Page 17 of Flirting with Darkness

He said the word slowly, like it was foreign.

It didn’t occur to me that Vale might not think of the House of Night as his home. But then again, would you consider anyplace your home when you hadn’t been there for hundreds of years?

“The House of Night,” I said. “The Rishan and the Hiaj are always fighting, aren’t they? Struggling for power.”

“You know too much of my country’s dirty laundry.”

“I had a colleague once who studied anthropology, with a specialization in vampire culture.”

Vale laughed. “A dangerous field.”

Dangerous indeed. He had gone to Obitraes and never came back. He was a nice man. I liked to think that perhaps someone Turned him and he was still living some life over there, even though I knew it was more likely that he just became somebody’s meal.

Vale turned and started walking back down the hall, and I’d given up on getting an answer to my question when he finally said, “The Hiaj. The Hiaj have been in power for two hundred years.”

So Vale’s people had been usurped. Judging by the style of art and what I knew of vampire conflict, that couldn’t have been pleasant.

And…

“How long have you been here?” I asked, carefully.

Vale chuckled at the question I really asked and gave me the answer I really was looking for.

“It’s not a pleasant thing to oversee the loss of a war, mouse,” he said. “You’d move halfway around the world after that, too.”

* * *

He indulged more of my curiosity on our walk back to the front door, pausing here and there to tell me a few facts about this artifact, that painting, this tapestry. Even those sparse tidbits were more than enough to confirm that I’d been right—that Vale had incredible amounts of knowledge just holed up in this castle, nevermind what he must own back in the House of Night. But what struck me even more is that he offered this information to me freely, without me even having to ask, like he understood each question I had before I asked it. I would have almost thought he was a mind reader, but the House of Night did not have mind magic—that was a gift reserved for the House of Shadow.

No, he was just… observant. And for those few moments, strangely enough, I felt like I didn’t have to work so hard to bridge the gap between myself and the rest of the world. Didn’t have to work so hard adjusting my facial muscles and body language, nor at decoding his.

And maybe… maybe he felt the same way. Maybe—for all that my prodding earlier had simply been cruel words to throw at him—maybe he reallywaslonely.

This thought struck me all at once when he went to the door, opened it, and then stopped.

I was so bad at reading expressions. But was that… disappointment?

He stared out into the dark path ahead.

“It’s late,” he said. “How long does it take you to get back to your home from here?”

“A few hours.”

That was an understatement, actually.

“Isn’t it dangerous for a little human mouse to travel so far alone at night?”

“It won’t be night for much longer.”

My body refused to let me forget it, too. Every blink was gritty, and my muscles grumbled in irritation. I was thirty. Old enough for my body to protest a night absent of sleep in ways it hadn’t ten years ago.

But I shrugged.

“If I didn’t do dangerous things,” I added, “I would do nothing.”

“Hm.” He eyed the trail, then looked back to the stairs, seemingly unconvinced.

I cleared my throat and adjusted my bag over my shoulder. “Well—”

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