Page 12 of Knave

Ferris drew in a breath. “I don’t think—”

“Let us participate for free,” Mouse said, using her influence on the mortal woman.

“Of course.” The mortal’s eyes glazed over. Another couple walked into the alleyway, their arms draped around one another, and drew Linda’s attention. “Have a seat,” she urged them before going to greet the newcomers.

“Let’s go,” Ferris whispered at the same time Mouse said, “Let’s stay.”

He blinked down at her. After she’d killed two people in a back alley, she wanted to stay and paint? There was blood on the knees of his jeans and splashed across her black dress, though it was hard to see on her. And, he supposed, his jeans could look mud-stained in this lighting.

Still, he said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” He’d wanted to take Mouse somewhere more private, away from small spaces full of humans. Because, while she’d calmed down significantly on their walk here, there was still a slight glimmer of hunger behind her gaze.

“I’ll be good,” she promised, perking up, and slipped into the nearest seat.

With a silent sigh, Ferris joined her. He couldn’t believe they were doing this together, that she was doing something—anything—other than wandering the Ivory Palace like a ghost or lying in bed humming. It almost felt like old times when they would meet in a club before slipping away so she could feed from him. Then they would hang out and talk for hours or watch old movies on his cracked leather sofa. She seemed almostrelievedto be sitting there with him at the moment, which tugged his lips into a slight smile. Maybe she was thinking the same thing…

“You came after me tonight?” Mouse asked as Linda led the others to the opposite end of the table.

Ferris leaned back in his chair and shifted slightly to face her better. The light freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks made him want to trace patterns in them, and the curve of her lips held his attention, possibly for a beat too long. “You ran away from me at the palace as though I’d hurt you or something. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine,” Mouse whispered. “I’m always fine.”

“Sometimes we’re not fine.” He leaned in closer, lifting her chin, as her gaze locked on his. “Sometimes we have to talk about our demons to someone. You can talk to me, luv. Always.” Her gardenia scent caressed his nose and a warm feeling washed over him. Something raw, growing bolder.

Mouse opened her mouth to say something when Linda returned, along with an older woman who sat down opposite them, and began handing out a canvas and paintbrush to everyone. Ferris blinked, dropping his hand from Mouse’s chin.

He’d wondered at times where she’d been going so frequently, but he didn’t own her, and it wasn’t his right to ask. But maybe she’d been visiting a particular mortal for feedings. Like she had with him. Only, maybeunlikehim, they would’ve done more than feed.Fucking. A chill of jealousy crept through him and he frowned. “Next time you have an ache to run off, you can ask me to come. I’d go anywhere with you, luv.”

“All right. But if I don’t ask, don’t follow me.” She furrowed her brow as though thinking deeply about something.

“So…” He glanced carefully around at the mortals who were all preparing the paint Linda had set into the center of the table. Mouse grabbed a few tubes of blue and set them down between them. Ferris picked up the cerulean and worked the paint from the end, rolling the tube. “What happened back there?”

“Nothing I’m not used to,” Mouse answered matter-of-factly.

Ferris arched a brow. They were vampires, so of course she’d killed before, but she hadn’t been the Mouse he knew when she snarled at him so viciously over her prey. “I don’t know what that means.”

She let out a breath. “You don’t know everything about my past.”

Linda appeared at the end of the table and handed Ferris two small pallets for the paint. “Here you are. Is everyone ready to get started?”

Ferris passed Mouse her pallet and they both silently squeezed a dab of each paint color onto the wood. Mouse and the single woman exchanged tubes once they were finished, giving them all two different shades of blue, black, white, and yellow.

Linda set up her own canvas and started discussing how to make the paintings their own. She was only there to guide them, but they were free to use whatever inspired them about the night sky. As she went on about mixing colors, a waiter brought out a tray with glasses, half of them full of red wine, the other half with white.

“Thanks,” Ferris muttered as he and Mouse took theirs. They wouldn’t drink them, but they wanted to at leastseemlike they would. As a mortal, he’d drunk enough wine—and vodka and beer and rum—to last ten lifetimes. Any alcohol he could get his hands on after Ellie died. He drank and drank until he blacked out or vomited his guts out.

Mouse tapped the end of her paint brush against her lips in quiet contemplation. They were still a little pinker than usual from her scrubbing the blood away with paper towels in the club bathroom. A little fuller, even. Ferris lifted a hand to smooth out the crease between her brows but stopped himself.

“What?” she whispered, apparently noticing how quickly he’d dropped his hand.

Clearing his throat, he pretended to pluck something from her hair. “You have some lint.”

Mouse glanced sideways at him. “Do you know what you’ll paint? You know how to get fancy with this sort of thing while you’ve seen my scribbles. Perhaps I should just follow Linda’s instructions.”

Her art skills weren’t the best, he would admit, but he loved her attempts anyway. Once, when he was still human, she’d found one of his drawings and asked him to teach her. “Fine, luv, but only if you don’t tell your sister. I don’t need the whole world asking me for lessons,” he’d teased.

Mouse had come to his flat for her first and last lesson. The pencil strokes were too light as if she were afraid to make a mistake or commit her vision to paper. In the end, she had a blob that was meant to be a mouse. They’d laughed together, the first full laugh he’d had since he’d lost Ellie and their daughter. Then Mouse had fed from his wrist, his fingers tangled in her hair, while he relished in that high, in her friendship. Ferris had kept that drawing. Hidden it in his room in the Ruby Heart Palace for two years and taken it with him when he fled with Ever’s set of keys. Right now, it was tucked into one of his old sketchbooks back in Ivory.

“Let’s do what we feel,” Ferris said. “And we won’t peek at each other’s until the end.”

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