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My efforts don’t really matter, because he stiffens anyway.
“This stuff can do worse things than cause vampirism,” Nox says, glancing over to the other vats. The ones that glow orange.
“That’s not liquid moonlight, is it?” I ask, chest tightening.
He shakes his head, and I follow him to the edge of the container. He glances at me before returning his attention to the vat. Then we both peer into it, and my heart jolts.
It’s warm and familiar and the beauty of it, the aching for it, brings tears to my eyes and down my cheek.
It’s marvelous.
It’s marvelous, because it’s sunlight.
“How?” I whisper, realizing this is the first time I’ve been able to look into anything similar to the sun without burning.
“I suppose the same way they collect the liquid moonlight,” Nox says, his voice tinged with wonder. His statement reminds me of the stories I read while imprisoned. Tales of humans collecting droplets of moonlight from divots in the mountains, like one might collect dew.
I reach out my fingers to touch it, the longing to feel the sun against my skin aching, but Nox catches my wrist.
The touch is brief, over with as soon as Nox pulls my hand away from the vat and tucks his hand back into his pocket. It still sends sparks jolting through my fingertips.
“I doubt we can touch it safely.”
“But it doesn’t burn us like the sunlight does.”
Nox shakes his head. “I imagine that’s because it’s contained in liquid form. Like how you might approach liquid poison without being harmed, so long as you didn’t touch it, but you wouldn’t dare approach it in its powder form, in case a draft stirred it up and made it airborne.”
I nod, understanding now.
Still. It’s nice to bask in its warmth.
“I wasn’t a vampire over there, you know,” says Nox, and the ease at which he provides the information shocks me. Nox hasn’t been keen on talking to me throughout our journey. I try not to press, not wishing to annoy him. But it’s nice for him to offer something up of his own accord for a change.
Even if that something drives a dagger through my heart.
“I didn’t know that,” I say, fighting my fingers, which want nothing more than to interweave themselves with Nox’s. “Did it make it worse?”
Nox flicks his gaze over to me. “That’s not what a normal person would ask, you know.”
I shrug. “How would you know? How many normal people have you been around?”
Nox lets out a wry laugh, but his lips twist into something akin to a smile, and it’s like a drug from which I’ve been going through withdrawal. “I suppose that’s true. Still, I’m pretty sure most people would have asked if it was nice to feel the sun on my skin again.”
“You can answer that question if you’d rather.”
“No. You’re right to ask. It made it worse.”
“I thought it might. Getting a taste of something you’ve missed, only to have it ripped away from you again, always does.”
Nox swallows, but he doesn’t look at me this time.
“We should find Piper,” is all he says before he walks away, leaving me alone with the sunlight I don’t dare touch.
Before I follow, I grab a vial from the pouch I keep at my waist and dip it into the silky liquid moonlight.
Just in case.
There are several rooms in the warehouse containing the vats of liquid light, though the first one we stumbled upon was certainly the smallest.
