Page 143 of The Night Prince

It crashes open. Darkness engulfs me and I’m falling.

Bright blinding light.

Chapter Sixty-Four

My eyes jolt open.

I’m in the small room in the Grey Keep, and the embers in the hearth glow orange. Blake sleeps on the chair, with his head dipped onto his chest. I’m breathing too quickly, and I try to calm myself, terrified I will wake him.

A thousand emotions rattle around in my chest, but the one that slices through is a cold, icy fear. At some point in his lifetime, Blake called Night his master.

I need to get out of here.

Blake’s eyes open. I’m restricted by the bedsheets. My pulse thrums beneath my skin. It’s loud. So loud. I know he can hear it. I turn my body to stone, as if I can block out the sound, but it beats faster, faster. Faster.

His midnight hair is disheveled, and strands of it curl over his forehead. His shirt is unbuttoned at the collar. He looks relaxed, with the fire in the hearth flickering low behind him as he sits in the chair. He seems unthreatening. Vulnerable. Iwonder how carefully he practiced his act. Or perhaps lying just comes naturally to him.

He’s working for Night. He has been all of this time. He’s been looking for me.

I’m always pretending,he told me once. I should have listened more closely.

I know he’s acting now. I can see it. His hands tighten on the arms of the chair. His back ever so slightly straightens. I feel that coil of wariness as it tightens around my soul. For so long, he has felt like a spring, wound tight. I think this is the moment when it finally snaps.

I know his secret.

My pulse becomes a cacophony in my ears.

Does he know that I know?

He stares at me, and there’s the hint of a challenge in his eyes.Say it,he seems to dare me.Bite.

My breathing quickens. I need to get away. I need to warn Ryan. James, too, I suppose. I need to warn the whole bloody kingdom, and my people, too. I need to stop him from using me to release his master. My gaze darts to the door, but I know he’d catch me.

I force myself to relax. To release a breath. To smile. He hasn’t hurt me yet, so he must be waiting for something before he makes his move. I have time. There has to be more time.

I can pretend, too.

“I had the strangest dream that I was being chased through a forest,” I say. I settle back down on my pillows. I’ll put him at ease, wait for him to go back to sleep, then I will run.

He blinks. Once. Twice. “That sounds frightening.”

He shifts in his chair, and I try not to flinch. He puts his foot on the edge of my bed, and I think it’s to barricade me in. But then the bottom of his breeches rides up. Too late, my eyes dart to the exposed flesh, and I realize his intent.

The mark I saw there, when I hid beneath his bed, is no ordinary scar. A key with two crescent moons in the bow has been burned into his ankle—the flesh around it is angry and mottled. Elsie and Alexander had Night’s mark inked onto their wrists, but this... this is different. A fresh wave of horror crashes over me as I remember the book of drawings depicting Night’s monsters. They were branded like this, too.

He’s showing it to me. He wants me to confront him.

I look away hurriedly, and pretend I didn’t see.

He sighs and slides his foot back to the ground. His boot hits the floor with a thud.

“Let’s not play this game anymore.” The way he says it—as ifIam the tiring one, as ifIhave beencaught doing something wrong—stokes a fire inside me that flushes away some of the coldness. “Let us be honest, for once.”

“Honest?” The word tears from my lips. “You want to be honest?”

“Yes,” he says as my gaze darts toward the door. “I know what you’re thinking, so say it, and I can explain.”

Power coursed through my veins earlier, but I feel anything but powerful now. Even if I understood how the power of the moon worked, what could I do with it? Turn him into a wolf, and make him an even bigger threat?

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