Page 45 of A Court of Ash and Midnight
He goes still for a moment. “You remember doing terrible things?”
I shake my head. “No. But the night I… the night I woke up. There was a terrible fire. My family…” A shudder moves over me, rattling my jaw, and I can’t get the rest of the words out.
Daemon wraps an arm around my shoulders, rubbing my back gently. “I’m sure you would have stopped the fire if you could have.”
My tears flow for several minutes before I’m able to speak again. Finally, I say between shivers, “But what if I caused the fire that night?”
Daemon’s hand hitches for a moment in his circular motion across my back. “Why do you think you caused it? Two nights ago, you putoutthe fire.”
I shake my head. “I—I don’t know. But I’ve always… somehow, I always thought it was my fault. Because the fire didn’t claim me, but it claimed them.”
“It was probably just an accident,” Daemon says. “Fires happen all the time.”
“Not fires like that,” I whisper.
Daemon places a finger under my chin and gently lifts my gaze to his. “Even if it was your magic—which I’m not saying it was—you clearly didn’t mean for anything to happen to your family.”
I try to suppress a sniffle and fail. “The men who have been hunting me… they clearly want me to pay for my crimes.”
He shakes his head, jaw rolling. “Or, more likely, they want you for your magic. Fire magic of that magnitude… it’s quite rare. And in a human… unheard of.”
His finger is still resting along my jawline, and he runs his thumb up my cheek and wipes away the tears on one side, and then, cupping my face with his other hand, wipes the tears from the other side. When he’s done, he goes still for a moment, and our eyes lock. The blood quickens in my veins for an entirely different reason now, and I realize for the first time how beautiful Daemon is. Not that I hadn’t noticed before, in the waythat all fae are beautiful, but I seehim. His eyes, and his lips, and his stark jawline. The dart of his pulse in his neck.
“How did you find me that night, Daemon?”
The question comes unbidden, and he leans back, stiffening slightly, his expression closing down.
“Please.” I reach out and place a hand on the side of his neck, as if I can keep him from retreating. “I need to know. There are so many things I can’t figure out.”
He looks down for a long moment, and I’m afraid that not only will he not answer, but that I’ve broken the fragile truce we seem to have built. But then he looks up, and his eyes meet mine.
“I…I can sense sometimes when people are in trouble. And I was in the area, and I felt your fear, and I stopped those men from harming you, and I brought you here.”
It takes me several moments to process this. “And you couldn’t bring me inside, because then everyone would know that you left Shadow’s Keep.”
He nods.
“But why not just leave me somewhere else?”
“I…” He pauses, swallows. “I thought Professor Julian would be curious, and help. And he did. I figured it was safer than leaving you somewhere your pursuers would catch up to you again.”
We both wince slightly, because of course, inside Shadow’s Keep hasn’t proven much safer than outside.
“If I had known…” Daemon shakes his head. “Ishouldhave known. Most fae are cruel, heartless. I’m sorry, Embyr.”
I reach out and press a finger to his lips. “Don’t apologize. I would have died that night if not for you. Or worse, be someone’s slave right now.”
My touch seems to surprise him for a moment, and I feel a flush creep across my cheeks at my boldness. I let my hand drop, but he catches it on the way down, winding his fingers throughmine and pulling them against his heart. “I would never let that happen,” he says, his voice dark as the night. “You know that, right?”
A shiver moves over me, his words doing funny things to my body. My blood, and my breath, and the way my collarbone tingles as if in response to my fingers intertwined in his. I can feel the warmth of his skin, and the beat of his heart. I nod slowly. “I know.”
Daemon reaches forward and brushes a strand of hair out of my face, and everything seems to go still around us, the world slowing into a single moment…
Through the trees, the blare of distant horns can be heard.
We whip toward the sound. “The Guardians must be back from the border,” Daemon says, his expression shadowing.
“That’s a good thing, right? That means they won.”
