Текст книги "Six Scorched Roses"

Автор книги: Carissa Broadbent

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CHAPTER NINE

I was surrounded by softness. Soft and sleek and… something wonderful. I rolled around and felt silk sliding over my skin.

Silk.

I’d never slept in silk.

My eyes opened. My head pounded. My skin was hot and clammy. I struggled to catch my breath. It had been a long time since I felt this way—so weak, so ill.

When I lifted my head, it felt like an iron weight. I forced myself up anyway.

I was in a bed that was literally triple the size of the one that I slept in at home. The sheets were black silk, the bedspread violet velvet. It was dark in here, lit only by a couple of dusty lanterns that looked like they hadn’t been used in a very long time. None of this, actually, looked like it had been used in a very long time—the furniture was all fine but mismatched and outdated, assembled from many different decades, none of them within the last fifty years.

I rubbed my eyes. The events of the night felt like a dream.

But they weren’t. It had happened, and now I was here.

In Vale’s home.

I had been unconscious in a vampire’s home.

I touched my neck, just to make sure—

“I promise I did not eat you.”

Vale’s voice was low and smooth with amusement.

I turned my head too fast. The movement sent the room spinning, and I swallowed vomit.

He stood in the doorway, approaching slowly, hands clasped behind his back. He looked much neater than he had last night, the monster I had seen replaced with the man I had first met. No sign of those stunning wings, either.

“The bandage is my doing,” he said. “But the wound under it is not.”

I touched my shoulder and winced. Fabric covered what felt like a vicious cut, and I hadn’t felt it only because my dizziness overshadowed it.

“He stabbed you,” he said, voice flat. “An accident, when he fell. The rats didn’t even know how to wield a weapon.”

He spoke with an air of disgust.

I remembered him tearing down those men. The dead face of my attacker nose-to-nose with me. I felt nauseous.

“You killed them.”

“I rescued you.”

He had. I was grateful for that. But I thought of Filip’s hand reaching for his friend…

Vale read my face.

“What?” he snapped. “You think I should have let them live?”

I pursed my lips.

…No. No, I didn’t want mercy on their behalf. I’d been distraught that I was too weak to end them myself.

I threw back the covers, but Vale crossed the room faster than I thought it was possible for a creature to move, yanking them back in place.

“You’re in no condition to be up.”

“I have work to do.”

“Three days ago you were near death,” he bit out. “You will stay right here.”

My eyes widened. “Three days?”

How had I been out for that long? I couldn’t be away from home for—

“Why were you going to undress for those people?” he demanded.

What?

I shook away that strange question. “I need to go. I have to—”

“You aren’t going anywhere. Why were you just going to let them do that to you?”

Everything in the world seemed too loud and too sharp right now, but sharpest of all was Vale’s expression—like he had been desperate to ask me this question for the last three days. For a moment, I glimpsed the version of him I’d seen in the forest.

“How was I going to stop them?” I said. “It’s just a dress. Just a body. Would you rather I refuse and let them kill me?”

I’d always felt disconnected from my body, like it was a strange vessel that only sometimes cooperated with me. It had been my enemy from birth, after all.

Vale looked appalled.

“You could have—”

“What? What could I have done?”

I posed it like a real question, and his mouth shut. I could see the moment he realized that he didn’t have an answer.

I blinked and saw those dead bodies. “Was robbing me a crime punishable by death?”

“Raping you would have been. Killing you would have been.”

“They didn’t do either of those things.”

“Yet,” he snarled. “I’ve killed others who deserved it far less.”

Oh, I believed him.

I looked down at myself. Only at the discussion of my dress did I realize that I was wearing different clothing now—an inordinately frilly nightgown that looked to be at least a century old and like it had never been worn before.

“You undressed me.”

“I thought it was just a body,” he jeered.

Fair enough. And I’d meant it before. But the idea of Vale seeing me naked… that felt like more.

“I preserved your modesty best I could,” he added.

I didn’t have time to think about this. “I have work to do,” I said, firmly, half to myself.

He gave me a strange look—amused? Curious?

“Does nothing bother you?” he said. “You seem totally unmoved that you almost died.”

I didn’t tell him that I was always almost dying.

“I don’t have time to waste on useless things,” I said.

