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Fighting was chess, anticipating the move of one’s opponent and countering it before one got hit. But it was chess played with the whole body. Chess that left her bruised and tired and frustrated with the whole world and with herself, too.
It had been one of those weird sayings adults expected her to understand, even though they made no sense—
“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”
“I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy.” He looks at me. “Is that right? It would explain much about your kind if it’s possible to mistake the two.”
But you have what Cardan never did: ambition.
“Ah, time,” he says. “You’re the only one short on that, mortal.”
Power goes to my head too quickly, like faerie wine.
“Madoc misses you, too. You were always his favorite.”
I think of his horror at his own desire when I brought my mouth to his, the dagger in my hand, edge against his skin. The toe-curling, corrosive pleasure of that kiss. It felt as though I was punishing him—punishing him and myself at the same time.
Once, they were a comfort to me. I take a long last look, and then, one by one, I feed them to the fire. I’m no longer a child, and I don’t need comfort.
I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear.
“Everything’s a game, Jude,” she says.
Our eyes meet, and something dangerous sparks. He hates you, I remind myself. “Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”
“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”
“I hate you,” I whisper before he can speak. He tilts my face to his. “Say it again,” he says
“For I find you every bit as beautiful as you find me.”
“Whatever you do to me,” I say, too angry to stay quiet, “I can do worse to you.”
Our gazes meet, and there’s a shock of mutual understanding that our bodies are pressed too closely. I am conscious of my skin, of the sweat beading on my lip, of the slide of my thighs against each other. I am aware of the warmth of his neck beneath my twined fingers, of the prickly brush of his hair and how I want to sink my hands into it.
Cardan was left to be suckled by a little black cat whose kittens came stillborn.” “He survived on cat milk?”
An abandoned prince, weaned on cat milk and cruelty, left to roam the palace like a little ghost.
His raven’s-wing hair falls over one eye.
My whole body is alert, alive with sick desire, embarrassing in its intensity. He knows. I know he knows.
His beringed fingers trace over my cheek, trace the line of my lip and down my throat. I feel dizzy and overwhelmed. “Should I touch her like this?” he asks, lashes lowered. The shadows limn his face, casting his cheekbones into stark relief.
I dig my fingernails into the meat of my palm to keep from moving against him. My whole body is trembling with tension.
His expression mirrors my own, surprise and a little horror.
“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” He kisses me harder.
“I hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.”
I tell him, taking a step back and indicating a chair with the point. “Go ahead. Sit.” He sits down just as I kick the chair, sending it backward and him sprawling to the floor. He rolls over, glaring at me with indignation. “Unchivalrous,” is all he says, but there’s something in his face that wasn’t there before. Fear.
“Your ridiculous family might be surprised to find that not everything is solved by murder,” Locke calls after me. “We would be surprised to find that,” I call back.
