His fingertips brush over the wayward feathers along the wrists and hood where I’d accidentally gilded them with my skin. It was incredibly difficult to stop the spread, but at least I managed that much. Though, what good is that now when I’ve just tossed my secret at his face?
Ravinger’s attention flickers over the room again, as if he’s seeing it in a new light. He lingers on the woman’s statue behind me. “Midas is far more devious than I suspected. And so are you.”
It sounds like that actually excites him.
“What do you want?” I ask as I edge for the door. I don’t care if his power can kill me in seconds, I’ll try to make a run for it anyway.
He grins at me from the shadows as I step sideways, but he can mock me all he wants, I know better than to turn my back on him.
“Now that’s the question, isn’t it?” he asks, and his voice...
His attention flicks down to my wayward ribbons and skims over their crumpled, tired lengths. Just his look makes them shiver, a timid tremble that I feel against the skin of my back.
“It all makes so much more sense now. Why he keeps you. Why your skin is truly gold. Why you’re trapped with him.” Ravinger glances down at the broken cage door lying on the floor. “But perhaps...not as trapped as one might believe.”
His power becomes cloying again all of a sudden, like it’s reaching out in invisible tendrils and trying to latch onto my own, trying to get a feel of what lurks inside of me. Sweat breaks out against my brow, my stomach flipping, and I take another two steps toward the door.
If I can just get there. If I can just get through—
Another wave of sickness makes me nearly stumble. “Stop,” I pant. I feel like I’m a second from vomiting all over the floor.
Immediately, his power recedes, and with it, those dark lines on his face grow, like a flash flood of rivers unleashing, nearly reaching the sharp planes of his cheeks.
“You should probably get used to that,” he says, amusement evident in the deep timbre of his voice as he watches me sweat and shake. “Can’t have you getting sick every time I come into the room.”
“Why?” I ask nervously, squinting toward his dark shrouded body. I don’t know what would be scarier, for him to stay hidden in the shadows as he is, or if he were to step into the light so I could see him more clearly.
“We’re going to be around each other for a while.”
Chills rush down both arms, and I stop my retreat. Is he stealing me? Is he going to use me worse than Midas did?
“What are you talking about?” I ask, fear breaking my voice. I take the last few steps to the threshold, feeling a surge of victory when my fingers close around the doorframe. I turn, keeping my back to Midas’s room and my eyes on him, the predator who can pounce at any moment.
“Oh, Midas hasn’t told you yet?” he says smoothly, not moving from his place. “We’ve negotiated peace, and he’s also hosting a celebration. Fourth has been invited to stay and attend.”
All at once, a dozen thoughts hit me.
I swallow down a lump of hope in my throat as I shove damp hair off my face. “Your commander? Is he staying?” I blurt, though I immediately want to kick myself for letting my interest slip.
If there’s no war, if Rip is staying here...
I need an ally if I have any hope of getting away.
Ravinger chuckles, and the rasp abrades my ears, like the splintered wood of a rotten log. “Oh Goldfinch, I asked you before if you knew who I was.”
My foot hesitates from its move to back up, my brows pulling together in a frown of confusion even as my heart pounds, warning me to flee. “What?”
Without warning, his power suddenly pulses out again and tightens like a fist, yanking a noose around my stomach. This time, it’s different, a surge instead of a reach.
I gulp out strangled air and double over, a cold sweat immediately drenching my skin as I breathe through my nose, trying not to be sick, trying not to fall.
My shaky hands grip the doorframe hard as I try to stay upright. My tired ribbons wince, curling up behind me and diving beneath my dress like they can hide from his magic.
Dizziness overtakes me with a hot flush as I lean against the wall, but right before I’m about to be sick, the power suddenly dissolves, like salt in a sea.
Panting, I look up, and right before my eyes, the reaching roots over Ravinger’s face recede.