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“Thank Dallin,” I sighed.
Without meeting my gaze, he lay down on the bed beside me, rested his head on the pillow, and took a drag on a slim black pipe. His clothes were ruffled and dark in places, wet. His hair was wet too, and disheveled. And when he’d climbed onto the bed, he’d favored his side, as though he’d been hurt. Something was wrong—more wrong than everything else around us.
He handed me the pipe. “Forgive me?”
“Don’t apologize for something I asked you to do.” I took the pipe, sealed my lips on its slim end, and breathed in. Sweet smoke laced the back of my throat, numbing the aches he’d left me with. Pennywort. I recognized its odor from the times it would waft under my father’s chamber door. “Also, no apology is necessary when it felt so good.”
At his sideways glance, the tension between us dissipated. “We don’t have time to do this,” he said, softly. “We need to leave. Now.”
“What happened?”
“The man who collected your courtly secrets, Danyal—we met on the street. He followed me, or it was just by happenstance. Whatever his reason, he did not believe I’m Razak.” He raised his right hand and waggled his two remaining fingers. “We fought. He’s tougher than he looks.”
I took another, deeper drag on the pipe, slumped against the headboard, letting the lightness carry me away, then handed back the pipe. “Did you kill him?”
“I ran out of time.”
The both of us getting high didn’t solve anything, but damn, it felt good to drift a while. Things seemed clearer, simpler. “We can’t leave.”
“Arin—”
“We’ve come this far. We need the crown.”
“Danyalknows.” He twisted at the waist, hissed at his pain, then finally looked me in the eyes.
“You’re hurt?”
“It’s nothing compared to what will happen if we’re discovered.”
He could never be Razak, I realized. Not to me. Razak’s eyes were cold, flat, and that chilling emptiness went all the way down inside the Prince of Pain’s soul. Lark’s cool harshness was genuine. He played his brother well. But I knew him too well, I knew his heart. His heart was always true. It was in his music, in his smiles, and in his eyes, when he wasn’t guarding all of those things—like now.
“He’ll tell the council. We have hours, at most.”
I shrugged. Had I not been high, I might have cared more. As I was detached from most feelings, the solution didn’t seem difficult. “Then get the crown now.”
“I can’t. It’s in the vault,” he said, then winced again and lifted his shirt, revealing a red, growing bruise spreading down his side. “Damn that old bastard.” He gave the bruise a soft poke and hissed. “It’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” He drew on the pipe and flopped his head back, blowing smoke out. “Pennywort has its uses.”
I wanted to kiss his chest, kiss the bruise, make it go away, and lay my hands on him, but that was the pennywort too. Ialwayswanted to kiss him, but not when all the four kingdoms were at stake, and our lives. “You’re a prince, start thinking like one,” I told him instead.
“Meaning?”
I held out my hand, and he handed the pipe back. “Nobody is going to stop Razak from visiting the vault whenever he pleases,” I said. “You just fucked me over, now fuck them like you know Razak can. There isn’t a single person in this building who is strong enough to stop him.”
He looked at the window, its bars, out into the endless rain.
“Except Zayan,” I added, then smiled, feeling tipsy. “And Zayan’s not here, remember?”
“Do you truly believe Zayan is strong enough to stop Razak?”
The softness and insecurity within which he asked almost broke my heart. “Iknowhe is.”
I’d told him before with words, under my touch, every time we’d kissed. But this time was different. Perhaps because of this room? This time, he heard my words, and he believed them.
“If I go now, they won’t know I’ve taken the crown until the morning.”
He lunged, caught my face in cool hands, and kissed me on the mouth. Pennywort sweetened his lips. I opened up, wanting more. His tongue roamed, teasing, and the throbbing ache he’d left me with pulsed anew. He smelled of rain and wet stone, and when I wrapped my free arm around him, he leaned back, offering his neck. Unable to resist, I mouthed a kiss under his jaw, my lips warm against his cool, wet skin. He shivered, soaked through, or perhaps it was my touch that sent tremors through him.
He moaned and pulled back enough to peer into my eyes. “I should drug you more often.”