“It was strange to see you in such a state, when I found you. And when I brought you back. So… weak.”

A wrinkle formed over his forehead, hinting at confusion.

And that confusion, in turn, confused me.

“Weak?”

“You’ve seemed… In the time we’ve known each other, you’ve seemed infallible.”

Infallible.

I burst out laughing before I could stop myself.

“What’s funny about that?” he said, offended.

I waved him away.

It was funny, of course, because I could not possibly be any further from infallible. I was the very definition of fallible.

I pushed the covers back despite Vale’s grip on them. And then I rose too fast and immediately fell.

He caught me before I hit the ground.

“I only let you get up so you could see that,” he grumbled. “See? You aren’t fit to go anywhere.”

“I need to go home.”

I tried again to rise, and again, I failed. The hot flush of my skin had nothing to do with Vale’s hands on me. The floor seemed like it was, quite literally, tilting.

I stuffed down my frustration. It had been so long since the symptoms had been this bad. I had been so preoccupied with the progression of Mina’s illness that I hadn’t been paying much attention to the progression of my own.

He scoffed. “Home? You won’t be making that trek for at least another week.”

Now it was my turn to scoff. “Well, that’s ridiculous.”

“You can’t even stand.”

“Let go of me.”

“I let you fall once, only to make a point. I’d rather not do it again. You’re ill, mouse. Far too ill to travel.”

“Of course I’m ill,” I snapped. “Everyone is ill.”

But he gave me a piercing look, one that made my mouth close.

“But you… you are very ill.”

Four words, and I heard so much in them. I felt like a light had just been shined directly on the weakness I tried to hide.

But Vale was a creature of death. Should I have been surprised that he smelled its fingerprints on me? Especially now, as it encroached closer than ever.

“My sister.” I allowed myself to lean on his grip as I rose. Even let him steer me back to the bed. “I need to—”

“I can send someone to check on your sister.”

My heart went cold. “A vampire?”

Maybe I’d looked a little unsteady at the very thought of that, because his fingers tightened around my upper arm as a flicker of annoyance passed over his face.

“What? You’re afraid of us, now?”

Only when I thought of one of them getting anywhere near my sister.

But then he seemed to soften slightly. “There’s a boy I hire for errands, sometimes. I’ll send him. Perfectly human, I promise.”

I hesitated.

“I’ll have him check on her every day, if I have to,” he added, annoyed. “If it’ll keep you from wandering out into that forest like an idiot.”

A strange emotion passed through me at the irritated urgency of his voice. Why would he care so much?

“Fine,” I said at last. “Thank you, my lord.”

Vale led me firmly to the bed. “Don’t call me that,” he grumbled. “I told you. I’m no lord.”

CHAPTER TEN

I hated sitting still.

Despised it, actually.

Vale all but threw me back into the bed, and I sat there for half an hour before I was fidgeting, trying to get up only to immediately stumble again. He caught on fast, soon taking watch at my bedside.

“You’re self-destructive,” he muttered, visibly irritated with me.

“I’m busy.”

“You’re ill.”

So what?

But before I could come up with another protest, he went to the bookcase, withdrew some books, and plopped them heavily onto the bed. “Here. If you want to work so badly, then work.”

I picked up the books. They were all written in a language I had never seen before.

“Is this… Obitraen?”

Only at my tone did Vale seem to recognize the flaws of his plan.

“What are these, anyway?” I picked up another one of the books and flipped through it. It was illustrated. Graphically so.

My cheeks tightened as I turned the book sideways, taking in a full-page spread. “My, Vale. Your taste is…”

He snatched the book away. “Fine. Then sit here doing nothing.”

“What is it, exactly, that you think I do, if you thought you could give me a random collection of books written in a language I didn’t understand and that would qualify as ‘working?’”

His face flushed with something that almost—almost—resembled embarrassment. Gods, I wished I could capture that expression. It was a thing of art.

“You’re awfully ungrateful of my hospitality,” he muttered, turning away.

“Wait.”

He stopped at the door and looked back.

No, these books, whatever they were—and I was very sure they had absolutely nothing to do with my field—wouldn’t help me work. But… still, curiosity nagged at me. How many humans had gotten to read Obitraen books?

“You could read them to me,” I said. “If you’re just so desperate to host.”

