Page 93 of 10 Days to Ruin

Golden afternoon light filters through leaded glass windows, catching dust motes in a slow waltz. As far as the eye can see, towering mahogany shelves stretch toward a coffered ceiling painted midnight blue, with constellations picked out in gold leaf. Velvet ropes cordon off cases displaying illuminated manuscripts—pages so delicate they look like they’ll dissolve if I breathe too close.

I say nothing.

It’s the kind of space that demands silence.

My fingertips ghost along the glass edge of a case containing a gorgeously gilded psalter. “How did you even…?”

“Patronage has its perks,” Sasha says simply, lingering near the doorway.

I’m still not sure what to say. How did he know? Those memories of Mama and Jas, of running up and down the bookshelves and laughing… they’re not the kinds of things I blab about casually. Like this room, I’m afraid that sharing them too loudly or too widely would make them crumble away.

So how the fuck did he know this would move me?

I turn and gawk at him. Hands shoved modestly in his pockets, he meanders over to the study table in the center of the room, pulls out an upholstered chair, and sinks into it.

“Take all the time you’d like,” he says. “Cry if you want, laugh, sing—it’s ours for the evening.”

Tears prickle in my eyes. Sasha watches me, silent. He doesn’t smirk or prod. Just lets me feel the moment having its way with me.

And for as long as that moment lasts, I submit to it. I let the illusion shimmer: us as ordinary people, him as someone capable of tenderness.

Then I rip away and stride down the nearest set of stacks.

This is how monsters trap you, Ariel. Not with threats, but with the lethal poison of beingseen.

I skitter my fingers down the spine of one book after the next, letting my heart rate even out. When I’m ready, I call over the shelves, “I never took you for such a bookworm romantic, Sasha. Next thing I know, you’ll be throwing rocks at my window and reciting Rumi from memory.”

“Would that work?”

“On a woman with weaker knees? Maybe. On me? I’d throw the rocks back at you.”

Sasha laughs, then falls quiet. I keep wandering down the aisle. Something in me wants to touch all the books that aren’t locked away behind display cages.

Stories have souls,Mama used to say. I want to feel every one pulsing beneath my fingertips.

The stained glass above us fractures the evening sunlight into jewel tones. As minutes pass and it dwindles, I become aware of a presence following me, though he stays one row away.

Until he doesn’t.

I turn a corner and he’s there, leaning against the shelves, eyeing me thoughtfully. He’s abandoned his coat and cuffed his sleeves to the elbow, so I can see tattooed forearms folded across his chest.

“Your mother brought you here,” he murmurs.

I whirl towards him. “How did you— Did my father tell you that?”

He doesn’t even dodge the question, just ignores it entirely. Like I never said a word. “Have you ever thought about it? Being a parent?”

My heartbeat thuds in my chest. The way he says it implies… “Do I need to?”

Sasha doesn’t answer for a few long breaths. When I turn back, he’s still looking at me, as if to say,You know you do.

I start to sweat and stammer. “Th-that wasn’t p-part of the…”

“Come on, Ariel. You know better than that. You know how these things work.”

I clutch the nearest shelf for support, because my knees suddenly feel a little untrustworthy. “Just to be clear, you’re talking about…?”

“You’ll bear me an heir within the first two years. It’s in the fine print,ptichka.Your father agreed.”

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