“Oh, Kit. Oh, I have been so worried,” he murmured into her hair. He had gathered her against him much more carefully than was his wont, as if he actually remembered her bruised bones and battered head. She pressed against him, feeling, as she always did, a chemical need to soak up his scent, his textures, the rhythms of his blood. She had used to think, when she first loved Jex, that in time she would saturate; she would absorb enough of his essence to be satiated and content. And then she had realized Jex would never sit still long enough to allow her to perform that transfusion—she would never get enough of him. And then she had realized that it was not a resource that could be stored or archived; like food, like breath, it alchemized within her system, her body used it up. It constantly required more, which meant she had to be near him always.

And without this contact she was starved, as she had been starved for weeks, for months, as she might be starved for the rest of her life.

She pulled herself away—not too far away—and gazed up at his face. “Jex, what happened?” she asked in her most solemn voice.

He lifted his hands to either side of her face and gazed down at her with complete earnestness. His eyes were so bright they canceled the lamps in the room. “Kit, I did not plan the explosions in the Centrifuge six days ago. I swear that to you on my father’s life. And had I known—had I known such a thing had been planned for that day—I would have found some way to ensure your safety. The second I heard the blasts—when I realized where you must be—Kit, I cannot tell you the agony I endured. I did not sleep for two days, until word came that you had survived. And even the news that you had been hurt—”

He seemed unable to find words dreadful enough to complete his thought. He dropped his hands, put his arms around her waist again, more urgently this time but still with a certain caution. Kit felt her whole body turn to smoke and vapor, weightless, unafraid. Of course, he could not, before Ariana Bayless’s cameras, admit he had planned a bombing, but Jex was not the man to lie outright. He would not have sworn—on Chay’s life!—to be innocent if he was not. And he had been sick with fear for her, and he had agonized until he knew her fate, and he loved her. The world was a spangled place, full of warmth and miracles, and Jex Zanlan loved her.

*   *   *