“Read them to you?”

Was the twinge in his voice disgust? His lip curled as if it was.

“I don’t know Obitraen, but you do. If you want me to stay in bed, it would be easier if I had something to do.”

Vale thought for a moment, then snatched one of the books from the bed—not the illustrated one, sadly—and sat in a chair by the window.

“Fine,” he huffed. “It isn’t as if I don’t have much more important things to do, but I’ll indulge you if you’re bent on being difficult.”

“An honor,” I said, unable to suppress a smile. “I know you’re very busy.”

But Vale, for all his supposed busyness and his grumpy reluctance, launched into those stories with all the enthusiasm of a man who would rather be nowhere else in the world.

I lost myself in those stories. It was too easy. My mind was thick and muddied, and I was exhausted. The first book Vale had picked up was a history book, vampire lore told in short vignettes. Their history was… appalling, but also riveting, every myth and legend woven into a tapestry of blood and betrayal. And yet, even when telling such horrible tales, his voice was smooth and deep, rising and falling like the swells of the ocean. Steady, like a heartbeat or breath. Elegant, like the way his blood looked on the wall.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, only that Vale’s voice and his stories followed me into my dreams. And I didn’t remember lying down or pulling the covers around myself, only that when I awoke, I had been carefully tucked in, silk sheets smoothed tight around my body.

I felt hot and weak, but worlds better than I had before. So I did the only natural thing: I got out of bed and started exploring.

I still couldn’t decide if Vale’s mansion was the ugliest or most beautiful place I had ever been. Each room I wandered into was more cluttered than the last—an absolute mess, but with the most fascinating objects. I came to the conclusion that Vale must only live in a very small section of this enormous house, because almost every room I peered into seemed to be used as storage. All of them were stunning, but the fourth room made me stop in my tracks, awed.

Weapons. Everywhere, weapons. I was an academic, a farmer’s daughter raised in a farmers’ town. I’d never held a sword—had barely even seen any, save for those on the hips of city guards. They’d always seemed to be simplistic and brutish instruments to me. Unremarkable.

Not these.

These were works of art. Even I, a woefully untrained eye, could see that immediately. Swords lined the walls, hung straight up and down in slashes of silver and gold along dark wallpaper—swords of every size, every shape, some nearly as tall as me and others light and delicate. On one side of the room, several sets of armor were mounted on wooden frames. Gorgeous, even from a distance—silver metal and black leather and capes of purple silk. Freestanding racks, haphazardly arranged about the space, held axes, bows, arrows.

A few, I realized as my eyes adjusted, were marked with spatters of black.

And there, on an end table right within the door, was a rapier stained with dried red blood—dried, fresh red blood. Perhaps from only a few days ago.

The hairs prickled on the back of my neck. The beauty of it all collided with the realization that dozens—hundreds, maybe thousands—had almost certainly been killed with the instruments that surrounded me now.

“You’re very bad at resting.”

I jumped and almost fell into a rack of arrows before Vale’s hand snaked out to catch me. He pulled me upright, but didn’t let me go. Our bodies were close. His eyes were slightly narrowed, searching my face, and I struggled to decode the complexities of what lay within them.

Annoyance, yes—that I expected. But something else, too, like he was waiting for the answer to a question and was nervous about what it might be.

“So I take it you’re feeling better,” he said.

“Yes. Better.” I cleared my throat and pulled away. Then looked to the room.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said.

“How did you get all of this?”

“I take my field seriously, just as you do yours.”

“And that field is…?”

“I was a general.”

“A good one?”

Even as the question left my lips, I knew it was a stupid one. I’d seen Vale fight now. Like it was an art.

“The third best in the House of Night,” he replied, very seriously, and that—well, I wasn’t expecting that kind of honesty.

“The first two must have been something to behold, now that I’ve seen you in action.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “They were. But they are dead, and I’m still here.”

And if anything startled me more than his first answer had, it was this.

Because I recognized something in that tone… something human, something vulnerable. My gaze flicked to him, and he was staring at the weapons with an odd, faraway look in his eye. The kind of expression I saw on the faces of those who walked by their family’s grave sites.

“You said you oversaw the loss of a war,” I said.

He flinched—actually flinched.

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you came here.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you keep all of this?”

