Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(59)

Her eyes hold mine. Their rich green is flecked with amber. She blinks slowly. I lean in and catch a coffee bean with my lips. Her breath hitches, and a slight flush rises in her face.

“This doesn’t mean I like you all of a sudden,” I tell her. “Or that I ever will, after you’ve made me a prisoner in my own room.”

Her cheeks are still bright, but she says, “All right,” in her usual serene manner. “I’ll learn to live with myself, somehow.”

My lower lip brushes her thumb as I take another coffee bean, and a shiver races through me.

“You . . . you should try one,” I offer.

Meredy arches a brow. “Me, eating illegal goods?” She sounds slightly out of breath at the thought. Figures she’d be that virtuous. A moment later, she pops one in her mouth and crunches down. Her eyes widen, and she smiles.

A tremor suddenly grips me as my body clamors for something stronger.

Something blue in a glass vial that left me comfortably numb.

Something that could keep me floating above this swift, searing pain.

“How do you do it?” I ask as Meredy sponges my forehead with the cloth Valoria left. “How do you handle thinking about Van and Firiel without falling apart?”

Her movements with the cloth are careful, her fingers never once grazing my skin. “I don’t,” she says after a while. “I try not to think of them at all.”

My smile is tight with pain. “What do you think my potions were for?” I try to laugh, but it sounds more like a groan. “I wish I could be numb like you without them. I’ll deny I ever said this when I’m better, if I get better, but: You’re strong. Stronger than me.”

A wave of pain makes me arch my back, my hands curling in their shackles.

Meredy’s eyes narrow in concern. She dabs fresh, cool water across my brow. “Thanks. But you’re the stronger one. I wish I could let myself feel as much as you do without falling apart.”

I shake my head. “What do you call what I’m doing now?”

Her fingers slip over the edge of the cloth as her eyes meet mine, and clumsily, as if she’s not quite aware of what she’s doing, she smooths back my hair. “Surviving.”

Her touch is the best thing I’ve felt in days—cool against my burning skin. I close my eyes, not wanting to startle her into realizing what she’s doing for fear that she’ll stop. But when a vicious tremor grips me, my body screaming for the potion, there’s nothing that can ease the pain.

“Tell me a story,” I beg as I writhe on my sweat-dampened quilt. After all, whatever dignity I once possessed is long gone. “The happiest one you can think of.”

Meredy’s eyes widen. For an agonizingly long moment, the only sound is my ragged breathing. At last, she says stiffly, “When I was nine, Evander squished my pet caterpillar by accident. I suppose he must’ve told you about it, because the first time I met you, you brought me a whole jar full of them—green ones, black-and-yellow ones, and a huge white one. You named it Pearl, remember?”

Some expression flickers across her face—amusement?—but fades as her voice becomes a whisper. “You looked like a princess that day, standing on the manor step with mud on your boots and leaves in your hair and all those caterpillars you’d found for me. I remember thinking I’d never met anyone as in love with the world around us as I was, until you.”

I can’t answer, not with the pain stealing my breath, but I’m sure I return her smile for a moment before the darkness pulls me under.

*

I’m losing track of the days. Or I was, until earlier this morning when Valoria gave me a piece of charcoal to make a slash on the wall for each potion-free night I survive. Now I draw my sixth mark above the bed, then munch on a piece of dry bread as Valoria frantically scribbles something in another notebook.

“Working on the air balloon?” I rasp. Aside from my dry throat and a dull headache, the potion’s absence hasn’t made me want to leap off a cliff or brought any fresh nightmares of Evander’s final moments in the last few days—much to my surprise.

“Mmmm, no,” Valoria murmurs. It’s a wonder she’s talking to me at all, after the names I called her and Meredy during the worst of my potion withdrawals.

Even yesterday, my body faintly shook through most of the day and night. But this morning, as I curl and uncurl my hands, checking for any hint of trembling, I mostly feel tired. Worn, like the leather of my necromancer’s belt. And restless. I’m ready to rejoin the world beyond my window, but Valoria insists we wait the full seven days, which means one more day at her mercy.

At least they finally removed the shackles so that I can feed myself again, although it’s clear that if I try to make a run for the apothecary, Lysander will stop me cold.

The sun slowly climbs higher in the sky as Valoria’s quill scratches the page.

“Have Jax and Simeon been by again?” I ask, interrupting her scrawling. They’ve come to see me every day, and each time I’ve had Meredy and Lysander turn them away. I don’t want anyone else witnessing my humiliation, but now I’m feeling ready to face them.

According to Valoria, they still haven’t found any trace of Vane, but people in the Ashes certainly know him by reputation. It’s only a matter of time before Jax finds someone he can bribe or intimidate into giving up the rogue’s whereabouts. But if he hasn’t made progress by tomorrow, I’m taking over.