He tilts his head in my direction, particles of dust clinging to the air between us like it’s waiting for us to settle. But we don’t settle, that’s the problem. We never do. Every time I think we’re on even footing ready to stand still, one of us takes another step.
“I’m...” My mouth closes. I’m what? Sorry? Am I apologizing that I can’t ask the male in front of me to kill the one I’ve put behind me?
“Is that what you think I should do? Is that what you want?” I ask instead, the question genuine.
He tips his head up and sends a bitter smile to the cobwebbed ceiling. “What I want…” His laughter is soaked in somber asperity, eyes casting for wisdom from a sky that can’t see us. After a pushed breath through his tense chest, he looks at me again. “There’s only one thing that I find I want anymore.”
There’s a churning in my stomach, his declaration twisting me all up so much that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to disentangle myself. Based on the woven look in his grass-bladed eyes, he feels the same.
“I’ll be returning to Fourth Kingdom the day after the ball,” he says suddenly, and something painful tears through my chest. “I’ve been away too long as it is, and I’m needed there.”
You’re needed here too.
He looks at me, and there’s a wait there, an opportunity for me to ask him to stay, and it terrifies me.
Like a confession of pilfered spoils, I hear myself say, “I’m trying to leave him.”
Slade’s attention sharpens, my eyes dropping from the piercing gaze that lands against my face. “I’m trying to just...leave.” My words tear off, like shorn parchment right in the middle of an apology letter. “To disappear.”
That stillness in him has returned, the unmoving mountain standing solid against fits of wind.
I don’t know why I told him, and yet, he feels like the only one I should tell.
Because despite my determination to get away, Slade’s right. It would be so easy to end Midas, to turn him into the gold he covets so much. To bring an end to that tyranny. It would be even easier for Slade to rot him inside out.
But...I can’t.
And great Divine, doesn’t that just leave me conflicted. I hate myself, I’m proud of myself, I’m right, I’m wrong, this is best, this is worst.
Around and around and around I go.
“Judge me for it—for not being able to end him,” I say softly, almost like I want him to. And maybe I do. Maybe it would be a good punishment, fit for the girl who fell in love with her captor and let herself flounder. “I know how pathetic I must seem to you.”
Whatever he sees on my face makes his eyes soften, the angry frustration smoothing from his heavy brow. He walks over to me again, not nearly as close this time, but at least he’s sealed the gap, making the air between us not so cold and jagged when I inhale.
Slowly, Slade lifts a hand to sweep a knuckle across my bruise. I melt into the touch like the brim of wax on a candlestick, and all I can think is, what would it be like to just catch and burn in his heat?
One simple skim is all I get though, and then his touch drops away, leaving the track to tingle. He stuffs both hands into his pockets, as if he needs to keep them there so he doesn’t reach for me again. I keep trying to convince myself that separation from him is what I need, and yet every time I get just that, it feels like someone is fisting my paper heart, crumpling it whole. A pang resonates through me as he stands there, suddenly seeming untouchable.
It doesn’t matter that his shirt is torn on the sleeves from where his spikes ripped through. It doesn’t matter that he’s here in a begrimed library full of rotting books. It doesn’t even matter that I saw him lose a sliver of control. Somehow, he still manages to look kingly. Intimidating. Gorgeous.
“You’re not pathetic,” he murmurs quietly, a somber sort of song. “You just haven’t found it yet.”
My golden brows pull together as I search his expression for meaning. “Found what?”
“We all have our edge, Auren. One day, you’re going to find where yours is.” The darkness of his essence brushes against my skin like a whisper’s caress. “You’re going to find out just how far you can be pushed until you’re tipped over. And when that happens, when you find your edge, just promise me one thing.”
My voice comes out like a croak, a single tear dashing down. “What?”
“Don’t fall.” Time stands still as he leans in and places a kiss on my temple, lips turning to whisper into my ear. “Fly.”
I don’t even realize my eyes fluttered closed until I blink my damp lids open again. But by then, Slade’s already gone, swallowed up by the shadows without a sound.
Chapter 26
SLADE
The library door doesn’t slam shut behind me. It would’ve been more satisfying if it had. Not for the scribes, who’d surely curse me in their heads, but it would’ve pleased me immensely given my current mood.