“It’s valuable. I wouldn’t leave it behind.”

It was more than that. Perhaps the long, hard stare I gave him told him I knew it, too.

“They’re mine,” he said, after a moment. “If I sold them or left them in Obitraes, they would have been used in someone else’s war. Maybe they would have been used against the same men I led. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Strange, how vampires and humans were so different and yet so much alike.

“Did you save them because you thought you might need them again?”

A long, long silence. Vale’s eyes went distant, his body still—I had never seen a creature who could be so, so still, as if he didn’t even breathe.

“No,” he said, at last, and closed the door.

Then he turned to me and said, “Do you need my blood, if you’re going to insist on wandering around?”

Vale’s skin was warm. I felt like I noticed a new thing about it every time I touched him. Even his veins were more elegant than those of a human, the pattern to them more delicate and intentional, the darkness visible in streaks of color like embroidery under the thinnest skin of his inner wrist.

We sat in silence as I took the first vial of blood.

He looked past me, and I followed his gaze to the vase on the coffee table—containing three flowers. I’d given him the last one when I was still half-unconscious, apparently, though I didn’t remember doing this. It had gotten a little crumpled in all the excitement of the last few days, but was still just as beautiful as its siblings, petals perfect black and vivid red.

“I still see nothing remarkable about them,” he grumbled.

“They’re very remarkable. I promise.”

“I’m starting to think you might be lying to me.”

“And if I am?”

My voice was surprisingly flippant. I was no longer as concerned as I once had been that Vale would, at best, kick me out of his house, and at worst, eat me. Maybe I even suspected some part of him enjoyed having me here.

I watched his blood fill the glass vial. But I could feel his eyes on me, steady and sharp.

“There would be consequences.”

Something in his voice made me pause. It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a joke, either, though it held the sweet lilt of one. I could feel his stare on me, and I knew before I looked up the expression that would be on his face.

I didn’t move my hands, but the sensation of his skin against mine was suddenly overwhelming.

I met his gaze. The expression was just as I’d imagined it—the faint smirk, the cool stare. And yet… something a little less removed flickered in his eyes as they lowered slightly. Lowered, I realized, to my mouth.

“Consequences,” I scoffed.

“What? I’m a dangerous man. You aren’t afraid of what punishment might be?”

Goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin, coaxed by the mocking melody of his voice over the word, drawn out slow.

Even I knew that what he was teasing me with, what he was promising me, was something very different than what he’d done to my attackers in the forest.

Maybe just as dangerous, though.

When my eyes met his, I found it impossible to pull them away. My fingertips tingled, acutely aware of every cord of muscle beneath my hands. My heart beat a little faster. I knew he smelled it.

He had invited me to his bed once before. I’d been tempted then. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted now. Curiosity was my greatest vice.

I’d spent a lot of time over these last weeks thinking about Vale. I was obsessed with him in some ways. I spent all day every day looking at his blood. Admiring its beauty. Admiring that it moved with the same ageless grace as the rest of him.

He was, I’d admit to myself, a very handsome man.

He leaned forward, just slightly.

“Tell me, mouse—”

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

I jumped. The needle jolted from Vale’s arm, resulting in a spray of blood over my chest. I knocked down one of the vials with my elbow, and before I even had time to be horrified by it, his hand had snaked out to catch it—a movement so smooth and quick I didn’t even see it happen until he was handing me the vial.

“Cork that. Apparently my blood is valuable stuff.”

BANG BANG BANG.

The knocks grew more persistent. Vale looked over his shoulder, into the main hallway and the front door beyond.

I put away the vials, a little flustered.

My first thought was that someone found out what Vale had done to defend me and was coming for revenge. But though the knocks were loud, they weren’t frantic or angry. And Vale didn’t look concerned, only irritated.

He didn’t move.

“Do you… want to get that?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.”

I’d forgotten. He didn’t like answering his doors.

But the BANGs continued, a rhythmic beat growing steadily faster, until Vale finally let out an aggravated sigh, rose, and went to the door.

I followed him. I couldn’t help it. He was right; I was nosy.

Vale opened the door with a single abrupt movement.

I stumbled backwards.

The person at his doorstep had no face.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The faceless person stood there silently.

