Page 118 of The Stars are Dying

“So he thinks it’s you?”

Nyte shrugged. He didn’t respond, but I studied the tunneling look on his expression, wondering what Drystan would be saying to cause every flicker and shift. His lips were pinched and his eyes firmed with ire, but before I could ask he was gone.

35

“We don’t have much time.”

Nyte’s true voice echoed through the cave with a touch of irritation. I wasn’t sure if it was his impatience for me to get down here after the prince left or whatever they’d spoken of that lingered with him.

“What did he say?” I asked, realizing how out of shape I was from rushing down here with the heavy tome.

“All I remember was an irritating buzz.”

Stopping close to the veil, I dropped to my knees with the book, cutting him a look, though he hardly appeared in the mood to talk about it. “I know the feeling,” I muttered, flipping through its pages.

“Astraea.” His tone of warning stopped my movements. Then he crouched in front of me, and my gaze traveled along the thick chain that clanked along with him, its links disappearing into darkness. “He can’t find out you know I exist. If there’s a moment of suspicion, you have to sway it completely.”

My eyes flicked up to his then, catching a frown of turmoil I didn’t expect.

“Most importantly, he can’t find out who you truly are.”

“I’m no one,” I whispered.

He pressed his lips into a firm line, the flinch around his eyes revealing he was suppressing his next words. Instead he looked to the book. “Drystan is going to seek you out. We have to do this now.”

“Why would he be looking for me?” Dread flushed my body.

Nyte’s mouth curled with the flash of his honey eyes. “It seems you’re doing well to draw his attraction. Is that what you wanted?”

I refrained from a childish scowl. “Only if it can help me end him. If he is what Rose says he is…” I trailed off with the rise of horror at what I was planning to do. What I thought myself to be capable of. Killing a prince. Or a king. That was Cassia’s goal, and I’d promised to follow it through.

Flicking my eyes to Nyte, I felt it somewhat ironic to ask for one evil’s help to take down another, but I wondered what it was that made me want to side with one at all.

“With this bargain, you’ll help me kill them…?” I had to shake my head to expel the desire to exclude Drystan. What I’d seen and felt of him didn’t match the malicious persona he was said to have, and perhaps he deserved a chance to explain…

“Yes.” There was no hesitation, and Nyte didn’t break my stare so I would feel his promise. “Because you’re going to help me.”

I shook myself out of my stupor. I had to give to gain—of course that was how it would be. I also had to remember that after it was done, he would be done with me. Nodding vacantly, I flipped through a few more pages until I found the one I’d come across while searching above.

“The Binding of Bargains,” I recited. “It requires blood.”

“Mm-hmm,” Nyte hummed, and my eyes widened with realization.

“You knew how to make the bargain this whole time!”

“But we had a lovely time together, did we not?” He was prodding at my irritation, and the sparkle in his amber irises switched to tell me heenjoyedit.

Standing, I closed the book, and maybe it was childish, but the frustration he’d triggered needed some physical release. I threw the book at him, not even remembering the veil until the book collided with it, echoing a high chime, and I winced with my stumble back. Then itpassedthrough it.

Nyte straightened and side-stepped effortlessly to avoid it as the old book skidded across the stone. “How considerate of you to provide me with tedious reading material.”

I blinked at the rippling veil as it lost its echo and stilled to near invisibility once again. “Can you pass it back?”

“No,” he said, retrieving the book. “You’d best hope no one goes looking for it.”

Shaking my head, I wished I’d scouted for a book on wards too, if only to figure out their magick. “If I passed through…?”

His eyes skimmed from the pages to me. “As tempting as that is for me, we would have a far bigger problem on our hands.”

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