“Always.” All it would take was a step. “Constantly.” His hands could be on her jeans, stroking a line down her navel, tucking her hair behind one ear. She recalled the sting of his sigh on her skin, the tremors of his wanting. “It terrifies me how easily I can watch it corrupt.”
Whatever was in motion—whether Parisa had started it willfully or if it had always been Libby, if she had manifested this somehow after viewing herself in projections, in visions, in daydreams disguised as phantoms—it was already too late to stop. Still they hung in idle paralysis, precariously balanced.
One more step could break it. She could have him, this, all of it, in one fatal swoop. Whatever corruption of herself she might become next, it was all within arm’s reach. It pulsed in her head, throbbed in her chest, static and blistering,
this
could
all
be
“I should go,” said Libby, exhaling.
—mine.
Tristan didn’t move until after she was gone.
PARISA
“You’re avoiding me,” murmured Dalton.
“Yes,” Parisa agreed, not bothering to stiffen performatively at his approach. Anyone who sat too calmly—like, say, a highly skilled telepath—had an eeriness to them that instinctively set the teeth of others on edge. Callum was a perfect example of off-putting magical peculiarity, which Parisa typically took care not to be. Normality, and its necessary imitation, was king.
But as Dalton hadn’t prevented any indication of his approach, she discarded the reflexes people usually wanted to see from her.
“For what it’s worth, it’s not for lack of interest.” She simply had other things on the mind, like whether the collision that was Tristan Caine and Libby Rhodes was about to finally come to fruition.
Dalton shifted to lean against her table in the reading room, folding his arms over his chest.
“Ask,” said Parisa, flipping the page in her book. Blood curses. Not very complex in the end, except for the costs to the caster. Those who cast a blood curse almost always went mad, and those who received them almost always broke them eventually, or at least bore progeny who would. Nature craved balance that way: with destruction always came rebirth.
“We knew about your husband,” said Dalton, evidently speaking for the Society on high. “Not your brother or your sister.”
That wasn’t the question in his head, but Parisa wasn’t surprised he had to work up to it. There were clouds of discomfort hovering around in Dalton’s mind, thick layers of stratosphere to reach through.
“That,” said Parisa, “is because nothing happened with my brother.” She flipped another page, scanning it. “There would have been nothing worthwhile to discover.”
Dalton sat in silence a moment. “Callum seemed to find quite a bit.”
In Parisa’s mind, which thankfully Dalton could not read, Amin was always soft, Mehr always hard.
You are the jewel of the family; so precious to me, to us.
Kindness that was actually weakness: I admire you enough to want to possess you, control you.
You are a whore, a bitch, you corrupted this family!
Cruelty that was actually pain: I despise you for making me see my own ugliness, the value I lack.
Parisa closed her book, glancing up.
“Warfare is like compromise. Both parties must lose a little in order to win,” she said impatiently. “If Callum gained access to my secrets, it is only because I saw the purpose in him doing so.”
Dalton frowned. “You think I blame you?”
“I think you think me weak and now hope to comfort me, yes.”