I lay down on my bed, starlight pouring through the window, the emerald clutched in my hand.

Later, I could never be sure if I’d done it deliberately, or if it was an accident, my bruised heart plucking at that invisible tether. Maybe I was just too tired to resist his pull. I found myself in a blurry room, staring at the Darkling.

CHAPTER 9

HE WAS SITTING on the edge of a table, his shirt crumpled into a ball at his knee, his arms raised above his head as the vague shape of a Corporalnik Healer came in and out of focus, tending to a bloody gash in the Darkling’s side. I thought at first we might be in the infirmary at the Little Palace, but the space was too dark and blurry for me to tell.

I tried not to notice the way he looked—his mussed hair, the shadowed ridges of his bare chest. He seemed so human, just a boy wounded in battle, or maybe sparring. Not a boy, I reminded myself, a monster who has lived hundreds of years and taken hundreds of lives.

His jaw tensed as the Corporalnik finished her work. When the skin had knitted together, the Darkling dismissed her with a wave. She hovered briefly, then slipped away, fading into nothing.

“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” he said. No greeting, no preamble.

I waited.

“The night that Baghra told you what I intended, the night you fled the Little Palace, did you hesitate?”

“Yes.”

“In the days after you left, did you ever think of coming back?”

“I did,” I admitted.

“But you chose not to.”

I knew I should go. I should at least have stayed silent, but I was so weary, and it felt so easy to be here with him. “It wasn’t just what Baghra said that night. You lied to me. You deceived me. You … drew me in.” Seduced me, made me want you, made me question my own heart.

“I needed your loyalty, Alina. I needed you bound to me by more than duty or fear.” His fingers tested the flesh where his wound had been. Only a mild redness remained. “There are rumors that your Lantsov prince has been sighted.”

I drifted nearer, trying to keep my voice casual. “Where?”

He glanced up, his lips curling in a slight smile. “Do you like him?”

“Does it matter?”

“It’s harder when you like them. You mourn them more.” How many had he mourned? Had there been friends? A wife? Had he ever let anyone get that close?

“Tell me, Alina,” said the Darkling. “Has he claimed you yet?”

“Claimed me? Like a peninsula?”

“No blushes. No averted eyes. How you’ve changed. What about your faithful tracker? Will he sleep curled at the foot of your throne?”

He was pressing, trying to provoke me. Instead of shying away, I moved closer. “You came to me wearing Mal’s face that night in your chambers. Was it because you knew I would turn you away?”