Page 23 of Thief of Night
Charlie looked around the room. “I think it might be too late for that. Salt’s dead.”
“You can’t trust the people in the castle,” he said, shaking his head. “None of them. Not even the prisoners in the dungeon.”
Was he talking about Red?
“They’re like vampires,” Rand went on, turning the cigar over and pressing the burning part into the center of his palm. The scent of singed flesh filled the room. His familiar smile turned strange, menacing. “They’ll drink your blood.”
And then Charlie jerked awake with a gasp. She was still in the back of the Cosmic Cab, the music still thumping. Cold air from an open window might have been what woke her, because the driver was accepting a tray of drinks.
“I ordered you a large coffee with cream,” Red said and for a moment, she couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. How had he remembered how she took her coffee?
She scrubbed a hand over her face, realizing a coffee order didn’t mean he’d gotten any memories back. All it meant was that he’d been paying attention these last few weeks. “Right. Thank you.”
The driver handed her a huge coffee, passed a smaller, equally milky one to Red along with some change, and kept a whipped cream monstrosity for himself.
Red had ordered himself a coffee. That was interesting. So he did want to eat and drink like a human.
“What are you staring at?” he asked her.
“You used to take yours black,” she told him, pointing to his cup.
He blinked. “Did I?”
“Maybe you just wanted to seem like a badass,” she told him.
He took a tentative sip, his face not really allowing her to guess if he liked it. It came to her that he might not know how he preferred his coffee. Even back then, maybe he’d taken it black because he’d chosen that once, at random—possibly he’d heard someone order it that way—and stuck with it. Maybe a lot of what she’d thought she knew about Vince had been protective coloration.
That gave her an idea.
Back at the house, Charlie discovered that Posey had gone out, leaving behind only a dirty plate in the sink and a single tarot card, face-up on the counter. The Hierophant.
She knew the meaning, having spent years listening to Posey read tarot for people over Zoom. It was an endorsement of convention, of strictures and rules. A representative of an institution. But since it was also the title of her job with the Cabals, Charlie thought the card was probably just meant to annoy her, which it did.
Charlie went to text Posey that she’d made it home okay, but as soon as she pulled out her phone, she remembered that she couldn’t. She called instead, but her sister sent the call straight to voicemail.
Only a few months ago, Charlie was used to knowing where her sister was at all times. She’d been used to a Posey that hid in the house, that was neither dangerous nor likely to put herself in danger. With her quickened shadow, Posey had now become both. Charlie just had to get used to it.
“I’m going to make ramen for breakfast or whatever you would call this meal,” she said, reaching for a pot. “Do you want some?”
“Me?” Red asked.
“You had coffee in the car,” she reminded him.
When Remy died, he had pushed all of himself into Red. That—on top of the power Red had already—had made him be able to pass for human, something no other Blight seemed able to do.
He watched her from the corner of the room as she boiled noodles and two eggs. Watched as she added soy sauce and sesame oil and chopped up frozen spinach.
“Try the food,” she said, setting a bowl down in front of him.
He hesitated, but then brought the spoon to his mouth. She could almost see his incredulity as he ate, as though it wasn’t something he was allowed todo. But he swallowed it, just as he had swallowed the coffee. A moment later, his eyes met hers.
“I couldn’t always do that.”
“What does it taste like?” she asked.
“Salt,” he said. “Like sweat.”
An odd—and slightly gross—thing to compare it to, but he wasn’t wrong that sweat was salty. He’d probably tasted skin before, when he was licking off blood. “What else have you eaten?”
