Page 70 of Bloodgrove

“He looks like the fairy from the tale where it seduces you and keeps you trapped beneath the mountain for seven years!”

Elodie laughed softly. “Yes. Dangerous.”

They were silent for a while, until Elodie’s movements stopped. “What is going on between you and him?”

Eric tensed. “What? Nothing. There is nothing.” He said it as hastily as a lie, even though it was the truth.

“Eric Maximilian Arcos. I have known you longer than anyone else in this damned city. Do not lie to me.”

“I am not lying.”

Elodie muttered something unintelligible, then rested her head upon Will’s chest again.

“What?” Eric hissed.

“Nothing.”

“Elodie.”

Her head snapped toward him, her hair brushing across Will’s face. “You are still the same bastard you were before. You pretend to be the hero, and in the end, you take everything from me. I am not allowed to have anything for myself. Everything I want, you have to steal away!”

Will felt Eric recoil. He wanted to reach a hand toward him, but something held him back. What if Eric truly was interested in Will only because Elodie was? Had he not known from the beginning that he was merely a pawn in their rivalry?

“That’s not true,” Eric whispered.

“So you will not take Will away from me?”

“I thought there was nothing between you.”

“Whatever. Go to sleep.”

With that, they fell silent and settled once more at Will’s sides. But the tension remained. Eric no longer placed his arm around them, and Will wondered whether he had never meant to hold them both at all, whether from the beginning he had only wanted Elodie and Will had been caught between them.

A new poison rose inside him. Jealousy ate coldly through his guts, and he felt infinitely lonely between the two people who had occupied every fiber of his being for the past two months. He was helpless, his heart was bleeding, and still he could not stop wanting them.

Tears burned at the corners of his eyes. Why could they not see how beautiful it had been only moments ago? How warm and peaceful they had lain beside one another. If only they could stop hating each other.

Perhaps Will was imagining it all, seeing something that did not exist. Convincing himself there was a place for him here and that he was not merely an intrusion. That he was the bond that could draw them together, rather than the wedge driving them apart.

Eventually, the two of them fell asleep again, and peace returned. Will savored it as he blinked away his tears. And for those stolen hours in the darkness, he allowed himself one small lie. He imagined that the peace was real, that he was permitted to love the two bodies at his sides. That they had found one another amid the horrors of this town.

But the truth was too loud. Will had killed Saint. He had endangered his friends—if he was even allowed to call them that—and now he was only digging deeper trenches between them.

Chapter 37

The weeks after Saint’s death were quiet, but the renovation advanced. Where there had once been a wasteland, right angles, smooth walls, and the subfloor now took shape. Will watched over everything, his white blouse with its high, starched collar concealing the last discolorations that covered his body. Elodie had worked more blood magic, and the wound on his cheek had faded to a ring of silver scars against his pale skin. Absently, his fingers traced them. She had been so close while healing him that he had seen the pulse beating in her throat. He missed her nearness like a lonely prisoner in a dungeon, yet he did not dare touch her or ask her to stay.

He hid the other wounds beneath elaborate fabrics. In the evenings, when he sat alone on the floor of his washroom before the large mirror, he examined every one of them, pressing his fingers into the scars until pain shot toward his spine. He could not allow himself to forget how close he had come to death. And yet, strangely, the thought left him cold.

Then, one week later, Saint’s remains were carried to their final rest.

The funeral procession wound through the narrow streets, and as though in mockery, sunlight glittered upon the immense black carriage. Will realized that he had never seen Saint beneath the sun, had never watched his freckles and red hair catch fire in the light. Although Will had felt most normal in his company, Saint had been a creature of this city’s shadows—whether in the dim shop, between dusty bookshelves, beneath the red glow of the balls, or in cold moonlight.

It was the only time Will appeared in society. He stood silently beside Elodie. Eric passed them with several other members of the Senate, but he was entirely Mr. Arcos again. The chasm between them was almost visible.

To Will’s disappointment, no one blamed him. One noblewoman even shook his hand.

“How fortunate that you escaped. It would have been a tragedy to see you inside that carriage as well.”