Page 97 of Just for a Taste

Ice ran through me.

“What are you implying?” I whispered.

“I am implying nothing, Cora,” she stated plainly. “I am simply providing information.”

I stared at the spot in my hand, still cool where the bottle had been, and sat on her words for several moments.

“Thank you for the information,” I said finally, meeting Noor’s eyes. “But I don’t think I’ll need it. Words have gotten me this far. I won’t need anything more.”

Noor wrinkled up her nose and gave me a disgusted look. For a second, she looked like she’d argue back. I could practically see the bitter words on her tongue:How foolish you are to think a rabid beast can be reasoned with. How conceited.

But then, with little more than a breathy sigh, the anger faded into something entirely different: grief.

“Information cannot hurt you, Cora. Just as I provided you with information, I am providing you with this key.”

She placed it in my hand, and it sickened me to feel it was warm from her touch. How could anything so horrid feel like anything but ice to me?

But just as strangely warm was Doctor Ntumba’s expression before she departed. “Goodbye, Cora, and good luck.”

Chapter 53: Ch’io mi scordi di te?

Despite having been gone only a handful of minutes, when I entered the abbess’s suite, I was met with pillows overturned, the bathroom door thrown open, and a desperate hound sniffing every leaf in search of its master.

One of the unopened letters crackled beneath my foot as I stepped into the room, immediately drawing Zeno’s attention.

“Cora!” he breathed with a combination of shock and relief. “I thought you had—”

“I’m leaving, Zeno,” I cut in before he could say it himself. Before either of us could deny it was happening. “I just came back to say goodbye and grab my bag.”

It was waiting for me under the bed, already filled with my essential belongings and topped with a car key. I realized with a pang of guilt that Noor must have packed while I was asleep—or perhaps, in a somnolent state, I packed it myself. Either way, one of us had known. Now it was time for Zeno to know too.

He stood, a frail, quivering barricade in front of the door. He hadn’t had an ounce of blood in God knew how long. I despised Zeno for an instant, for making me speak and act so coldly, until I remembered it was myself I hated. Who I would hate even more by the end of the night.

“Please, Zeno,” I said, trying in vain to muster any sense of authority as I approached. “Let me go.”

“Cora—” When he said my name, even in that haughty tone and even under these circumstances, my heart still fluttered. I still wanted. Perhaps it was upon seeing this that his demeanor hardened, and he finished his sentence. “—I can’t. You gave yourself to me to love you, to keep you safe. To have you. I can’t rescindanyof that.”

“Zeno,” I replied sternly, pushing him aside with just as much force as was necessary. “Goodbye. I mean it.”

Goodbye. Two syllables pierced him, brought him to his knees at my feet.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice now as soft and shaky as his grip on my wrists.

For the first time in days, the man at my feet felt like more than just a whisper of the one I would have given everything for. And every ounce of me then wanted to fall to my knees and press myself into the crevices I could have traced with my eyes closed, even now. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to comfort him and hold him and forget this had ever happened. I had swallowed the wordsI love youso many times, they were now a mouthful of bile threatening to erupt from my lips.

But all that came out was an emotionless, “I know.”

I had never known before that moment that it was possible to see a heart break, nor how horrible it would look. I half expected to see crimson bloom across his shirt. Now I was forced to carry the knowledge that it was entirely my fault that Zeno looked on the verge of disintegration.

“Please tell me you love me too,” he whimpered. “I’m begging you.”

I couldn’t bear to look at him a second longer because I knew I would fold. Those four words,I love you too, had the power to end his anguish, to mend together his heart and practically unwind the last few minutes.

I looked away and said nothing. The desperation in his voice heightened tenfold. “I’ll chew off my own hands. I’ll cut my throat. I’ll doanything.”

“I know you would!” I cried, looking at him for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Looking at a reflection of my own agony. “But I don’t want any of that.”

“Then what do you want? Please. Anything.”

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