Page 82 of Lux

I stumble back and catch myself against the door to the warehouse, rattling it loudly. From down below, Caspian hears. He is worried, racing back upstairs. I can’t let him know. Can’t let him hear the word echoing around and around in my mind.

I wrench the door open and stagger inside. The heat hits me like an invisible wall, searing over my chilled skin. Then Caspian’s icy hand clamps over my wrist, trapping me between two extremes.

“What is wrong.” He isn’t asking this time. He tugs me inside and slams the door behind us both. Then he pulls me down a flight of stairs and into a room on the second floor. It is long and narrow. One large window at the far end lets in silvery light—that gray dawn that creeps in before the sun fully rises.

It makes my skin look sallow, and it makes my Caspian glow. Like marble. He guides me closer, his palm against my chin. “Tell me.” He growls the words.

I can’t answer him. The words won’t come. I can’t find the right ones. So, I say nothing.

I close my eyes and relent to his touch.

I close my eyes and try to forget the answer to a question I should have never asked.

“I’m fine!” I pull away from him and head downstairs. I practically run, with him easily keeping pace behind me. His fingers lash at mine again, but I don’t have the strength to return the gesture.

As I trip down the last few steps, I spy Altaris standing in the middle of the main room, his back to me, his voice mid-sentence. “And then we shall pay an old friend a visit—Ah!” He turns hishead and looks me up and down. There is a coldness in his gaze that wasn’t there the other day.

Almost as if…

“He knows,” the voices whisper. “He has confirmed it. His own means. Ancient methods.”

The same lie they told me. A lie, it has to be.

“Not a lie,” they counter. “We saw for ourselves. The truth. Who attacked the fae-blooded one. Who killed the vamryre. We saw?—”

“It seems our darling one is distracted this morning,” Altaris snaps. “Caspian, perhaps you can fill her in when time isn’t of the essence and lives aren’t on the line. I shall be waiting outside.”

He storms to the door. For the first time I realize that his clothing isn’t a bright shade of purple. It is a deep, dark black that sets off his alabaster skin. He is more vamryre than ever. Dangerous. All-knowing.

A threat to me.

“I’ll stay here.” I’d forgotten the mortal woman, Aleska. She sits beside Minchae, holding her hand. From the dark shadows beneath her eyes, I can tell she hasn’t slept. Yet she smiles, her eyes bright. “Don’t worry about me. Altaris said he’ll send over some of my things. How thoughtful.”

“He wants us to come with him,” Caspian explains. “To a someone who can find the ledger.”

A ledger containing secrets. Supposedly of my mother’s identity. Supposedly not.

Suddenly, I am not as eager to find those answers as I was before.

Answers can be more dangerous than the mysteries they resolve.

Such as the one provided to me by imaginary voices whispered inside my skull.

Who did all of those horrible things?

You did,they replied.

You.

You.

You.

CHAPTER 29

Caspian

Altaris is a liar. He plies his trade, peddling sin and lies. Creating falsehoods. In another life, I might have deemed him evil. A creature devoid of empathy or respect.

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