Or maybe it wasn’t a person at all—just the suggestion of one. He—she? It?—was only a silvery outline in silhouette, the edges of its form streaks of painted moonlight, and the core of its body nearly clear. I could see the forest straight through the center of its chest—straight through the center of its face. It was nearly as tall as Vale, though willowy, its limbs thin and slightly formless, only a suggestion of bones and muscle.

Vale looked totally unmoved.

“I told you not to come back here,” he snapped.

If the form was capable of either hearing or understanding him, it showed no sign. Instead, it simply held out a hand. A single letter sat in its palm.

“I don’t want that,” said Vale.

The form did not move.

Vale groaned and snatched the letter away.

“Fine. There. Now go.”

The figure started to fade, and I watched wide-eyed, eager to see how it would leave. But Vale just slammed the door shut, and the look on his face made me startle.

He looked… irritated. More than irritated. Irritated was how he had felt with me when I first showed up at his door. This was an even harder expression, his jaw tight, his fist clenched around the letter, now crumpled in his fingers.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Was that Nyaxia’s magic?”

“Was that—what?” He looked at me, blinking, like he’d been so lost in his thoughts he’d forgotten I was there for a moment. “Oh. Yes.”

“So that’s from your home.”

He scoffed. “My home.”

“From Obitraes,” I clarified.

“Oh, I understood you.”

I paused. “Well, you’re upset,” I said, mostly to myself.

“I’m—” He stopped short, whirled to me, snapped his jaw shut. “Yes. Yes, I’m upset.”

What was I supposed to do? Not ask?

“Why?”

“Why?”

He turned his back and paced, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t really talking to me anymore.

“I’m upset because they won’t take no for an answer. Because I’m not doing this. I’m not going back to Obitraes. I’m not going to help put some—” His lip curled. “Some nobody on my throne. I’m not going to lead another losing war. I am not going to do any of those things, mouse. Not a single one of them.”

I looked to the letter in his hand. Now completely crushed in his fist.

He let out a long breath and straightened. “I’m—I apologize.” He seemed a little embarrassed. But he shouldn’t have been. I didn’t mind seeing him with his guard down.

“Is that what that says?” I said. “They’re asking you to return to the House of Night?”

“Yes, and it doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve told them no, many times over.”

“So, why do they keep asking?”

He let out a light scoff. “Because no one else would help.”

“Because the top two generals in the House of Night are dead.”

Vale blinked, mouth tightening with an almost-smile. “Yes. But just as well, because those bastards wouldn’t have helped them, either.”

“Who’s… them?”

“No one worth talking about.”

“But why do they need you?”

I assembled the pieces of our previous conversations and my sparse knowledge of Obitraen history.

“You’re Rishan,” I said. “And the Hiaj are in power now. Does that”—I nodded to the letter—“mean that there might be a change?”

The expression of surprise on Vale’s face was unmistakable.

Confirmation.

“Your people are attempting to retake the throne.” I was pleased with myself for putting this together, the same way I was satisfied when I solved a difficult equation. “And they’re asking you to come back and—”

“And help them lose a war,” Vale snapped. “All in the name of some bastard king.”

I had never seen him like this. He looked like he was crawling out of his skin.

“You don’t like this man,” I said. “Or, uh… woman. Person.”

Who was I to make assumptions?

“He’s… not king material.”

“You’ve met him?”

“A long time ago, yes.”

“And you didn’t like him?”

“I—” He seemed to be at a loss for words. “I wouldn’t bow to him. No one would bow to him.”

I stared blankly at him.

“What?” he snapped. “You look as if you’re about to tell me I’m wrong, so go ahead. Do it.”

“Right now, your people are not in power. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean for them?”

A muscle feathered in Vale’s neck. He didn’t answer right away.

“Are the Hiaj fair rulers?” I asked.

He let out a short scoff. “Fair. Of course not.”

An unpleasant, unflattering understanding settled over me. My lips thinned. My mouth tasted sour, like it always did when rude words I shouldn’t say were lying in wait.

I said, curtly, “We should finish our work.”

I started to turn, but Vale caught my shoulder.

“Say what you’re going to say, mouse.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

I stared at him, unblinking. I didn’t know what to make of the way he was looking at me—like he actually wanted to hear my opinion.

Or thought he did.

