Farrow’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”

Sometimes, those three words coming from someone else would be an admonishment. From Farrow, it was an actual question, spoken with the understanding that he would accept whatever answer I gave him.

I wasn’t sure. And I was a terrible liar. But I still replied, with as much confidence as I could muster, “Yes. I am.”

For decades, this town had thrown its faith blindly into gods that had done nothing for them but curse them. Now I’d give anything to cast that faith into those little glass vials.

“Go,” I said to Farrow. “Be quick. You don’t have much time.”

“What about him?”

Vale lay listless on the floor. Strange, how none of this—the dead bodies, the blood on my hands—terrified me as much as the sight of him in this state.

“I’ll take care of him. And the bodies.”

I heard all the judgment in Farrow’s silence.

“No arguing,” I said, before he could protest.

But it wasn’t Farrow that argued.

“Go.”

The voice that came from behind me sounded nothing like the deep, smooth sound that had greeted me when I first walked through these doors months ago. Still, my heart leapt to hear it.

Vale’s eyes were slitted, like he had to fight to keep them open.

“Go, mouse,” he rasped out.

No. The word was immediate, definitive. If there had been any shred of doubt within me, the sight of Vale, struggling to even speak, destroyed it. I would not leave him like this.

I forced a smirk. “I owe you roses,” I said. “We had a deal.”

The spasm of muscles around Vale’s mouth could barely be called a smile.

I led Farrow to the door before either of them could argue with me more. Farrow knew he couldn’t change my mind about this, either. Before he left, he reached out and took my hand. Squeezed it. I had to close my eyes. The emotion on his face made me uncomfortable.

“Thank you.” My voice was strangled and choked.

“Good luck, Lilith,” he said, in a tone that sounded a lot like a goodbye.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When Farrow was gone, I dropped to my knees beside Vale.

“I—I don’t know how to help you. Do you have medicine, or—”

“Burn them first,” he wheezed.

“Not with you like this.”

“Burn. Them.” His gaze slipped to the parted curtains—to the sky. No sign of a god’s anger now, but the longer we waited, the greater chance there was it would come.

I knew what he meant: we don’t have time.

So, reluctantly, I did as he asked. It took longer than I’d hoped. The bodies were heavy. I struggled to drag them far enough from the house to keep the flames from spreading to the building. There were many of them.

By the time I was done, the red cast from the fire doused the entire estate. It was dusk, the sky pink as scar tissue, gritty with smoke. I rushed my work and hurried back into the library the minute I was sure the fire wouldn’t take the house with it. Sooty sweat plastered my shirt to my skin. I was panting. I had worked so, so fast. But when I saw Vale lying there, right where I had left him, I thought, I made a mistake. I should have healed him first.

Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when he turned his head laboriously to look at me.

Did he look a little better? A little?

“Medicine,” I demanded. “Where?”

“Study,” he said, in a thick, scratchy voice. “Third drawer.”

The drawer, of course, was a mess—I could barely get it open for all the clutter. I cursed him for it as I rummaged. I didn’t even know what Obitraen medicine looked like. Finally, at the bottom, I came across several glass bottles. Most held blue-white liquid that glowed faintly. When I touched them, I shivered a little, like the magic was calling to some dark part of myself.

I wasn’t sure if there was a difference between them, so I filled my arms and brought all of them back, dumping them on the coffee table beside Vale.

“Which?”

Vampires did have incredible healing ability. Vale was able to move a little bit now—at least enough to select the bottle he needed. He shot one back like strong alcohol, hissing and cursing.

“Upstairs,” he said.

“You shouldn’t move—”

He glowered at me. “Up. Stairs.”

I rolled my eyes, but managed to get him into his bedchamber, though he leaned heavily on me the whole way. I helped him strip off his bloodstained clothes, conscious of every wince as coarse fabric clung to raw skin. Vale had lit the candles in the room with a wave of his hand when we walked in—the flames were strange and white, and moved a little differently than fire did. They cast silver over his bare flesh, and as I watched him withdraw another glass bottle and tend to the worst of his wounds, a knot formed in my stomach.

I’d come to admire Vale’s form so much—his blood, his body. But now, the blood that I had found so breathtakingly entrancing covered the flesh I had found equally stunning in grotesque smears. A dark, taunting mimicry of everything I’d grown to find so beautiful.

He didn’t want my help, at first. But he was being ridiculous—he couldn’t even reach the worst of his burns. I snatched the medicine from his hands, and after a few minutes of grumbling, he let me take over dabbing the potions onto the wounds of his back and shoulders.

Honestly, I was grateful that he had the energy to argue. And maybe he was grateful that he didn’t have to do much of it.

Nyaxia’s magic must have been powerful, because the healing was miraculous. Still, Vale’s wounds were deep, brutal. The cuts from swords were bad enough, but the sun had inflicted the worst of it. It had been a bright day today. It left seeping, blackened patches over his skin. The potion helped, closing the open patches of skin, but still leaving behind dark purple marks.

It was my fault this had happened.

This thought solidified in my mind fully formed, a single truth.

I should have been more careful. My colleagues at the university, my parents, my sister had always been right about me—my enthusiasm made me careless. I had been so excited about my discoveries—about Vale—that I hadn’t hidden my work. I forgot to be afraid.

A mistake.

“I shouldn’t have allowed this to happen,” I said, quietly, as I worked.

“None of this was your fault, mouse. Do you think this was the first time humans came to my door blaming me for whatever tragedy they faced that decade?” He glanced back at me with a wry smile. “Humans. All the same.”

I hated my own kin in this moment. But not as much as I hated myself.

I moved on to another burn, watching Vale’s skin twitch and burn beneath the silver liquid.

“You should have left,” he said. “I would have survived.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Your friend wanted you to go with him. More than he expressed, I think.”

I shrugged. It didn’t matter what Farrow wanted me to do.

Then Vale added quietly, in a tone of voice I could not decipher, “He is in love with you.”

My eyes stung.

I couldn’t even deny it. And what good had it ever gotten him?

“It’s just old feelings,” I said. “We were together for a while. But it ended.”

“Why?”

“He wanted more than I could give him.”

A life I couldn’t live. A heart I couldn’t free. A role I couldn’t play.

Vale nodded, as if this made sense to him. We didn’t talk for a long time. I was working on the last of the burns when he finally spoke again.

“I decided to go back to Obitraes.”

My heart stopped. My hand slipped. Just as well, because he turned around, his amber eyes cutting through me.

Why was it suddenly hard to breathe?

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked.

His fingertips ran back and forth over the back of my hand, absentmindedly. His gaze slipped away, to the strange white flames.