Page 10 of Entranced By the Basilisks

I shake my head before he can say anything he’ll regret.

“We can’t do this anymore,” I say.

Ari’s posture stiffens before he relaxes. “Forget I said anything, my viper. We can go back to how it was before—”

“No.” I can’t.

I can’t let us go on like this now that I know what Ari really wants. It’s not good for either of us, but I especially won’t be the cause for Ari putting his life on hold for another seven years.

“Jasper—” he cuts himself off when I shake my head. His expression is a shattered thing that stabs at my chest before it mercifully morphs into anger. “What, are you just going to forget about me now?”

Never.

“It doesn’t matter. I can’t give you what you want,” I say.

I won’t be the one responsible for ruining his life.

The anger on his face cools and he reassesses me. Maybe finally seeing me for who I am instead of what he wants me to be. He turns away and my heart keens with the loss of his gaze, the loss of knowing what he’s thinking. He waves a hand in the air.

“The book for your precious Archive is by the door. It needs restoration.” His voice is rough.

I swallow at the finality of this. I can’t bring myself to thank him.

I take the crate that I’d missed earlier in my excitement to see Ari and go.

* * *

The taskof delivering the book to the library should be a calming one, a distraction from the burning pyre of pain and loss, but it isn’t.

The crate is small, easy to carry through the stacks. I should head for Ms. Starling’s lab, but my mind is fuzzy, taking solace in the lonely darkness. I only realize my mistake when I reach the door of the joint office of Ms. Starling and Ms. Rivera.

It’s too much. Everything is too much. I’ve lost Ari even though I’ve never let myself believe that I had him. I set the crate down before I drop it. A sob escapes my throat and I muffle it with my fist. The very knuckles that he’d stroked to try and coax me. The flavor of him is a poor substitute but it calms me enough to pull myself together. I focus on the cold image of control I project to the world, but it doesn’t come easily.

I feel too large for my skin and the texture of the air is wrong. When the sensation clicks, I snarl helplessly in the dark stacks. Once again, Ari is correct. I am approaching a shed.

I do not have time for this.

I scratch the skin at my wrist and tap out an email distractedly on my phone to Starling and Rivera about the contents of the crate. The two of them can handle Ari’s book now. I mentally wash my hands of the last connection I have to him.

Focus.I need to stay focused on anything but the sound of his voice before we parted.

I schedule an appointment of a less amorous nature at the bathhouse. A soak is the only thing that will make the next day bearable.

4

EMILIA

I unlockmy office and frown at a small crate sitting in front of the door. That’s strange. The crate has shipping stamps on it and looks like a crate that Grace would get.

Usually, the crates are shipped directly to her lab, so I don’t know why it’s here. Maybe it’s been sent to her office by mistake? I sigh and pick it up. It’s lighter than I figured and my blood rushes to my head as I straighten too quickly.

I shake my head and place the crate on Grace’s desk for when she gets in. That won’t be for another couple of hours.

There’s an email from Director Adder that shows up first in my inbox titled: Crate Delivered to Office. It details that the crate contains a damaged book that Grace needs to catalog for the Archive and that I need to evaluate how much of it can be restored. I roll my eyes. How kind of the director to ask whether my current workload would allow for me to accept this project.

A hum of excitement sings through my blood.

I gnaw on my thumb and stare at the crate.

---