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I pretend there’s a spot on my shirt, picking at it to hide my disappointment. Not just that the internship is so far out of reach, but that my mother isn’t doing this for altruistic reasons.
I shouldn’t be surprised, but a part of me needs to know that she’s good. Or, at the very least, that she’s marginally good. Like a socialite who goes to fancy charities for the status aspect, but also tips well when no one’s looking.
Just enough kindness that I can reasonably not hate her.
With my hopes of skipping fourth year well and thoroughly dashed, the others leave to let me rest. Apparently the antidote to the darklings’ corrupted magic inside a mortal is nymph tears, which also happens to make mortals sleep. Like, a lot.
I should be fully back to normal before school tomorrow, and Eclipsa promises an early morning training session—if I’m feeling up to it.
Valerian is the last to go. Before he can slip out the door, I blurt, “Can you stay? Just until I fall asleep?”
It feels childish. I haven’t been afraid of the dark in years. But I keep reliving Evelyn in her monstrous form, her eyes pleading for us to end her eternal nightmare, and I don’t want to be alone right now.
Especially knowing her fate was also nearly mine.
Valerian Sylverfrost doesn’t just stay. No, the beautiful, complicated Evermore male crawls into bed beside me, wraps those gorgeous arms around my body—one cradling my head, the other draped over my waist—and strokes my hair.
Proving once and for all that the Ice Prince has a heart. It may be tiny and shriveled, and black as Aunt Vi’s coffee, but it’s there.
At some point in the night, I wake up to Valerian asleep in the bed facing me. His eyes pop open. Bathed in a square of starlight, with both of our guards down, we calmly stare at each other.
There are no words.
No assumptions.
No defenses to wade through or truths to dredge out.
Just a Fae and girl, possibly in love—or whatever the frick the Fae want to call it—and trying to find the courage to trust one another.
“Truth,” Valerian says, his voice husky with sleep. “Are you scared of what you feel for me?”
“Yes.” Maybe it’s the lingering antidote or my sleep-drugged mind, but the truth flows from my lips. “Are you?”
“Yes. Terrified.”
As I close my eyes, on the threshold of my dreams, an uneasy thought comes.
What if Hellebore is right and I have this all backward? That instead of Valerian endangering my life, I’m the one endangering his?
What if by choosing to love me the way I demand, he ends up losing everything?
31
Two weeks after Samhain, I’m called to the headmistress’s office to give my account of the darkling attack. Mack and the others were interviewed the night after it all happened, but since I was out cold on nymph tears, they had to wait until an officer from the CMH organization could come back to do a proper interview.
The interviewer, a human man with steel-rimmed reading glasses, an auburn combover that does nothing to hide his thinning hair, and yellowing teeth, reads a file on the desk while I yawn, wishing they could have scheduled this interview at any other time than the butt-crack of dawn.
As the interviewer shuffles around some papers, I find myself studying him. I’m so used to the Fae, who are all beautiful, graceful, and ageless. Being confronted with my own species’ mortality is a reality check.
Someday, my body will suffer the same effects of time as this man. Someday, my boobs will sag, my flesh will wrinkle and spot, I’ll need the same reading glasses, and my hair will turn gray and brittle.
Whereas Valerian will stay his stupidly gorgeous self.
I used to be okay with that. Aging is normal. Natural. A sign of wisdom and badassery. Now . . . I’m not so sure.
The man takes off his reading glasses and asks a series of questions about that night. When did I first see the darklings? Where were the shadow guardians? Who suggested going to the vault for weapons? Was that expected of shadow recruits? Are there drills in place for darkling attacks?
The questions aren’t hard, but when the interviewer pauses for a break, I’m exhausted. I eye the man’s lukewarm coffee. When I’ve stared long enough to make even the poor mug feel uncomfortable, the man sighs. “Would you like some?”
