Page 212 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Are we allies then?”

Zaiana shook her head, and her gut twisted with his flinch of disappointment. “I’m only going to make sure you get out of here and back to them. Then I’ll go my own way.”

“Who is ‘them’?”

“Your brothers,” she said. “One just looks far more like you.”

Zaiana’s nose stung to pass back the same words he’d used to describe them to her once in his room.

“Brothers,” he repeated, staring distantly as if he were trying to find their faces. He shook his head in frustration when they didn’t surface. “How am I supposed to remember?”

“I’m going to help you,” she said, shuffling closer. “I don’t know if it will work, but if you want to try, I’ll tell you everything I know. It might not be enough, because there were so many things I wanted to learn about you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“What for?”

“Wanting to know.” He paused, his face turning thoughtful. “I don’t think many would.”

She didn’t answer. A long stretch of silence fell between them.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

Zaiana thought she was doing a good job of stifling her trembling. She glimpsed the snowfall out the high box window.

“I’m fine,” she answered.

“Come here.”

Her sight snapped to him with the bold request.

“What’s the point in any of it if we both freeze to death?” he added at her hesitation.

Zaiana shuffled over to the wall, moving tentatively, as if one wrong move would retract the wing she leaned into carefully. It curved around her, and the radiating warmth of his body edged her in closer.

She didn’t deserve this comfort, but it might be the only thing she had to remind herself she couldn’t die yet. She had to plan their way out of here.

Her fingers rose as if in their own trance, and she inhaled delightfully at the first contact with the black feathers. Whenthey shuddered, she snatched her hand back, cheeks heating at the impulsive touch.

“So, how are we going to break out of here?” he mumbled, as if it were only a fantasy and they could conjure the wildest escape since none of it would come to pass.

“I have a feeling it’ll take spilling a lot of blood,” she said.

Kyleer swallowed at the mention. Then it dawned on her.

Blood.

Did he need human blood to survive like a Blackfair?

No—that wasn’t the name he would carry.

It sounded so wrong.

“Your name is Kyleer Galentithe,” Zaiana blurted with an urge. “Don’t forget that.”

“You already told me.”

Zaiana shuffled closer, tucking up against the bars. She extended her senses, head throbbing with the extra effort considering her bindings. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them. But I have a second chance while they think I’m powerless here in Niltain Steel.”

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