dais and leaning back on it.
The queen’s smile doesn’t falter, but irritation flashes in her cold, blue stare.
She’s here to kill me.
She’s changed her mind. She’s on to the fact that Nox lied about my death causing the parasite’s destruction, and she’s here to hack my brain from my skull as a last attempt to rip this stupid parasite right out of me.
But then the queen lets out a gentle laugh, and it’s almost convincing. “You’re right. How silly of me to assume you’d still be awake at this hour.”
“It’s all right. Understandable mistake, given that I haven’t seen daylight in weeks and my body has no idea what time it is.”
The queen’s exhale is pleasant enough. I suppose she wants something.
