Page 63 of By the Moonbeam and the Mist
And what had he said back at the lighthouse?I promised myself I’d never plant a false memory in your head again.
My eyes opened again to find that Steeler, in the here and now, was surveying me with concern warring with raw, savage hunger in the smoky quartz of his eyes.
“Was that memory—the one with the chains…” I sucked in a gulp of air. “Was that something like this one?”Fake? Fabricated?
Steeler’s eyes didn’t move from my face.
“Yes.”
I looked away again, feeling my blockade of ice slip like a torn cloak.
I was starting to see hazy edges of the full picture form around me even without having obtained my old memories again. And there was something in Steeler’s voice that told me the truth: he wanted me to hate him,neededme to hate him, until I could fully protect myself. Because if any part of Lexington suspected Ididn’thate him…
Dazmine had been right. This was all just a way to test my loyalty to Dyonisia, and my loathing, my anger toward Steeler, kept me safe from any chance that she’d exile or even execute me as a traitor. I couldn’t love him, couldn’t want him, so he’d been playing the part this whole time.
But it didn’t change the fact that he’d lied to me.
It didn’t change the fact that he’d abandoned me.
It didn’t change the fact that he’d tried to protect me without my input, without my discretion, without my consent.
Coen Steeler had played the part too well.
So if he had given me the gift of Mind Manipulating as a peace offering or a way to get me to fall back in love with him, it was pointless. My body could burn for him all it wanted in a purely physical way—that didn’t mean my heart would ever melt for him again.
I turned toward the door without another word, intending to leave him to get himself out of the sundews’ prison.
Steeler reappeared in front of me, blocking my path in the one empty space of the room where none of the thrashing sundew or snapping flytraps or bucking nepenthes could reach him.
“You never said it last year, you know.”
I crossed my arms. “What?”
“You never said you loved me,” he half-whispered. “You never said those words. I’m not under any assumption that you’deversay them after what I’ve done to you.”
I couldn’t help the flicker of surprise from crossing my face.
“Then why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”
He leaned forward with his hand outstretched, sending a wave of unwanted warmth down my body again. “BecauseIcan’t help still being in love withyou—and that’s not transactional. Here,” he added before I could dredge up a response. “You forgot this.” He opened his fingers, revealing the little black pearl that sat on his bed of callouses. “If you want it, of course.”
After a moment of consideration, I plucked it from his palm and slid it down my cleavage just like last time.
The smallest shiver of triumph passed through me at the way those dilated pupils tracked the progress down. At the way a hint of shock finally sliced through his usually smirking exterior.
“For my tally,” I said. “To keep track of how many reasons I still have to kill you at the end of this.”
Then I shoved past him and out the door.
CHAPTER
21
Ihad to run to make it to Ms. Pincette’s class on time, my dress flailing behind me, all the thorny, grisly underbrush politely jostling out of my way just in time to avoid scratching my ankles.
When I finally slid into my seat next to Emelle and Gileon, trying desperately to suppress the urge to pant, Ms. Pincette began her lecture of the day right away. Guess I’d made it with seconds to spare.
“Today, we deal with bullet ants, the most pompous of the hive mind—and the most likely to attack if you so much as breathe on them the wrong way.”