Keep your mouth shut, I told myself—but I’d never been good at listening to my reasonable voice. He’d jabbed at something I tried to hide, a frustration that now surged faster than I could stop it, and I wasn’t even sure why.

“It’s just… something being difficult is not a good reason not to do it.”

He pulled back, offended. “It isn’t about it being difficult.”

I tried to hide my skepticism and apparently failed.

“It isn’t,” he said. “It’s about principle.”

“Principle?” I choked out a humorless laugh. “Your people are asking you for help and you’re refusing because of principle?”

“It’s just not the way things—”

“My sister is dying.”

I blurted out the words in a single rough breath.

“My sister is dying and my whole town is dying, Vale. And everyone else thinks that we can hope or pray or dream our way out of it. They’re just like you. They’re refusing to seek better answers because of principle. Because it’s just not done. And every second they waste time waiting for a stupid dream is another lost life. That is someone who is the most important person in the world to another, somewhere.”

Vale didn’t blink. And I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stop talking. The words just poured out of me.

“I know what it feels like to be helpless,” I ground out. “You don’t. You don’t know what it feels like to be surrounded by five men and know you can’t stop them from hurting you. You don’t know what it feels like to see the people you’ve grown up with wither and die. You—”

You don’t know what it feels like to watch yourself die.

I stumbled over that one.

“And I can’t blame anyone for bad luck and misfortune,” I said. “But if I ever knew that someone had a chance to help them—had a chance to save even one of those lives and denied it—”

I blinked and saw my sister, slowly grinding away into dust—my lively sister who was everything I was not, who was life when I had always been death, who was warmth when I had always been cold. My beautiful sister who deserved to thrive so much more than I did.

I hadn’t stopped to breathe. When I did, it was a jagged, ugly sound, broken with an almost-sob.

Vale had gripped my shoulder. His thumb rubbed my skin, right at the boundary of the neckline of my dress. Something about that touch steadied me. It was a comfort, a reassurance, and a question.

My face was hot with embarrassment. I shouldn’t have said any of that. It was uncalled for.

Vale’s other hand came to my cheek, and when he pulled back, his fingers were wet. He looked down at that for a moment—my tears on his knuckles—then back at me. I straightened and stepped away from him. I felt unsteady. Drained.

He was calm now, too. Just looking at me. Thoughtful.

“I’m sorry—” I started.

But he said, “I want you to show me my blood.”

I did as he asked. We had to go into three different rooms before we finally found one with a wall clear enough for my instruments. I blew out all the candles and set up my lens. A part of me didn’t even want to risk using it here—they got expensive after awhile, and if this one broke too, I’d really have to scramble for the money for another—but it seemed important to grant Vale’s request.

I wanted him to see in himself what I saw of him every day. The beauty of it. The miracle of it.

When his blood bloomed to life over the wall, I drew in that same little inhale. I did it every single time.

Vale’s expression was utterly still, save for a very, very slight widening of his eyes. He slowly leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“So this is it.”

“This is it.”

“Why does it look like that? The dots?”

“That’s your blood at its basest level. Very, very small.”

He made a low, unconvinced sound in his throat.

“And what is special about it? Different?”

I rose and went to the wall, examining his blood up close like I had so many times before. “See how it moves? It’s different than human blood. The color, too. The shape. It deteriorates differently.” He didn’t speak, didn’t stop me, so I found myself slipping into my own enthusiasm—explaining to him all the ways his blood differed from that of humans, all the little ways the magic of his nature and his goddess imbued it. All the ways it defied death.

Afterwards, he was silent for a long time. “You believe this,” he said, at last. “That it could help.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Vampire blood has never helped anything.”

I looked back to the projection on the wall. I needed to take it down, and fast. The machine would start smoking at any moment. But I touched the wall—touched the curve of each flower-petal shape.

“Your blood is…”

Gods, it was so many things.

I settled on, “It could save us.”

I was lost there, in that projection, until Vale said, “That’s not true.”

I turned back to him. He didn’t look at the blood. Only me.

“You,” he said. “You are saving them.”

He said it with such conviction, such certainty, that I did not know how to respond. He rose, hands clasped behind his back.

“Whatever you need,” he said. “My blood. My books. My knowledge. Anything. It is yours.”