“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She had to get out of here, but she was unwilling to let go, and his warm body stayed pressed against hers. She stroked his soft neck, just below his jawline.
He trailed his thumb along her cheek. His eyes glistened. “Maybe we should go somewhere else. Out of Dogtown.”
“Where?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Something grated in the back of her mind. “Why is Estelle coming?”
“She’s looking for me.”
Fiona frowned. “And why is she looking for you?”
“No time to explain. We should leave. If she finds you with me—”
“She’ll be jealous?”
He averted his eyes, looking flustered. “Something like that.”
I knew it. “Did something happen with you two?”
He lowered his eyes. “Just a kiss. There was a woodwose—”
Fiona felt the breath knocked out of her. “Actually, I don’t need to know.” She dropped her arms from his neck. “It’s none of my business. I wasn’t even around. I’m sure she’s very exciting.” She wasn’t sure why she’d said that last thing, and she hated herself for the way her voice broke. She was failing at nonchalance.
“It was only a kiss. She just happened to be there at the right time. The wrong time, I mean.”
And what just happened with us—was that only a kiss? “It’s fine. I actually have to get back to the ship. Anyway, I probably just happened to find you at the wrong time, too.”
Before she could make herself feel any worse, she chanted the transformation spell, and black wings ripped from her back. She lifted off into the iron-gray clouds.
42
Jack
He woke at dusk, the cold light slanting in through thick glass. There was no point anymore. If only he could sleep, quietly and eternally.
But it wasn’t a quiet sleep that lay in store for him on the other side of death, and if he gave in now, it was all for nothing. Four hundred years, wandering this earth as a reviled abomination, with a trail of crumpled corpses in his wake—for nothing.
He ran a hand over his chest. One swift movement was all it would take to rip his damned, beating heart out and end his own miserable existence. “Alone,” he whispered. “I’m going to die alone.”
“Uh, hello? I’m right here.”
Munroe. Jack bolted upright, wincing at the excruciating pain in his gut. He needed his gods-damned athame.
In a chair in the corner of his room, Munroe sat in the shadows. He strained to see in the dim light. Her deep-red hair tumbled over a green dress.
Jack’s mouth watered at the sight of the girl—her unblemished skin, the blue veins running just below it, ferrying blood to her young heart. She was a slip of a thing, but with just enough meat on her bones to stoke his appetite. “What are you doing in here? Has no one told you I’m dangerous?”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m your new fiancée. Though, based on what you were muttering, you’re not super psyched about it. I can’t say you’d be my first choice, either, but I’m sort of low on options at the moment.”
“My fiancée. Right. George is an amazing alchemist, but he’s not exactly in touch with reality.”
“At least he gave me a place to stay when he found me wandering by the river. I’m not welcome in the House of Ranulf anymore. What was the phrase my mother used?” She cocked her head. “Demon-tainted. That succubus bitch was right about that.”
Jack eyed her more carefully as his eyes adjusted. She was trying to mask her emotions, but her eyes glistened. To be rejected by one’s own parents was a pain he knew too well. “So you’re stuck here with the demons,” he said.
“Is that what you are? It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s Purgator propaganda. It’s a little hard to trust my parents now that I know they lit my classmates on fire, you know?”
There was no point lying to her. She had no power anymore, and there was a good chance his appetite would get the better of him anyway. “A mortal demon, yes. I’m committed to Druloch, one of the shadow gods. And when I die, my consciousness will live on, trapped in the decaying roots of a hanging tree. As it happens, I haven’t been looking forward to that, so I’ve been putting it off for some years.”
“And that’s why you were looking for this relic. To fix your afterlife problem.”
“Exactly.” He rubbed his eyes. “Except no one knows what it is, let alone where. And quite frankly, I’m tired of looking.”
“You’re just giving up. I thought you were supposed to be some kind of leader.”
“Ah.” His head throbbed. He wasn’t getting any better. If anything, he was growing weaker. He could hardly stand. “Well, if you’re pinning your hopes on me, they’re sadly misplaced. I have nothing.”
She leaned into the light, her voice low. “I see. You’ve hit one bump in the road, and you’re ready to rip your own heart out. Might as well send your soul to Druloch now.”
“It’s a little more than one bump in the road. Do you have any idea how old I am?”